A large number of internet users now use their mobile devices to surf the internet and this means that anyone designing a website must think around making the site mobile friendly. A responsive website is one of the best tools you can use to reach out to all users, including the large number that now rely on smartphones to find what they are looking for. This kind of a website ensures that web content reads well on mobile devices offering the same kind of experience to the readers as they would get when using a computer. It adopts to screen sizes without distorting quality of text and images and this ensures that your professional image remains consistent across the board.
It can however be challenging to start with a responsive website, but you can use web design services to enjoy an easier time putting everything together as necessary. A few tips can also help in ensuring that you get the best when designing the responsive website.
1. If you are designing the website for the first time, think about mobile device users first before thinking about laptop and desktop screens. This is important considering that mobile devices are getting more relevance compared to desktops; more and more people rely on them to get things done so focus on interacting with your target audience over smartphones first then build the design out for larger screens.
2. Get familiar with media queries because they are the features that will allow web content to respond to the different device conditions. The queries will check device resolutions, orientation, width and height and with the information the right CSS rules are applied. These queries are actually driving force behind the designs that are responsive and the more you know the better it will be to achieve desired results.
3. Find ways to improve speed of your page loads. Responsive web designs have an issue with slow loading times, yet the truth is that slower speeds can rob you of valuable web visits. Smartphone users today expect nothing but high speeds when browsing and you must find ways of speeding the loading time of your web content. Using non-optimized images on the web is one of the elements that slow speed and so you should consider scaling down any hefty images you might have using reliable tools that are available.
4. Make web text readable. You want to have a responsive website, but this does not mean choosing tiny texts that force mobile readers to squint when reading or to keep pinching to read. Choose a larger size that offers comfortable read even for the smaller screens. You can use conversion tools for your headlines to come up with responsive texts and to keep the rest of the text comfortably readable.
5. Choose right button size. The buttons should not be too small because they will make tapping very hard for smartphone users. Keep them 44×44 px at least to offer comfortable experience. It is also advisable that you go for padding over margins because the padding increases the surface area that can be tapped compared to margins that only increase white space around your buttons.
