Here's the slides for a presentation I gave on responsive web design in November 2011.
...
Here's the slides for a presentation I gave on responsive web design in November 2011.
Responsive web design is a very powerful idea: it makes your website look great and usable on desktop computers and all mobile devices. In this presentation I talk about why responsive web design is here to stay. But I also highlight problems that come with it, along with possible solutions.
kinetica01Hey Thomas, really like the pres as you offered a few more insights as some of the other slideshows I've seen in here. We created a blog dedicated to everything www.responsivewebdesignblog.com if you want to check it out . Again, thanks for the great content with this slideshare!8 months ago
RESPONSIVE WEBDESIGN FRONTEERS / MECHELEN / NOV 2011 These slides are the blueprint of a presentation I did at Fronteers recently.I tried to make them understandable to people that didn’t attend the presentation by including these dull looking quick notes.
THOMAS MOM CALLED ME BYTTEBIER IS HOW MY
my brother is the cute one
as a kid, I wanted to be Maradona
picture says it all
NOW I WORK AS A FREELANCEWEBDESIGNER FOCUS ON DESIGN
I realize that looks like quite a fail to the public, but I enjoy doing it
I tweet about all things design and web, follow me @bytte
my old-school website is at thomasbyttebier.com
RESPONSIVE WEBDESIGNPROBLEMS / SEMI-SOLUTIONS / OWN EXPERIENCES here’s what I talked about and what these slides are about
here’s a responsive website I made in 2010: sleepstreet.be
this one I did early 2011
I went to Build a few weeks ago
with a few Belgian freelancers photo by Jelle Desramaults
I was lucky to see Wilson Miner speak at Build
if you don’t know Wilson Miner: he designed this pretty famous website
he talked about how few products had such in impact in our lives as the car in the 20th century
it even drastically changed our environment
at the end of the 20th century the pc was another product that dramatically changed our lives
here’s an office anno 1962
that one is replaced by a hard drive
that one is in the cloud now
type writers are now called Microsoft Word
and sadly she’s replaced by a computer as well
leaving only this boring mofo
mobile is having a huge impact in our lives right now
everywhere
everyone
this dude even sleeps with his phone
there will be 7 billion connected phones in about 3 months from now
SEVENBILLION FUCKING
last year I went to Indonesia
poor but beautiful country
one of the Indonesian sulfur miners that risk their lives every day just to eek out a living
here’s the Ijen Crater full of poisonous smoke, see the sulfur down there?
this guy goes up and down the crater a few times a day carrying many kilos of sulfur on his shoulders
here’s a few more sulfur miners, they likely won’t live long as their lungs are poisened with sulfur
even these really poor people carry a phone, they get to know the internet through cheap mobile devices
the question is: how can we deliver a great experience to these 7 billion people?
first thought: we need an app! hipness!
oh and one for Android too!
and Windows phones
and let’s not discriminate the Blackberry people
hard + expensive to maintain, and frankly kind of silly to have an app mirroring your website
second thought: let’s make a mobile version of our website, it’ll work on all devices!
some good thinking there, but it’s still two versions...
“90% of all websites are too simpleto justify the time and money ittakes to develop a separate mobileversion.” — COMMON SENSE THINKER it’s hard to argue with that
one guy sat down and thought really hard
he wrote this article on A List Apart about responsive webdesign (Ethan Marcotte)
awesome idea: one website that adapts, looks and works great on all devices!
HTMLSTRUCTURE CSSLAYOUT based on simple principles we all know and stand behind
simple, but great results emerged from it simple, but end products are great
meacuppa.be by chilli.be
antarcticstation.org by jérôme coupé
jobat.be, not sure who made this
lalemant.com by gorilla-webdesign.com
handelsbeurs.be by netlash.be
wolfslittlestore.be, freelance web designer
trentwalton.com
thisismadebyhand.com by Mandy Brown & Candi Ligutan
Ethan Marcotte, Scott Jehl ea. a new trend setter: bostonglobe.com by Ethan Marcotte, Scott Jehl and others
this is charles darwin
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — CHARLES DARWINwe all agree that the best design is to be found in nature and nature is full of responsive design
everyone knows this animal and how it responds to mood changes
this little spider turns yellow when it’s on yellow flowers...
...and white when it’s on white flowers—invisible to predators and insects
Source: webecoist.comthis octopus scares predators by mimicking the color and shape of its predators’ predators
responsive design may be hip at the moment, it’s based on a proven design principle and it’s here to stay
HOWCOMPONENTS IT WORKS 2
%1—fully based on fluid web design
which is logical: this way it kind of automatically fits all screens
“don’t get me started on fluid web design”
it’s so nineties and is ugly from a certain viewport size onwards
CSS MEDIA QUERIES 2—meet css media queries
<link rel="stylesheet"href="print.css"media="print" /> nothing new: we all have used this media query for ages
<link rel="stylesheet"href="layout.css"media="screen and (min-width:400px)" />@media (min-width:400px) { } this one’s different: as soon as the browser viewport reaches 400 px, use this stylesheet
that’s awesomeness: load different styles as soon as the fluid layout becomes unreadable or just ugly
here’s a simple example: looking good at 1024x768
but as it’s designed fluidly, the text becomes unreadable at larger viewports
thanks to css media queries, we can change the layout at larger screen sizes: text is readable again
similar for smaller screens: default website scaling makes our initial design unreadable
all hail to media queries: this is a readable and usable layout
of course it works on other devices too
even this strange tablet
320 480 768 1024most responsive designers use media queries to change layout at common sizes, but that’s no necessity
GREATNESS! responsive web design is great, don’t you agree?
CSS MEDIA QUERIES...WORKS IN ALL BROWSERS? but does it work in all browsers?
no
not in older versions of internet explorer, but that’s ok, right?
1. Write CSS for desktop browsers— the way you always did. 2. Use media queries to optimize for smaller mobile screens. SPOILER: DON’T DO IT THIS WAY!using this workflow, older IE’s will always show the desktop version, which is ok as they’re used on desktops
but we need to dig deeper for better mobile browser stats
here’s a more detailed table representing media query support for all common mobile browsers
you know, not all of us browse the web using the latest and hippest mobile devices
there’s lots of older, popular and less capable devices around that don’t support media queries
1. Write CSS for desktop browsers— the way you always did.2. Use media queries to optimize for smaller mobile screens. using this workflow means these devices won’t show our mobile layout. argh.
friends who can’t afford a desktop computer or expensive mobile phones will have a bad mobile experience
and frankly: there’s lots of them—developing countries get to know the internet through mobile devices
Brian Riegermake sure to check out Brian Rieger’s presentation on that matter, it’s on Slideshare
DAMN
NOW WHAT?
here’s the solution!
dude even wrote a book about it
HUH? what’s mobile first?
1. Start with a fluid mobile layout.2. Use media queries to optimize for bigger screens. this is a mobile first approach: all devices are served a mobile layout at first
meaning even devices that don’t support media queries will display the mobile version of your website!
YAY!
most desktop browsers understand media queries so they’ll serve the desktop layout
but what about older internet explorer versions?
NOT GREAT, YET NOT CRAZY BROKENthe layout will be broken but the content will still be readable
unless you use javascript solutions such as respond.js, forcing older ie versions to interpret media queries!
meaning as good as all desktop browsers will show your desktop layout! greatness!
“Mobile first forces you to focus.” — LUKE WROBLEWSKI the book dude there’s even more advantages to a mobile first approach
websites tend to get stuffed with mostly irrelevant information nowadays
thinking about mobile first forces you to focus: there’s less screen real estate to abuse, so relevance first
the design community picked this up earlier with great results
thinking mobile first is an excellent exercise in design, usability and information architecture
pretty obvious, right?
A MOBILE FIRST APPROACH LEADS TOLESS & CLEANER CSS another advantage of mobile first, at least in my experience
about a year ago I designed sleepstreet.be using a desktop first approach
/* CSS for desktop version */@media(min-width:320px) and(max-width:380px) { /* make it white & 1 column */ }@media(min-width:381px) and(max-width:480px) { /* make it white & 2 columns */ }@media(min-width:481px) and(max-width:800px) { /* make it black & 2 columns */ }/* all the way up... */DON’T DO IT THIS WAY! it led to cluttered, repeated, less-readable and hard-to-maintain CSS code
a few months ago I worked on madebywolf.com, using a mobile first approach
/* CSS for mobile version */@media(min-width:400px) { /* from now on white & 2 columns */ }@media(min-width:800px) { /* from now on 3 columns */ }@media(max-width:1100px) { /* from now on black & 4 columns */ }/* all the way up... */ the CSS is much cleaner, easier to read, easier to maintain and there’s just less code
HOW CAN WE MAKERESPONSIVE IMAGES one problem solved, but here’s another one
Use desktop-sized images in yourmobile first design & scale down usingCSS.SPOILER: DON’T DO IT THIS WAY! the solution’s easy at first thought
img { width:100%; }here’s a 600px wide image scaled down using CSS to a more appropriate mobile size
They look great on the desktop version of your website too. that’s a plus!
But their filesize looks great on themobile version of your website too. 200kb for a 300px wide photo! that’s a minus!
“If I hadn’t used media queries, theuser would have seen the desktopwebsite with desktop-sized imagesanyway.” — UNCARING WEB DESIGNER there’s truth in that
but bandwidth is expensive
and connections are slow
and if we don’t care, who will?
Use desktop-sized images in yourmobile first design & scale down usingCSS. have a heart: we just can’t do it this way
there’s many possible solutions yet not one is ideal
2if I were you, designing a responsive website, I’d have a look at at least two of them
first one is the one Jason Grigsby is going to write about in his upcoming book on responsive web design
Jason looked at all solutions & made a choice based on a number of factors, most noteably future friendliness
he chooses the sencha.io technique and it’s based on device detection. hmmmm....
“How strange it is to think of devicedetection as the most futurefriendly technique for responsiveimages? I find it hard to argue withthe logic.” — JASON GRIGSBY make sure to read Jason’s blog posts on the topic at cloudfour.com
“At least that’s how I see it for thebook. For your project and usecase, it depends.” — JASON GRIGSBY as always: make a deliberate choice, because, well, it depends on all kinds of factors
here’s another interesting technique
I’ve used it on sleepstreet.be, it works and I’m more than ok with it
it’s also used—in a modified way as I understand—on bostonglobe.com
<img src=”small.jpg?full=large.jpg” /> here’s how it works, pretty easy huh?
small.jpg large.jpgusing javascript and url rewrites the appropriate image is served to the appropriate device
small.jpg large.jpgan advantage: as the technique requires 2 images, you can create more detailed images for smaller devices
small.jpg large.jpgit’s written mobile first and browsers that don’t support javascript will only download the small image
older ie’s (6 & 7) will download both images, but I can live with that
SCALABLE VECTOR GRAPHICS let’s talk svg
No pixels.Always crisp at all sizes.Extremely small file sizes.Scalable in every fucking way.Pretty epic. the best invention since sliced bread
I’ve used svg for the sleepstreet logo
here’s the logo, designed by Ward Heirwegh
it’s used proportionally on small screen devices
but scaling it up proportionally on larger screens would render the logo quite big
and it would result in a huge logo on desktop computers (clients would have loved it :)
then again I could’ve used it proportionally but I didn’t like the extra whitespace
as it’s svg I could use javascript to reposition anchor points based on screen width (thanks @christaanvdp)
resulting in the side banners expanding/contracting as the browser window scales
an improvement if you ask me
So why is not everyone using svg? if svg is so great, why is not everyone using it all the time?
frankly: it’s a pain in the ass to implement in a cross-browser fashion
there’s a solution: raphaël is a cross-browser solution I used to implement the svg logo
but it required me to redraw the logo using javascript. and that’s not how you want to spend your day.
but the future is bright! @joggink is working on a solution called willistrator (no joke!)
VIDEOresponsive video will kill the video star
I’ve used responsive video on madebywolf.com
.video { width: 100%;} OK NOT OK! you can’t use the same css you’d use for scaling images
but smart people have written good articles about the matter, such as Thierry Koblentz on a list apart
another great article about responsive video, by Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com
video { width: 100%; height: auto;}basically this is all you have to do if you want responsive video using the html5 video tag
but if you depend on external video hosting services you may need to support different embedding solutions
fitvids.js takes care of that: it makes video scale responsively with embed, object, iframe tags...
DATA TABLESwe’re almost done... let’s look at data tables
spoiler: not easy, if you have a site that depends heavily on data tables, better close your browser window
“Data tables don’t do so well withresponsive design. Just sayin’.” — GARRETT DIMON excellent tweet, couldn’t have said it any better
Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com came up with a possible solution
Chris takes this table...
...and turns it to this on mobile: it’s ok, but not ideal for many reasons...
eg. there’s no way to easily compare rows
Scott Jehl took this data table...
...and made a pie chart of it on mobile! great but works only with numerical data of course
DESIGNI wrapped up my presentation sharing some thoughts about designing responsively
basically it came down to this: less than ever we have a fixed canvas to design in
there’s no right tools for the job
I can’t design in the browser, it’s no design tool whatsoever—still need to find a better workflow
fact is: fluid grids grow more and more important
web design & typography is moving away from print design more than ever (great poster by Wim Crouwel)
THANKS FOR LISTENINGTALK TO ME ON TWITTER: @BYTTE
Thanks to these people for sharing their photos with a creative commons license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashakimel/6189771935/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/strebkr/3151902438/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/julietbanana/4733245476/sizes/z/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadianveggie/167924582/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3568718036/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/missningyou/2679843655/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwanja/3169449999/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/crfullmoon/22195292/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/42244964@N03/4325982802/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/frak_tal/2455855855/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dinoowww/4557829098/sizes/z/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentclark/4720549350/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanneorla/1439963888/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ter-burg/1405605889/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/spyker3292/3721376470/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/soylentgreen23/491093601/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/6209676842/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/extraketchup/459020985 http://www.flickr.com/photos/torek/2266105751 http://www.flickr.com/photos/smokingpermitted/2052869864/
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Luis Baez
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