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Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

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Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#51

Post by billirvine »

This reads like someone's justification for their own lack-of-talent with media queries and CSS, or their laziness toward creating an optimized experience for all users.

"Responsive" is a trendy buzzword thing for what solid digital designers have been doing ever since Netscape 0.9b tossed alignment into the image tag (among other things)... paying attention to how a design looks on multiple screens. We just have more screens and means by which to optimize for those screens now.

And I'm really not sold on "mobile first" either -- feels like another short-lived trendy buzzword thing. Scaling a mobile design concept up to the desktop is shorting your 1024w and up users. Designers who care think about all screens at a design's inception... then plan the CSS accordingly.

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#53

Post by blauwbilgorgel »

splatcollision wrote: post #46
blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #37

Preface by saying responsive design _can_ be worth it. That said: If your mobile phone has so much trouble displaying a 960px width static centered website (the norm on the current web), so much so, that your mobile browser demands a different design, then I posit your design isn't broken, some mobile browsers are broken. I expect that in the near future, when resolutions get upped and mobile browsing experiences adv…

You're forgetting that old, less capable devices are still widely used, all around the world, and will be for many years to come. Don't forget a basic principle of the web: Accessibility.

I won't: Accessibility is very important to me.

Though I see a difference between access to design and access to content.

I think it is fine to just serve up a reset-CSS for 2008 blackberry devices in a few years, like some now do for IE6 browsers. I don't think it is reasonable or necessary to expect designers to create responsive designs that translate to 2008 blackberry devices (or IE6 browsers) and also work on the future devices of our choice.

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#54

Post by billirvine »

sunraa wrote: post #12

The author raises a good point about page load times not really being minimized and lack of thought around good responsive design. However, I'm unconvinced about the rest of the arguments. For example, he notes "The first rule in usability 101 is to give the end user what they expect." Maybe for the first year or two in the smartphone era it might have been acceptable to simply provide a shrunken zoomed out version o…

> The author raises a good point about page load times not > really being minimized and lack of thought around good > responsive design

The author has likely not experienced the wonders of setting images as DIV backgrounds, then setting @media screen and (max-width: 320px) { #ID {display: none; } }

Or even going that (oh so tedious) extra step of sniffing browser signature at the server-side, and negating higher bandwidth assets.

Effort. Try it sometime. ;)

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#55

Post by russelluresti »

Link bait and wrong on every point. This article is a waste of time to read.

On each point...

1. Where's the proof? Where's the research? The usability studies? The group surveys? There is NO evidence presented to support this point. It's just opinion and conjecture. Moving on.

2. Any actual numbers on ROI or expected ROI? Nope. Moving on again.

3. Again, any usability studies to back this up? No. Next!

4. Research? Numbers? Proof? Nope. And on to the last...

5. It's not a subjective decision when designers use things like evidence (something you obviously know nothing about) based on usability research and studies.

I have no problem with people speaking out against something (though the comment that there is a lack of arguments against responsive is a joke - there's probably just as many articles against as their are for due to link bait like this), but when you do argue against something, you need to present proof that shows you're right.

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#56

Post by matznerd »

Biggest proof that this article is wrong? I'm on my phone reading the blog post and the site doesn't scale for my screen width and it is so annoying to read because I have to keep scrolling left and right to see all of the text. I got so frustrated I didnt even continue reading the article and I left the site. That is what will happen with users when a site doesn't display properly for their device, it's a fact.

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#57

Post by [deleted] »

lucisferre wrote: post #39

A surprising (or unsurprising perhaps) number of negative responses to this article. I do see why people are so generally defensive of responsive design, I mean it just seems like the right thing to do, it fits with what we wish the commonly accepted wisdom should be. That said, building anything more interactive than a blog layout with it is actually very hard . It is time consuming, there is tedious work to do to t…

[deleted]

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#58

Post by antonpug »

I AGREE. Responsive design is only NECESSARY 1% of the time, and is poorly implemented 99% of the time. Most modern mobile devices can show full desktop site scaled down, with pinch-to-zoom functionality. Personally, I get annoyed with "mobile pages" and responsive layouts.

Re: Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

#60

Post by lovamova »

mnicole wrote: post #41
lovamova wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidebars don't add anything necessary to the user experience. It's just clutter. If there's enough horizontal space, I suggest using columns instead, they fit the purpose better.

> Sidebars don't add anything necessary to the user experience. It's just clutter. This is a really weird argument; sidebars are preferable to a lot of other patterns depending on the site and doesn't at all mean the content is less important than anything else on the page.

Apple hardly use any sidebars (web/iOS/OS X). Even in the new iTunes they removed the sidebars. I can go on with the examples.
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