What on Earth is Responsive Web Design?
Have you heard any of these terms recently? Mobile friendly, responsive design, adaptive design, mobile first… Did you ever wonder what they mean?
[According to Wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design target=blank) Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at allowing desktop webpages to be viewed in response to the size of the screen or web browser one is viewing with.
In simple English, this means a digital movement to create webpages that resize themselves based on your screen size.
Why on earth does a website need to be so smart, you ask?
Remember that time when you looked up a website on your phone and the page was shrunk down so small that you felt like you needed a magnifying glass? Then you had a really good idea to use your fingers to zoom into the part of the page you were trying to read, but then ouch! You need to go the other side to select something. So you swiped over but you went to far, so you swipe back and…
Enough said. I think you get the picture. Responsive web design is the answer to the above outlined problem. Instead of building a website for the desktop computer, a website needs to respond to all different screen sizes and shapes. It needs to fit on a watch screen that’s about the size of a large postage stamp, and then get progressively larger for a phone, ipad, tablet, laptop, and finally a computer.
A responsive design will respond to the given screen size by adapting its layout along preprogrammed rules so that you have a custom sized webpage, configured just for you and have the same ease and convenience as if you were browsing on a desktop computer.
How do you know if a website is responsive?
Open the site on your computer and your phone. Does the phone version look like you shrunk your computer screen down to a tiny size that fits on to your phone? Or is the layout slightly different and looking awesome for the screen size that you are using? The first is not responsive and the second one is.
In short, a responsive website is one that responds to the size screen it is being veiwed on for an optimal user experience.
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