Have you ever tried to pull up a website on your phone or tablet, only to find the print to small to see, let alone read? Or what about a website that forces you to view the mobile version from your phone or tablet but does not have all the information you need? Most of the time you know what you’re looking for on the regular website, but you can’t find it on the mobile version. Or if you’re trying to view the site on your tablet, and it forces you to view the mobile site instead of the full site. This is around the time where many users give up and find another website, a competitor’s website, to view.
This is one of the reasons you want a responsive website.
What is responsive web design? Why do I need a responsive website instead of a mobile website? What’s the difference between a responsive website and a mobile website?
When we are meeting with potential clients, we often hear at least one if not all these questions in regards to the way we build websites at BNG Website Design. All our websites are built to be responsive, this is a staple we are proud to offer and feel should not be sold as an “add-on” service. Below are the answers to these questions and many more you may have, to help you decide for yourself why responsive web design is what you are looking for in this age of website design.
What is Responsive Web Design?
Responsive web design is a design concept that allows your website to “respond” to the screen your viewers are using. This means that no matter what type of device your viewers are using, they will always have the entire website available to them. Thus allowing your viewer to find your information in the same place, whether at home or on the go.
Using responsive web design allows the viewer to have the optimal experience. The website will adapt to the viewer’s needs and allow for the flexibility to fit to any screen they has access to. This means tablets, smartphones and any other device you can find, will display your website appropriately instead of having to maintain two websites, one for a standard computer screen and one for a mobile device.
So why do I need a Responsive Website instead of a Mobile Website and what’s the difference?
Like we said before, responsive web design adjusts to whatever screen the viewer opens your website on. A mobile website is literally an additional website, which you are usually charged more for, that allows the viewer to open your website on a mobile device. One of the issues with this type of web design is that it does not account for the all of the devices available to viewers in this day and age. More and more people are using a tablet or smartphone (all with different screen sizes and orientations) to view websites, instead of a standard computer screen.
When you have a mobile website, in addition to your normal website, your mobile viewers only have the ability to view the mobile version of your website. Often these mobile websites do not offer all of the functionality of the regular website. Mobile websites are often an extremely simplified version of what is available on a computer, making the viewer’s experience extremely frustrating when trying to find a specific page.
Not only are there things missing on a mobile website, but often they look nothing like the computer screen version. This means that if a viewer uses your website on their computer, and then later tries to find the same page or element on their mobile device, they will find they are looking at a completely different site on their phone. If your viewer’s can’t find what they are looking for on your site, they will find it somewhere else.
This does not even account for those viewers who only have a tablet or device, which has a screen smaller than a computer screen, but larger than a smartphone! These devices are either not covered with a mobile website or are the full site version incorrectly sized, leaving your viewers to have to zoom in and out in order to use your website. At this point, you have lost these viewers to a competitor that has decided to go with responsive web design to account for these devices.
A responsive website is a single website that responds to the screen size of the device you are using. Whether it is a small Blackberry Smartphone or an iPhone, a Kindle tablet or an iPad, or a standard computer screen, the viewer will always have the same viewing experience. All the elements of your website are where they found them originally, and the viewer will have the same functionality that they would on any other device.
The beauty of responsive web design is the viewer is always using the original site you intended them to, keeping the information in the same place no matter where they try to view it. This type of web design helps with the frustration your viewers can have trying to find specific parts of your site on a mobile version, thus giving them a consistent experience when they are exposed to your brand. Wouldn’t you want your viewers to have the same experience, no matter what device they choose to use? Wouldn’t you want all this without having to pay additional fees for this functionality? We don’t see why your answer would be anything other than, YES!
BNG Design’s philosophy on Responsive Web Design and how it should be offered to our clients.
When we build a website for a client, we always us responsive web design. Our current clients are showing that almost 15-20% of viewers are accessing their websites on some kind of device other than a computer. We don’t believe in making that difficult, we are here to make the viewing experience as enjoyable as possible. After all, that is why we call ourselves a web design company, is it not? Now that the web design world has advanced past a simple computer screen, shouldn’t web design companies also advance past the computer screen as well? This is why at BNG Design, we do not charge you extra for this responsive web design. We feel that if the web design world has advanced, so should we.
Creating a responsive website is not a difficult task for a web design company who knows what they are doing. There are plenty of helpful and FREE tools available for experienced web designers to use to make responsive websites. They do not need a proprietary, custom made solution to implement this kind of functionality. If your website design company is telling you this is not a standard practice and therefore costing you more for a “mobile friendly” website, it is time to start looking at other designers. We feel it should be a standard practice to use responsive web design and it should never cost more to build a website correctly for the technology available today.
For an example of a responsive website, simply make the window you are viewing this website in smaller and larger, you will see how everything resizes and moves in order to offer you the best viewing experience no matter what your screen size preference is.
To speak with an experienced Responsive Web Design company, Contact Us today for a FREE consultation!
Kimberly Pigeon
BNG Website Design
701-526-3539 ext. 9506