These are the slides from my talk "Adapting to a Responsive Design" I gave at Untangle The Web on 29th July 2013. The talk was adapted from my case study of the same name on Smashing Magazine: http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2013/06/18/adapting-to-a-responsive-design-case-study/ about cyber-duck.co.uk's responsive re-design.

1. Adapting to a
Responsive
Design
Matt Gibson / Cyber-Duck
@duckymatt / @cyberduck_uk
#untangletheweb

2. How do we define
responsive?

3. To react quickly
and positively.

4. Responsive web design
is a design approach that
aims to create interfaces
that react quickly and
positively to the user’s
conditions.

5. Flickr credit: @alui0000
People will access our websites in ways we
perhaps hadn’t even considered yet.

6. The previous state(s)
of our website
“Desktop” site
(2011)
“Tablet” site
(Later 2011)
*Not to scale :)
“Mobile” site
(2012)

7. Our separate mobile websites:
A stop-gap strategy

8. So why go
responsive?

9. 1. Multiple code bases
2. Content management
3. More and more new
devices and form factors

10. You don't get to decide
which device people use
to access your website.
Karen McGrane
http://bondartscience.com/

12. Setting goals for
a RWD...

13. 1. Content Parity
Credit: http://wtfmobileweb.com/
The same content and functionality should be on all platforms.

14. 2. Speed
Flickr credit: @myoldpostcards
Performance affects everyone.

15. 3. Future friendly
Credit: http://futurefriend.ly/
Cut down on maintenance and support known unknowns
#ffly

16. 4. Accessibility
Credit: http://futurefriend.ly/
Styles, backgrounds and JavaScript
are progressive enhancements

17. 1. Content Parity

18. RWD means
assuming less
about our users

19. Begin by defining the content
people visit your website for.
http://xkcd.com/773/

20. Researching our content strategy
Speaking to existing customers
Google Analytics
CrazyEgg
Lead Forensics

21. Defining the content first

22. Our content defines the
layouts we need.
Not the other way around.

23. 2. Speed

25. Does responsive =
poor performance?
Credit: Guy Podjarny - Creator of Mobitest: http://www.guypo.com/mobile/what-are-responsive-websites-made-of/

26. To react quickly
and positively.

27. It’s easy to confuse
implementation with
technique.

28. Making performance a
priority.
We set ourselves a performance budget of 500kb for mobile.

29. To load the Facebook,Twitter and Google
social media buttons for a total of 19
requests takes 246.7 KB in bandwidth.
http://zurb.com/article/883/small-painful-buttons-why-social-media-bu

30. Off the shelf
front-end frameworks
The next big thing TM

31. Flickr credit: @donshall
They try to do everything.

32. They make design decisions for you.
Flickr credit: @jamesrbowe

33. Knowing your code from top to bottom is
essential to have total control over it.
Using frameworks doesn’t help with that.

34. https://github.com/Cyber-Duck/hoisin.scss
We created a mini-library that
doesn’t include any predefined
styling for layout / grid, buttons,
typography etc.

35. Did we need CMS
software to manage
our content?
No CMS Software ≠ No CMS

36. For most projects
the answer would
be yes.
For our own website it was no (apart from our blog).

37. Only loading
what we need
when we need it.

38. Javascript
CSS
Images

40. 3. Future friendliness

41. The web doesn’t
have a fixed width.

42. We should embrace the fact that
the web doesn’t have the same
constraints [as the printed page]
and design for this flexibility.
John Allsopp, A Dao of Web Design
http://alistapart.com/article/dao

43. Layout & flow
Breakpoints based on content and design, rather than device

44. Designing for context

45. The right code for the right task
Leave styling to CSS and
use JS only to change
the “state” of an element.

46. Animation as an enhancement
Using CSS3 for
animations enhances the
experience for browsers
that support it, while
older browsers still get
the functionality if not
the eye candy.

47. 4. Accessibility

48. 6 quick wins for
accessibility

49. 1. Make the purpose of all
links as clear and
descriptive as possible
Avoid link anchors that presume the interaction method like “click here”

50. 2. Create a hidden skip
navigation link

51. 3. Make URLs human
readable and permanent
where possible.
Is this human readable?
http://art.com/artgallery/default.asp?
sid=9DF4BC0580DF11D3ACB60090271E26A8
&command=freelist.

52. 4. Use descriptive alt tags
for when an image
cannot be shown.

53. 5. Don’t use placeholders
as an alternative for
labels on forms.

54. 6. Use appropriate input
types and attributes on
forms.

55. The results?

56. Since launch:
200%increase in
mobile traffic
2.07%increase in
conversion rate
-4000%reduction in homepage
exit rate on mobile

57. Our conclusion
We are still learning.
There is more to do to make
our websites faster, more
future friendly, more
accessible.
AKA more responsive.

58. Thank you.
Matt Gibson / Cyber-Duck
@duckymatt / @cyberduck_uk
#untangletheweb