Code: Responsive Web Design

In this month’s edition of Ask UXmatters, our panel of UX experts discusses whether to recommend creating a responsive Web site or application over a native mobile app. While each type of application offers unique benefits, the panel advises UX designers not look at this as an either/or question. Instead, consider the benefits of creating both of these types of applications on a continuum. Clearly, a Web site is necessary at least to enable customers to discover a product.

A UX designer should consider how best to satisfy user needs, relying on a deeper consideration of the usage scenarios for specific types of users. Depending on the contexts of use, users often require that a tool be available on more than one platform. Plus, you must consider business needs throughout the design process. Read More

We’ve probably all had the experience of opening an HTML email message on a smartphone only to find that it hasn’t been optimized for mobile. The text is too small to read easily, and it’s difficult to interact with calls to action because of their size and spacing. However, there are ways in which email creators can solve these problems, including using responsive design techniques and taking a mobile-first approach to designing HTML email messages.

The example shown in Figure 1 is a TechCrunch daily-update email message, which is not optimized for smartphone users. The first problem is that the headline text is too small to read easily without zooming in, so it requires horizontal scrolling. Some headlines have additional text beneath them, but that text is even smaller. And the read more call to action feels almost microscopic. To be fair, the headlines also link to the articles, but people may not know that at first, because there is a separate, more explicit call to action. Read More

This is a sample chapter from the Second Edition of Chris Ward’s book Jump Start Responsive Web Design. 2017 SitePoint.

Chapter 4: Responsive Text

If Web pages are to be truly responsive, then the content of pages should also flow and change to suit the dimensions of the device a user is viewing it on. While Web pages are becoming more image and media heavy, text is still a crucial component, and there are numerous techniques to help make it as readable as possible, no matter the current device.

To understand better the ways you can represent text on a Web page, it’s best to take a trip into the long history of text. Read More