How do you make sure your website will look good on every browser and device? Take a look at these responsive web designs and you’ll discover how. When designing a new website, there’s a long list of specifications and requirements you have to fulfill. It’s just the nature of web design these days. And at the top of that list sits responsive web design.
Thankfully, high-quality WordPress themes like BeTheme make it insanely easy to check off all the technical requirements you’re expected to meet — including responsive design. But why does it matter so much?
While desktop has put up a good fight for a couple years, mobile has prevailed as the winner. It will continue to do so, too, considering how much more convenient it is to access the web from the palm of one’s hand.
Plus, Google has made it clear that it rewards responsive web designs and mobile-friendly websites with better search rankings, so there’s no hiding from it now.
Responsive web design is a must.
Just keep in mind that following the rules for good mobile design doesn’t mean you ignore desktop users. By prioritizing the mobile experience, you can design more beautiful and efficient websites for all users.
Let’s look at some examples that demonstrate how to do this well.
Responsive web designs that encourage leaner desktop experiences
Just because you have more space to work with when designing for desktop users doesn’t mean you need to make the most of every pixel.
In fact, as Internet-enabled devices have grown smaller in size, it’s encouraged many designers to create leaner and more efficient experiences on the desktop.
Take the website for designer/developer Rob Grabowski, for example.
This is how his website appears on a mobile screen:
With minimized logo and navigation out of the way, this allows the focus to remain on his photo and welcome message. Desktop visitors encounter the same thing:
This consistency in design is great because it enables visitors to seamlessly transition from viewing a website on one device to another (which happens often).
Mobile web designs that improve the decision-making process
Consumers today struggle with an overabundance of choice. It might be easier to find that thing or service they’re looking for, but that doesn’t make choosing between similar options any easier.
One of the benefits of responsive design is that it forces web designers to create websites in a modular fashion so that, as the screen size shrinks, each section falls in line beneath the others.
In turn, this makes it easier for customers to review options one-by-one. BeRepair, one of the 500+ pre-built sites from BeTheme, demonstrates this point really well:
This is one of the services offered. Notice how the responsive layout allows the visitor to really focus on the details before them and not get distracted by too much information.
This works well for other types of websites. Take, for instance, the BeRestaurant pre-built desktop site:
It’s a great-looking restaurant website. The mobile counterpart looks just as great, but minimizes the distractions so the core elements can really shine:
Rather than try to fit the menu to the right of the food images, the responsive website maintains the integrity of the original design by tucking it into the hamburger menu icon in the top-right.
Again, this is all about giving your visitors the ability to pause and really focus on the key actions you’re asking them to take. A navigation bar in full view would only distract from that.
Responsive designs that cut out the excess
What’s cool about responsive websites is that they allow us to display the same web page in both formats.
Desktop screens thereby display landscape murals and mobile screens display portraits. But it’s important to know where the excess is in the desktop view so you can trim it back enough to make the mobile experience worthwhile.
For instance, this is the desktop site for BeITService:
This is a great looking hero banner on the home page. It’s well-balanced, the colors are carefully chosen, and the message is crystal-clear.
This is a good example of how smart designers have become when it comes to choosing responsive images for websites.
Here’s that same image and banner from above, but now displayed on mobile:
On desktop, it shows an elaborate background graphic that enhances the overall design. On mobile, however, it turns into this:
Even with the image now reduced and placed at the bottom, it’s still a striking design that allows the message to really shine through.