Technically it's responsive to the device being used rather than responding to user action. The design of a good responsive site should go much further than just making things appear and disappear or moving content around - it should be loading lower resolution images, changing UI interaction (eg not using :hover on a touch device), and even displaying different content (eg promoting a 'nearest store' to mobile users).
The site renders perfectly fine and looks quite nice on my phone. I don't know that a site needs to be "responsive" if you first design it to look good on mobile.
Well said. Responsive design has been around for a while, and I've seen it used well. But not every site has a need to support every combination of big/small/fast/slow devices.
"Responsive" doesn't mean those things. Just because some sites fail to design a decent mobile experience, doesn't mean HN (or you or anyone else) can't.
This only holds true if A: your user has never seen a mobile site before (and if they are on a phone thats true for about ~0.5s), or B: if your responsive design is poorly implemented. A well designed site will be intuitive.
2 - It Costs More and Takes Longer
Let's assume that you have customers that will use your site on a non desktop device. If that is the case - you are making users use the wrong tool for the job. A site that takes advantage of the desktop experience will not work as well on mobile. Creating a tailored experience for them will absolutely increase conversion (if your site converts anyone to anything), and at the very least, reduce frustration and eye strain. I can't speak for everyone, but the month or two of part time work it took one of my jobs to add a mobile site was paid for by the increase in sales not too much long after. Not only that, but its now built in. When the kindle fire was released, we saw great numbers on that device. Why? because the responsive design was well done and fit that device's screen great. Saying that it 'costs more' is incredibly short sighted.
3.Non-Responsive Designs Usually Work
'working' doesn't mean it can't work better.
all text websites work, too. But we use images because they enhance the experience.
4. There is Often No Load Time Benefit
All this is saying is that a lot of sites are done badly. This has nothing to do with the style of responsive design in general. Tools like Modernizr allow you to optionally load a number of resources that would otherwise not load.
5. It’s a Compromise
Of course? All design is compromise. The goal is to make the compromise in the favor of the customer.
Responsive design is not a silver bullet, and not always a good idea, depending on the site - but this article is /really
/ weak.
My bad on the reply (or lack thereof). I agree to date responsive gives a generally better experience for most sites. I don't think however it's the best solution for mobile design.
It compromises usability through a changing of the interface, there is no reduced markup size and it's a very costly endeavour.
> "Responsive" is just a fancy word for "doesn't suck on mobile".
No. Responsive has a different meaning than what you claim. You can have a best-of-breed that isn't responsive. Being responsive means that the site responds and adapts to the user's environment (screen size, device orientation, device type, etc).
There are a lot of cases where responsive design just isn't a good fit, and something with complex user interactions (like a lot of web apps) is often one of them. Responsive design is great for things like content sites, galleries, informational sites... most forms of content publishing. Anything that requires the user to actually create and/or manage large amounts of data or has a lot of interactive media, however, would probably benefit more from a dedicated mobile site and/or app.
"Responsive" is just a fancy word for "doesn't suck on mobile". Most people just don't care how something looks like, even on mobile, if it doesn't just break outright or doesn't shove that annoying "download our app" rubbish in their faces.
No one really goes to a site for the layout and design (unless it's a game or a layout and design site), they go to consume. If there's nothing to consume, but have a lovely responsive layout, they go oh, that's pretty and leave.
Regardless of how ugly something is, if there's an inherent use or appeal in some way, people will flock to it en masse. Case in point: HN.
Yeah as a full-time frontend developer this article doesn't hold much water. Responsive designs are a quick and relatively cheap way to get a mobile compatible site going. It help decrease bounce rates and increase conversions as well.
What do you mean it isn’t responsive? It loads on mobile phones with a completely mobile optimized look. Have you tried it? Unless you mean you loaded it on a desktop and tried to resize the browser window to quickly check what would happen on a phone - no normal user does that
Is a site truly responsive if it delivers a lesser experience on mobile, even if it does happen to change the layout so that the experience it delivers, regardless of the lack of content, does work on mobile?
I'll disagree. Responsive is a cop-out -- reminds me of the "mobile" versions of websites. Give me the full version, and stop messing with the layout and experience between the web and the phone.
Responsive design means the browser resolution doesn't matter. Sites should be able to handle these dimensions by scaling appropriately and changing the layout.
If you look at the underlying markup, you can see that the web site was designed to be responsive. The sad part however is that it's going to take a bit more time for mobile resolutions to be supported properly.
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