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Introduction to Responsive Web Design

There are, essentially, three paths to making your business or corporate website content available and usable on smart phones and tablets:

  1. Do nothing
    That's right. Do nothing. When you do nothing, the current desktop website view and layout displays, as usual, on mobile devices. The entire view is compressed to a very small size in order to squeeze onto the mobile screen. Since that can make seeing and navigating the website quite difficult, if not impossible, we do not recommend this option unless the website has just a very few simple, short pages and requires only minimal navigation.
  2. Create an entirely separate, abbreviated mobile version
    In this approach, a completely separate mobile website is developed. The mobile version contains far less content than the desktop version — usually the content is limited to basic branding, location, contact and about information.
  3. Transform it with a Responsive Web Design
    What is a responsive website? Read on to learn more about what we think is the best solution!

So What Is Responsive Web Design?

Definition and pronunciation for the term responsivere·spon·sive adjective
1. reacting quickly and positively.

A Responsive website is developed to change its layout and user interface to accommodate the screen size and orientation of the device or browser being used to view it. The Collaborint website that you're browsing now is responsive. If you are viewing it with a desktop browser, you can slowly narrow your browsing window and see how the layout, images and navigational elements transform and adapt to the available width of your view.

Generally, a responsive website looks very similar when viewed with desktop browsers and most tablets. However, on smaller-screened tablets and smart phones, the navigation and layout can change dramatically to adapt to the smaller screen size. For instance, to save screen real estate on smaller devices, navigation is often developed to transform from a horizontal layout to a responsive navbar (vertical stack of menu selections) that is expanded or collapsed via a menu button — sometimes called the pancake button. This vastly facilitates navigation of the website on a mobile device and is exactly what mobile users have come to expect to see and use.

Why Choose Responsive?

  • Easier to maintain... saves you time and money because there is only one website to update and manage
  • Simplified SEO Search Engine Optimization and analytics... there is only one website to optimize, track and analyze
  • Better for your users... your users always have access to the same content across all of their devices — at work, at home or on the go

One website. One URL Uniform Resource Locator. Many happy mobile users!

Learn More

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