The web world has changed for the better! As per Google, nearly 68,000,000 searches are carried out directly from mobiles around the world per hour. Mobile First design and Responsive Design are the buzzwords that are making the rounds of the web world!
So what exactly do mobile first and responsive design mean? Cedar Software Technologies, a leading Web Design Company in Cochin, shares with you an insight on these two developments in the web world.
Mobile-first design
Normally, websites are developed to be used on the desktop computer. Now that mobile phones have become common, websites are scaled down to be browsed on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. This procedure is largely known as desktop-first strategy or graceful degradation.
When websites are scaled down website quality suffers as multiple visual aspects adapt poorly to mobile devices. Progressive enhancement or mobile-first strategy is used to combat this issue. The design should be for the smallest mobile device and scaled upwards to adapt to desk-top computers.
Pros
- Best user experience as it utilises compact design patterns.
- Focuses on the majority of smartphone users.
- Aims at the built-in features of the devices
Cons
- The desktop version is not completely optimized
- Not suitable for content rich websites
- Can’t embed the blog session
- Needless initial cost compared to iOS and Android app
Responsive Design
With responsive web design a website’s design is automatically adjusted based on the size of users’ screens. Easy browsing is possible whatever type of device they use. According to the width of a browser on a device, the site layout and content will change. In fact, there is no need to create two versions of a website — for mobile devices and desktops.
In fact, you can determine whether or not a website is responsive by manually zooming in and out of the browser window. With responsive design, users can easily browse a website regardless of what device they use. You only need one website with responsive design and the content and user interface of your website is adapted so that visitors can smoothly visit it on any browser and device.
Pros
- Good for information-rich websites
- Less cost and maintenance
- Improves traffic and has good results. The search engines don’t need to crawl the mobile site and desktop version.
- Suitable for large formats
- One Website and one URL and no redirections improves the traffic.
Cons
- Mobile experience cannot be 100% optimised.
- As some web components are scaled down some website pages won’t be accessible on the mobile phone.
- The loading time of the website is slightly high in mobile devices.
- While designing, both categories of people using desktop and mobile phones should be considered.
The best web development company in Kochi, Cedar Software Technologies partners you in creating attractive functional websites and applications. The decision on Mobile-First Web Design vs. Responsive Web Design depends on the project specification and customer need. Get in touch with us to know more.
