Learning Responsive Web Design

Chapter 8. Mobile and Beyond

There are two things you need to give a lot of thought to when you’re creating a responsive website: users and devices. In this chapter, we’ll discuss both extensively.

First, we’ll look at what the user experience is and why it’s important. Next, we’ll discuss design strategies for making sure your site works well and looks good on as many devices as possible.

Following that, we’ll go over the types of devices that are currently available, and some of the device qualities that are important design considerations, such as touch and screen size. We’ll also talk about how to make sure your site is accessible to users with disabilities.

Finally, we’ll talk about testing your responsive website—what devices you should support and test your site on, how you can get access to those devices, and what kinds of testing you can do without actual devices.

User Experience

When you’re making a website, your job isn’t just to make it look nice; it’s to make something that can be used for its intended purpose, and that works well.

Your ecommerce site can have the most beautiful product pages ever, but if the user has trouble getting through the checkout process and decides to go to another website, it’s all for naught.

User experience has always been a significant part of web design, but for a long time we didn’t have to put too much effort into it, because all users had a very similar experience—they were all on a desktop or laptop computer, with a similar-sized monitor, ...