Top 5 Responsive Web Design Myths – Busted

These days, the word web design is becoming more or less synonymous with the term responsive web design. Almost all companies are going for responsive web design for their websites. And rightly so. With mobile traffic surpassing desktop traffic, more businesses are likely to embrace responsive web design for their sites. But before you do the same, it’s important to get rid of some of the myths that have developed around responsive web design.

Here’s a quick look at some of the most common myths about responsive web design. And they have all been busted to ensure that you have a clear idea about what you might get from this form of web design while shaping your business website.

Myth 1# Responsive design is all about mobile.

This is one of the most common myths that have surfaced around responsive web design. This largely owes its origin to the sudden growth of mobile web these days. It is probably true that the idea of responsive web design was inspired by the use of internet on mobile devices. But it also takes into account the users of all types of internet-friendly devices. And that includes the desktop devices as well.

Myth 2# Websites with responsive design take a long time to load.

It has been observed in a number of cases that the websites, which have responsive design, are taking ages to get loaded. Well, it’s not always true though. There are responsive websites that are ready to be viewed within a few moments. So, the problem does not lie with responsive design as a whole. There are responsive websites, which first load a desktop version and then move on to the mobile version, thus making the loading time longer.  However, this is not true for all websites with responsive design and some of them get loaded pretty fast. Usually a heavy web page takes a long time to load. But responsive web design is not known to make the web page heavy. So, it’s important to keep the methodology perfect to avoid this fault.

Myth 3# Responsive nature of the website affects the typography.

This, in no way, is a true fact. However, it has been observed that a number of responsive websites has this kind of issue. However, it’s not right to blame the responsive design of the website for this. With the focus on making the website responsive, the developers hardly take a look at the fonts. And that’s where the problem lies.

It’s essential to use fonts properly while designing a website. And this holds true for responsive designs as well. You need to keep an eye on the font size, the margins of the pages, the layouts and so on. It is also important to ensure that the pages are proportionate. The focus needs to be on making the page readable. It will then be easier for you to do away with this problem.

Myth 4# Device breakpoints play a major role in responsive design.

The fact is: device breakpoints don’t matter in responsive design. These days, most of the developers scale the resolution of a webpage down. The objective is to fit within the frames of a particular device. But in reality, it needs to be made easily readable from all kinds of devices, both desktop as well as mobile. The developers have to keep in mind the framework. They can create their own framework as well. Creating a live prototype can be a solution, as you can add breakpoints to it after creating a mock framework.

Myth 5# Once the design is complete, it needs to be tested on all kinds of devices.

If you really need to do this, there’s no use of following the steps to create a responsive web design. It is essential to follow each and every step in the process of creating a responsive website. But after you have completed creating a responsive design, you just can’t go and test it on all types of devices that are available. It’s not possible either. So, you will rather have to rely on your development skills to ensure that the website will perform properly on all devices without any hassle. It should be properly utilized, so that the website appears in the perfect manner on the desktop as well as the mobile devices. And you don’t need a test run for that at all.

With every passing day, more and more people are shifting from desktop devices to mobile ones to access the internet. So, it is important for the developers to embrace the responsive design properly. If you are eager to do that, it’s essential for you to bust all the associated myths in the very beginning to embrace this type of design for your website.