The reason you could be losing customers

Have you ever tried to access a site on your phone, which you know works perfectly well on your computer, but for some reason, when you try to access the same site on your phone, the headings are missing, the images are all over the place and the loading speed has become archaic?

You would think that with the all-time high pace technology is currently developing, that all websites should be responsive by now, especially since the stats clearly show that more than 55.31% of users worldwide are accessing the Internet via their mobile phones:

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Responsive to what?

In short, and according to our in-house developer at Pathfind Media, Joel Meintjies:

‘Responsive design is the ability of your website to function across different screen sizes’.

A bit more of a technical definition:

‘Responsive design is a graphic user interface (GUI) design approach used to create content that adjusts smoothly to various screen sizes. Designers size elements in relative units (%) and apply media queries, so their designs can automatically adapt to the browser space to ensure content consistency across devices.’

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This well-known graphic explains the concept excellently:

Given the previously quoted stats, don’t you think that all sites should have this capability?

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What are the pros and cons of responsive design?

For the customer, design responsiveness means quick and easy access to any product or service, at any time, in any place of the world (which in turn benefits businesses with increased turnovers).

Sounds like a win-win for everyone, doesn’t it? Let’s have a look at the pros and cons:

Pros

• Allows uniformity and seamlessness
• Many CMS/frameworks are available for it (e.g. WordPress and Webflow)
• Relatively easy to implement (by a professional)
• SEO friendly
• Promotes simplicity/minimalism in design

Cons

• ‍Less control over design’s screen sizes
• ‍Elements can shift on their own
• Problems with advertisement formats
• Typically, longer load times on mobile devices
• More complicated front-end code required to create
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Whilst responsive design is relatively simple to implement if it’s standard practice, all the code has to be trimmed in a way that does not ‘disturb’ any of the other code, and although web designers do everything in their available technological power to cater for the most popular screen sizes, there is just no foolproof guarantee that elements won’t shift on certain screen sizes, or that load times won’t be longer (especially if a user is using mobile data as opposed to Wi-Fi) or that the layout and responsiveness of images can be as precise as the Queen of England’s daily tea time.Of course, ANYTHING is possible with custom code and design, with the caveat that it will require more development hours (read higher development costs).
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Adapt or die

Take this free test to ensure that your site is design responsive or contact us to help you make a seamless transition and give your website the boost it needs!