This time last year, you hardly heard the phrase "responsive web design" uttered in design circles or amongst Web Development teams when designing a new web site. Fast forward to 2013 and all the talk about a web site now is: "Yes, but is your new site responsive?" Let me explain what responsive web design is and why is it so crucial for your web site.
In its most basic form, a responsive web design uses "media queries" to figure out what resolution of device it's being served on. Flexible images and fluid grids then size themselves correctly to fit the screen that you are browsing on. Five years ago, 90% of all online browsing was done on a laptop or desktop. This figure has drastically changed over the years. Tablet sales are expected to achieve over 100 million units in sales this year alone. Not to mention the absolute dominance that smartphones dictate in today's market, one cannot turn a blind eye to an older site that is now unresponsive.
We are now in a post-PC era and if your current web site does not load properly for all the various hand held devices in today's market, you have to ask yourself one question: what is my cost-benefit analysis of losing one customer compared to changing my site into being responsive? I think most people want to hang on to as many customers as they can.
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