Need a ten minute overview of responsive web design? In this talk we'll talk about the problem responsive web design (RWD) is trying to solve, what RWD is, the basic implementation aspects of RWD and some of the latest developments and sources of information if you want to learn more about RWD.

1. RESPONSIVE
WEB DESIGN
MARCH 2016

2. INTRO

3. AUSTIN WALKER
Senior UX Designer at Credera

4. AUSTIN WALKER
Dad at Home

8. CHALLENGE

9. INTERNET USERS
1995
35MM, 0.6% of world pop.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

10. INTERNET USERS
2014
2.8B, 39% of world pop.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

11. MOBILE PHONE USERS
1995
80MM, 1% of world pop.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

12. MOBILE PHONE USERS
2014
5.2B, 73% of world pop.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

14. THAT WAS IN 2012

15. THAT WAS IN 2012
at a small web conference

16. DEVICE SIZES AND
CAPABILITIES CONTINUE
TO PROLIFERATE

17. HOW SHOULD WE DELIVER
OUR VALUE TO PEOPLE
ON DIFFERENT DEVICES?

18. POSSIBLE
SOLUTIONS

19. BASIC CRITERIA
Discoverability Highly targeted audience or broadly available?
Control How detailed do we want to be?
Functionality Do we need device specific functionality such
as utilizing accelerometers?
Overhead Does the value of operating separate
customer facing applications outweigh the
effort to maintain separate codebases? How
quickly can we update?

20. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
SOLUTION WINS ON LOSES ON
Native App Control, Functionality Overhead, Discoverability
Mobile Site Control, Discoverability Overhead, Functionality
Responsive Discoverability, Overhead Functionality, Control

21. WE’RE GOING TO ASSUME…
• We can deliver everything we need to in a browser
• We want to quickly reach as many people as easily as possible
• We don’t want to maintain separate codebases

22. WE DECIDED TO BUILD A
RESPONSIVE WEBSITE

23. WE DECIDED TO BUILD A
RESPONSIVE WEBSITE
Surprise!

24. BUILDING

25. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Example 12 Column Grid

26. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
9
3
12
82 2

27. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
9
3
12
82 2

28. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
9
3
12
82 2

29. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
META
NAV
OVERSIZED HEADLINE

32. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
META
NAV
OVERSIZED HEADLINE

34. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
META
NAV
OVERSIZED HEADLINE

35. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
META
NAV
OVERSIZED
HEADLINE

36. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
META
NAV
OVERSIZED
HEADLINE
Too Tight?
Breaks out?
Unused Width?
Wraps?

37. CSS MEDIA QUERIES
• CSS defines the visual style of the HTML elements on a page
• CSS media queries allow you to define specific visual styles
whenever the browser meets certain criteria
• Usually based on the width of the browser window

38. CSS MEDIA QUERIES
Mobile First For screens larger than X, apply these styles…
Desktop First For screens smaller than Y, apply these styles…

39. MOBILE FIRST
.headline-container {
width: 100%;
}
@media screen and (min-width: 320px) {
.headline-container {
width: 66.6666667%;
}
}
Best practice is to start developing ‘Mobile First’ but for this demo we’ll be doing ‘Desktop First’.

40. DESKTOP FIRST
.headline-container {
width: 66.6666667%;
}
@media screen and (max-width: 320px) {
.headline-container {
width: 100%;
}
}
Best practice is to start developing ‘Mobile First’ but for this demo we’ll be doing ‘Desktop First’.

41. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
META
NAV
OVERSIZED
HEADLINE
Too Tight?
Breaks out?
Unused Width?
Wraps?

42. LAYOUT VIA GRIDS
Example 12 Column Grid
ARTICLE
NAV
OVERSIZED HEADLINE

43. EXAMPLES
This Is Responsive Bare bones responsive layout demo
Uncrate Simple layout with responsive aspects
The Onion More complex than Uncrate
Invision Labs Highly polished responsive example
Rally Interactive Highly polished responsive example

44. BEST PRACTICES
Keep page
weight light
Utilize a mobile first approach to ensure
you don’t accidentally punish mobile users
Characteristics
≠ Capabilities
Don’t infer device capability from device
characteristics or type
Be consistent
across breakpoints
Don’t unreasonably remove or display
content / functionality based on
breakpoints

45. ADVANCED
RESPONSIVE

46. CLIENT SIDE + SERVER SIDE
• Responsive Web Design is focused on the client side (browser)
• RESS = Responsive with Server Side components
• Server detects device type based on UA (User Agent) and sends
content specifically for that type of device
• Benefits of an m. site without a redirect or separate codebase

47. SAFARI USER AGENT STRINGS

49. RESS AT AMAZON
Desktop
Content Type A
Desktop
Content Type A
iPhone
Content Type B

50. LATEST
DEVELOPMENTS

51. THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Google’s Mobile
Friendly Tag
In mobile search results, Google will tag
your site as ‘Mobile Friendly’ and
penalize you if it’s not
Google’s Accelerated
Mobile Pages (AMP)
Special stripped down HTML pages that
Google’s promoting in search results
Increasing support
for flex box
More flexible in layout control than
floated columns

52. WRAP UP

53. WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
Device
Proliferation
As device sizes fragment, we need a solution
that covers this breadth
Why Responsive Responsive web design provides more breadth
but less functionality compared to native apps
Grids & Media
Queries
We can adapt the layout (and other)
characteristics of our site for different devices
RESS & Latest
Developments
New approaches continue to be developed to
meet different needs

54. LEARNING MORE
CODE
Google Developers (Mobile)
Codepen
Codrops Playground
Twitter Bootstrap
RESOURCES
This Is Responsive
A List Apart
A Book Apart
PEOPLE
Brad Frost
Luke W.
Ethan Marcotte
Scott Jehl

55. • RWD is only a small
part of what we do
• Our Technology
Solutions practice covers
custom app dev,
eCommerce, mobile
apps, analytics and other
• We’re looking for FEDs in
the UX practice
CREDERA MC
UX
TECH

57. AUSTIN WALKER
Senior UX Designer at Credera
awalker@credera.com

58. credera.com/careers ▪ ux.credera.com ▪ awalker@credera.com