Two must-have books for Responsive designer

Creating a few media queries to optimise a layout for small screens is not a big deal. Sorry, but pinch to zoom an unoptimised site is a horrible experience.

That said, the responsive, no px, zelots are pretty annoying. The obsession with fluid layouts means that line lengths and padding tends to look ugly at most screen sizes! RD is driven by developers not designers and it shows. Content breakpoints to hit common screen sizes gives the designer control and still ensures the site fits great everywhere (worst case you just have a little more padding left and right).

Of course if you have fixed widths in your layout you are hounded off the internet

Quote from: g5604 at Feb 01, 2013, 03:14 AM

Sorry, but pinch to zoom an unoptimised site is a horrible experience.

Depends entirely on content, page layout and the device, IMO. If it's mostly text, not usually difficult at all on today's larger-screen phones, and that's where fixed width shines--at least the experience is identical across devices. Look, I'm not advocating pinch/zoom or fixed widths, merely pointing out that non-responsive sites aren't as dire as some folks would have us believe. And many websites, particularly those of smaller nonprofit or community service organizations, whose older-but-still-adequate websites provide basic information, don't have the financial resources to chase the latest trends. Much of the decision comes down to analytics and ROI: how many of your visitors are viewing from mobile devices? Once it approaches a certain number (some say about 30%, others less), then it's probably time to consider going responsive.

Quote from: sottwell at Jan 31, 2013, 11:26 PM

For example http://chamomile.sottwell.modxcloud.com (still under development, of course) is based on a free template and is quite nice at any size.

Looks nice on my computer, but scrunches on my Android galaxy nexus (5.33" x 2.67") in portrait, the cart button eclipses your title in both portrait and landscape, and had to pinch/zoom your quote in order to read it. Just saying....

As I said, it's still under development.

Quote from: g5604 at Feb 01, 2013, 03:14 AM

RD is driven by developers not designers and it shows. Content breakpoints to hit common screen sizes gives the designer control and still ensures the site fits great everywhere (worst case you just have a little more padding left and right).

Still the people pushing responsive design (at least in Europe) are designers. I mean look at what Mark Boulton is doing with his agency. And Andy Clarke. Just to name a few.

I personally don't like the current separation between designer and developer because developers design too. Design isn't just the visuals. For example I have poor visual skills but I design with code.