- Here to stay
- Super cool
- Perfect for many sites
- Make coffee
- Print money
- Walk your dog
How to troll Responsive Web Design zealots: Troll level over 9000
Hey everyone. Look. Responsive web design is many things including these three:
Recently downloaded a beautifully designed app on my iPhone. (Feedly, if you’re wondering)
While using it, it struck me how well it used the platform and how well designed for the platform it was.
And I couldn’t help thinking, “I wish I could design my web pages for mobile like this”.
And why can’t I? In reality I could if I was designing for mobile alone. But some guru says I should design for all platforms at once. Make it responsive.
Bah humbug! So I end up developing sites that are inferior to what they could be on each platform.
Some will argue of course that if you design for “mobile first” you will get the best mobile experience. But that’s a furphy because you still have to make a site that can transform into a desktop site, so you are setting limitations. And then also sacrificing what can be done on the larger tablet or desktop.
Is it really that much more effort to maintain 3 or 4 unique designs, than a single complicated design full of device exceptions and conditions?
I can show you many, many examples of well executed RWD. But none that ever are done without making sacrifices to maintain that flexibility across devices.
The irony of RWD is the best mobile experience is still apps. It doesn’t have to be.
Web sites for mobile should be able to match apps, if only we’d stop the RWD worship.
My favourite websites on mobile are almost always ones designed for the platform without the constraints of making sure the same code can transform into a desktop website.
Worst of all with RWD, when you make even the smallest design change you have to seriously consider how it will impact across all platforms and then cater for that.
With platform specific design, when the boss says he wants the mobile site redesigned, I can say “No worries” instead of “OMG, no!”.
With the rise of the mobile device as king of the hill for internet access, it is imperative we design and build websites that fully maximize the experience on those platforms.
We can’t do that if we continue to wear the millstone of RWD.