3 Responsive Design Disasters That You Should Avoid

One thing is crystal clear in this digital era, and it is that responsive web design has become the most crucial thing when it comes to websites. As a matter of fact, most of the users expect a smooth experience no matter the type of device they are using. 

But, still, many web design companies make several responsive design disasters. Some of those issues are mobile-first design, slow page loading and non-existent touchscreen-friendly navigation. In this blog post, you’ll get to learn about all of these responsive design disasters. So, let’s get going with the first one!

1. Ignoring Mobile-First Design

This usually happens when layouts are planned for desktops instead of mobile phones, and then they are compressed for smaller viewports. Due to this, there’s an excess of CSS, hidden elements, and overrides as well. When you reverse the sequence, it’ll streamline the information hierarchy along with the performance. 

Some of the reasons why it is a big mistake are as follows:-

• Reconfiguring for small screens might cause complexity, specificity issues and visual variations. 
• The most basic user journeys, such as search and form submissions, can see a downgrade on mobile phones, and that’s where a majority of the traffic originates from. 
• This mistake can cause poor mobile UX, which can impact visibility and conversions. 

How can you avoid this mistake?

• The first thing that you need to do is to design from small to large, which is mobile-first CSS. You can begin with a single-column that has an essentials-only layout. It should add breakpoints only when there’s a need for extra space. This will help you maintain and predict the CSS appropriately. 
• Have a robust content hierarchy. For this purpose, you need to specify what is visible at 360-400px. It includes copy limits, image ratios, and CTAs as well. Just by having relevant constraints early on, you can prevent truncation and wrapping that might happen later on. 
• You should test on physical devices from the beginning. To do this, you can validate readability, tap flow, and latency on the mobile phone versions that your target audience is using. 

2. Slow Performance and Large Media

If you rely on a particular viewport or just a few presets, then there’s a chance that you might overlook real usage patterns. In fact, the layouts which might appear stable at 1440px are more than likely to fail at intermediate widths. 

The reasons why it is a big mistake are as follows:-

• Tweener widths such as 768-820 px can expose header and card collapse challenges. 
• Engine differences can affect sticky positioning and input behaviour as well. 
• Orientation changes and virtual keyboards can help break out the layout. 

How can you avoid this mistake?

• You can craft a device-browser validation matrix. To do this, you can cover the most important widths across different browsers. Alongside this, you should also confirm the most important flows against it. 
• Scale continuous regression testing by using CI snapshots and visual differences. It can be done for high-value pages so as to know about the breakage when CSS changes at some other place. 
• Test out the real interactions by rotating to landscape or zooming significantly. Some other approaches can be to use the on-screen keyboards or utilize split-screen on tablets. With the help of these checks, you’ll get to learn about the overflow issues and focus-trap bugs, which the static previews will surely miss. 

3. Ignoring Touchscreen-Friendly Navigation

The more high-quality images and videos there are, the more constraints there will be on mobile phones when loading them. In fact, poorly optimized media can negatively impact the milestones, along with the first impressions. 

The reasons why it is a big mistake are as follows:-

• Heavy media can impact the Largest Contentful Paint(LCP), and the users can also bounce off the page due to it. 
• When you serve desktop-sized images to mobile phones, it can waste a huge amount of bandwidth and battery. 
• Just missing the width/height or aspect-ratio can cause a layout shift when the assets are loading. 

How can you avoid this mistake?

• Opt for the right-size with contemporary formats. You should export multiple widths and serve with the help of distinct sizes. Furthermore, prefer AVIF/WebP by using PNG/JPEG fallbacks so as to reduce the transfer without having an impact on the clarity. 
• Leveraging lazy-loading for media that isn’t very important. You can use lazy loading and save a considerable amount of space with the aspect-ratio property. Another approach is to use placeholders so as to ensure that CLS doesn’t happen. Alongside this, deprioritize unimportant video and third-party widgets. 
• Utilize SVG for distinct UI elements. SVGs can help you scale crisply, no matter the resolution, and can also support easy theming by using CSS. You can also use inline small SVGs to get rid of the extra HTTP requests. 

Wrapping Up

Just by avoiding the above-mentioned web design mistakes, you will create a seamless experience for your target audience. The ways to fix these responsive design disasters can help the users stay engaged and also improve the website performance in the search engine results page. All you need to do is audit your website and find out the areas which can be fixed and then refine them. With this approach, you will be able to save a huge amount of effort later on while providing your user base with a website which is relatable and reliable.