Comments on: Responsive design is the new black

By: Christian

Christian — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:08:16 +0000

In varying degrees I’ve been doing stuff like responsive web design since 1999. Even back then I learned you could serve up multiple style sheets for different devices and even multiple potential ones for the same device. I did the best I could to create desktop browser versions, print versions, handheld versions, etc. of the same site. People don’t even give credit to the fact that Netscape 4 in 1999 allowed all this. I also used things like descendant and sibling selectors on Netscape 6 beginning in 2002 (before Firefox/Safari/Chrome, etc.) to progressively enhance pages.

Anyways, very, very few people seemed to catch on to anything like this and very few companies I worked at cared at all that I was making their sites look good on multiple devices. The usual attitude from them was, “Make it look in IE/Netscape/Firefox EXACTLY the way it looks in the PSD to the pixel or you’re fired!!” and they couldn’t care about anything beyond that. So it was a little dismaying to say the least.

Then several years went by, then some more years went by, and then I started to see people writing books about, “Hey! Didja know you can make your site look different depending on what device the user is viewing it on?!?! Let me show you how!” Sigh…

Of course it’s all good for people to be finally catching on… And anything (like this blog entry) that helps propagate good web development ideas is a good thing… And I’m always trying to learn more and to keep my own skills and techniques up-to-date…

By: Russell Bishop

Russell Bishop — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:49:08 +0000

I love this idea of ‘responsive design’; I think it’s a logical, intuitive way of ensuring that your website is optimized for all kinds of browser scenarios.

What I dislike, though, is that this technique is only supported by the tip top latest browsers; rendering the time you’d spend on this quite obsolete for the average project.

By: Philwebservices

Philwebservices — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:02:49 +0000

Nice ideas in the article!!! Thanks for sharing it!! i loved reading it always!!!☺

By: Jeffrey Zeldman

Jeffrey Zeldman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:02:15 +0000

Am I mental or has this concept been around for a long time?

You are not mental! This concept is as old as the web. But “responsive design” is a strategy and toolset for achieving this goal in aesthetically pleasing ways.

By: Jesse Sutherland

Jesse Sutherland — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:17:41 +0000

Am I mental or has this concept been around for a long time? I thought standards based web development was always supposed to be ‘responsive’. I get that there are new tools at work here, but really, this is what should have been going on for some time now. I’ve been reading Zeldman off and on for some time (5 years or so! – how did those years pass so fast!?) and these basic concepts have been espoused all along. I’m glad all of these new devices and formats are pushing the agenda more now than ever, but I think we need to make sure that basic principles don’t get co-opted into some sort of neo-marketing speak. In other words, I hope we can keep the principles but ditch some of the new jargon; it doesn’t help when web developers need to constantly update their clients/bosses with the latest, greatest techn0-babble. But, yeah, in any case, I dig it!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:48:28 +0000

All this responsive design is very cool. Too bad it doesn’t work on my work computer, currently locked into Safari 3.0.4 on OS X 10.4.11… :(

By: Chris Casciano

Chris Casciano — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:59:49 +0000

Love this direction... no one probably noticed but I've had some column switching [that I always intended to do more with, and then write up, but never did] on placenamehere.com for some time now. The idea is great, and the outlined techniques are nice. Next big step is really working the technology into the larger scale site design and development and testing processes.

By: David Sundrum

David Sundrum — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:23:34 +0000

This is great! I’ve been wondering when this kind of thing would start gaining traction. It solves so many problems having to do with multiple devices screen sizes and form factors. I think this is the future of web design. The A List Apart article is just what I was looking for.

By: Design Informer

Design Informer — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:36:54 +0000

Hicks just redid his journal section similarly

@Kevan
Yeah, that site was already mentioned in the article. :)

But anyway, this is really interesting and it will only be a matter of time until a lot more websites start implementing it.

By: Kevan Emmott

Kevan Emmott — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:32:25 +0000

Hicks just redid his journal section similarly - going from 1 column all the way to a 4 col grid at widest.

By: Ritz

Ritz — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:05:52 +0000

Liquid and scaleable is good, however it can become nasty on a high resolution monitor. Wikipedia is a good example of this, I think. I find I always need to resize my window from it’s normally wide setup so that the text doesn’t go on for 5 meters per line. A responsive layout using media queries and liquid styling is where it’s at.

Now, to get a polished look without bugs that degrades gracefully on IE while progressively enhancing on cutting edge browsers? That looks great at 2560×1600, like nothing was wrong at 800×600 and readable with iPhone 4′s 960×640 326 ppi screen? Well, that’s still a lot of work up front and will require patience. However, it will be awesome once its figured out.

But you are right. The cool kids are doing it.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:24:27 +0000

Plastic soul, man, plastic soul!

By: Jason Judge

Jason Judge — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:02:33 +0000

It’s what some of us were going for with “liquid” web design back in the 1990s, only it doesn’t suck.

You meant the 2000s, surely? In the 1990s *all* websites sucked by today’s standards.

By: Guillaume Stricher

Guillaume Stricher — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:53:33 +0000

Liquidish and scalable since 2007, just before all these new devices came out.

By: Aaron Gustafson

Aaron Gustafson — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:44:11 +0000

All hail Aaron Gustafson, one of the most brilliant people it’s been my pleasure to work with

You say the nicest things ;-) The feeling is 100% mutual.

Alright, enough of our bromance. Onward!