As most developers know, responsive web design is an approach for giving the best user experience across various devices like desktop computers, tablets and smartphones. What many developers do not realize, however, if that when you start developing, sometimes they do not realize that they are making some responsive web design mistakes that can trouble us in the future. While making a 100% responsive site is difficult, you can at least pay attention to some key factors while developing. Here are some mistakes to be avoided while developing responsive design.
Web Design Mistakes #1: Not Starting with Mobile
Some developers find it easy to start with the desktop first and then move to mobile. They consider it fast. But moving to mobile later requires a lot of rework. When we know we have to support both mobile and the desktop, it is better to start with mobile. By making an experience that prioritizes a worst case mobile scenario, we can make sure that people are going to use your websites despite a lot of factors against them. In short, if you can support mobile web, you can support anything.
Web Design Mistakes #2: Keeping the Wrong UI
While developing for both mobile and the desktop, we have to know that we cannot just compress the content in desktop and show it in mobile browsers. You have to be creative because mobile allows for less space. For instance, if a site has navigation menus, you can convert them into drop down menus in mobile view. Cool stuff like this results from teamwork. It requires discussion between developers and designers, who play an important role.
Web Design Mistakes #3: Hiding Content in Mobile
All actions in desktop web versions should be present in mobile versions as well. It is a wrong assumption that mobile users do not what to see all the content they can see on a desktop. As a result, hiding content in mobile is not a good solution. For instance, you cannot hide some menus just because it is not fitting in the space. Rather, add pagination for content if it does not fit well. It is okay to follow a gradual process like Face did while it launched the first version of its mobile web application. In the beginning, it was not as full featured as the desktop version, but the company eventually came up with better UI and complete feature report.
There are still so many mistakes that you need to be mindful of. Consider sparing some time to do research before you start. Avoiding these mistakes will help you go a long way toward delivering the best user experience across all kinds of devices.