5 reasons why the response design is not worth doing

This article from Tom Ewer's MANAGEWP blog author, expressed his current popular response design is not the same view.

Steering mobile design is a bigger revolution than the PC Revolution--kevin Lynch, CTO, Adobe

By 2014, more people will use mobile devices instead of PCs to access the Internet, so making accessible mobile is one of the biggest concerns of web developers. Therefore, the response design came into being, but from my personal point of view, it is not worthy of vigorous pursuit, why?

Response design is not a panacea. I used to be a fan of responsive design and found that many web apps don't show up well on the mobile screen, and Google Maps is a good example. Web sites that contain a lot of pictures are also suitable for responsive design, but text-oriented web pages and blogs are not, and even I think it is a waste of time to implement a responsive design for such a Web site.

1. "Responsive design" does not meet the expectations of users

The first of the Usability 101 rule is "Meet user expectations." In the case of blogs, it is widely accepted that the design is: from the top down, the content and picture each side, providing sidebar, this has been used in millions of of blogs, because it reached the user's expectations.

But if you visit a mobile Web page that has a responsive design, the general sidebar disappears or jumps to the top or bottom, which is not where you want it to be. Take cats who Code as an example, the following is the desktop display, with the top navigation, sidebar (including the most recent post), small ads and search boxes. Here is the iphone interface:

You can see that the navigation and sidebar are gone, I finally found the sidebar when I dragged on, and you might think it was just a case in point, but the fact is this is a typical response design, and we want to see a mobile interface that doesn't sacrifice desktop elements, which is obviously not.

2. Spend more time and time long

In general, responsive design takes more money than a non responsive design. If someone damn to argue that the response design is cheaper than creating an extra mobile layout, I agree, but do you know what's cheaper than responsive design? Nothing!

Also, think about how much time it took you to get the ROI from the response design and what did you get?

3. Non-responsive design performance is not bad

Look at my own blog displays the effect on the Mac:

Look at it on my iphone:

On the iPhone4-inch screen, it feels good to read. If the text is too small, then double-click to enlarge it, and then it is not difficult to shrink back later. And the funny thing is that the current mobile interface is designed for non responsive design, and most mobile phones are doing well. If you have to find something unexpected, look at the desktop version of those pages and the design is just as bad.

4. Not good for load time

We know that mobile device operation is based on Internet subnet network speed, so the Web page to ensure that the minimum load to reduce load time, many response design does not really reduce the load time, because many designers just hide those elements, to optimize the load is no good. Instead of a responsive design, you can choose "deferred loading", which is an option to load the most dense elements and then to other techniques.

5. Responsive design is actually a kind of compromise

It can be said that responsive design is the subjective decision of the designer, they think that the desktop display interface is no longer applicable to the mobile interface, and then feel sure to make a corresponding change. And if the user sees a more uncomfortable interface and asks, why do you want to get a different and not a good display? That offends Usability 101. The second rule "don't let users feel they can't control the situation."

So my point is this: it's a compromise, a designer's subjective decision, and the user doesn't feel much discomfort, especially when the response is designed to take time and money.

Finally, I wrote this article for two reasons, I think the response design is not necessary in many cases, there is a clear lack of response design in the Internet debate. I don't negate the theory of responsive design, but the fact is that in many cases I've seen it really isn't necessary. A lot of people get used to being embraced and think it's natural, but you'd better look at it from a developer's point of view, is this really what you need?

PS: What is a responsive design? Page design and development should be based on user behavior and equipment environment (System platform, screen size, screen orientation, etc.) to respond and adjust accordingly. Concrete practices are made up of many aspects, including flexible grids and layouts, pictures, and the use of CSS media query. Whether the user uses a notebook or an ipad, the page should be able to automatically switch resolution, picture size, and related scripting features to suit different devices.

Via MANAGEWP

(Ji Tzu for the Lei Feng Network, reproduced please indicate from Lei Feng Net and author)