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What Does Responsive Web Design Mean for 2021?
Anybody who considers themselves a digital native, traversing across the digital horizon can recall the painful experience of trying to navigate through a non-responsive website design. From microscopic text to soul-crushing form fills, the travails of being forced off a mobile device over to the desktop just to accomplish a task is punishing. It's 2021 and there is no reason why these outdated, unresponsive sites should even exist.
What is Responsive Design?
A responsive website design fits the screens and devices of not only what is currently available, of desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile but also has the flexibility to suit the next generation of devices and screens like TV’s, and smart devices from Google Home and Alexa.
Media queries will determine which versions (if you are using an adaptive design) or a responsive rendered version of the website is served taking into consideration the Size Layout Elements, Percentages or CSS Grid Layout, Responsive Images and Typography.
The goal is to provide a consistent experience across all devices because most users of your website will view you on more than one device. That will allow cross-device platform analytics and attribution for your end goals and ultimately accurate ROI.
Google favours mobile-responsive websites
With mobile traffic breaking the 75% ceiling in 2021, this should be your top strategy when considering responsive friendly mobile design. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) are stripped down HTML copies of your existing web pages that favour faster load times than standard HTML5 documents. The primary reason for their use is that Google is showing heavy favour to those sites with AMP pages. This will have serious effects on your ranking and visibility if it hasn't already.
Along with AMP pages comes responsive media design. Website images should be responsive and prioritise mobile loads and best practices include optimising your images, caching, minification plugins, using a more efficient CSS layout, removing unused code and Javascript, and improving critical rendering paths. Even a short delay with lazy loads can increase bounce time and lower conversion rates drastically. Instantaneous access and immediacy are the standards in mobile design.
Along with an updated design, you should also consider these standards:
- Optimising your site for Voice Search
- Ensuring you are WCAG (web Accessibility) friendly
- Using a secure HTTPS protocol
Trending Design Elements We Like For 2021
- Dark mode web interface provides users with a low-contrast site or app that is easier to look at in low light environments and offers those who suffer from migraines and headaches a more suitable option to browse than high contrast vivid sites.
- Hamburger Navigation has become a much more popular option as web design is simplified, clarifying messages and Call-To-Action. It also provides a more consistent visual experience across platforms as the main option across all devices. It’s also very easy to use and navigate with.
Read our The Ultimate Guide to Building Your eCommerce Website
These are key reasons that your business website needs to be fully responsive to all forms of device, orientation and display size… but there is one more.
It’s all about the customer experience
By improving user experience (UX), visitors will want to stay on your site, purchase your products or services and visit again. If the customer experience (CX) is effective, your users will be engaged, happily enquire and purchase. This leads to repeat sales, positive reviews and glowing recommendations.
With the rapid change in purchasing behaviours and habits, across many different platforms in your buyer's journey you want your website and provide an experience for your customers that builds trust, informs and helps them to buy will ultimately result in bigger sales… more often.
The real advantage your business will have is providing a consistent responsive digital omnichannel experience to your customers which means a measurable return on your investment.
If you are ready to supercharge your website for 2021, we'd love to hear from you.
