If your business isn’t yet familiar with responsive web design, now is the year to take notes. To put it simply, responsive web design is web design with ease-of-use in mind. Responsive web design responds best to user behavior and environment based on screen size, orientation and operating system of any given device.

In more complex terms, responsive web design involves a combination of flexible grid layouts and images. The reason RWD is so important is because as technology continues to move from desktop to mobile, a website should be able to readily adapt to its device, accommodating resolution, image sizes and scripting.

Imagery

To make sites more aesthetically pleasing, the incorporation of imagery and video is oftentimes implemented into websites. However, performance and page load time can sometimes be impacted by these images. Replacing images with CSS can help web designers and developers avoid any problems. This includes custom font support, background gradients, box and text shadow, and more.

Content

A content-heavy site is important to improve a business’s SEO efforts. But the implementation of RWD also can improve SEO efforts. The combination of the two will yield best results. But, when it comes to accessibility and readability on different devices, it’s important to consider the convenience of the copy.

Text blocks are most readable at around 66 characters per line. Additionally, using headlines and break-up content makes it easier for users to read.

Advantages

All in all, the biggest advantage that comes with RWD is that it renders across any, and all screen sizes. Monitors, laptops, netbooks, tablets and smartphones all have different layouts which will respond accordingly.

Responsive web design provides complete control and flexibility that can be made in one centralized place. The single code base allows sites to run across all devices.