Here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we are Manchester’s leading web design experts. We work with companies in a range of sectors across the North West, including those in Blackburn and Chorley, to provide top quality, effective web design solutions. As a result, we have produced this guide to everything you should consider when choosing a responsive web design layout.
What is responsive web design?
Responsive web design is a web design system that allows you to create one website, that will automatically adjust size, scaling and layout, to fit the size of the user device. This means that some content can be rearranged, to be more practical on a smaller screen, while things like images and typography will improve in resolution and size, when viewed on a larger, more demanding screen.
Responsive web design has become an important tool for companies and businesses to maintain their high position in the search engine results page, especially with Google, where things like the mobile site speed, quality, and content can help to determine the ranking position. With a responsive website, you know that all of your content will be shown to the users, on different sized devices, without a loss in quality or important information.
What are the most effective website layout options for responsive web design?
One of the most important considerations for any responsive website is the layout. The layout is the thing that is most likely to change depending on the screen size of the user. Effective layout choices can include:
- A modular grid design- this is one of the easiest web design options for a responsive site. When using a modular grid, when accessed from a smaller mobile device, the grids will simply align in a one by one column grid, instead of multi-column grid. This means that the content of each grid will be stacked vertically down the page. Alternating between visual and text based content can be an effective way to organise this.
- The full screen image layout- this is a common layout for contemporary and modern web design which involves using a large hero image/banner across the top of the page, that takes up the whole of the above the fold content. This is an defective choice, as with responsive web design, the image, and overlaying content, can simply be resized to fit the screen size. And as long as you keep the text to a minimum, your content will be easy to read on all devices too.
- The zig-zag layout- On a desktop or large screen, a zig zag layout splits the screen into two, and alternates between an image text, and a text image pattern. Similar to a module grid layout, in terms of responsive design, the zig-zag layout will split the screen, and position the second half underneath the first half of the screen. So as your users scroll, they read the content, then see the visual design.
For more information or advice, or for high quality, professional web design solutions, get in touch with the experts today, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.