1. Responsive Web Design: The View
of the World Depends on the
Glasses I Wear
Paul Laberge
Technical Evangelist
Microsoft Canada
@plaberge
paul.laberge@microsoft.com

2. How we viewed the web…
• The Desktop Browser

3. How we view the web today…
• The Desktop Browser
• Mobile Browsers
• Tablet form-factors
• Televisions
• Game Consoles
• More…
• Yeah, so what’s the problem?

4. demo
The Anti-Pattern

6. Responsive Web Design
• Thinking of the user’s needs instead of ours.
• Adapt to various device capabilities instead of
configurations.
• Help future-proof our sites.

7. demo
Responsive Web Designs

8. Elements of Responsive Web Design
• A flexible, grid-based layout,
• Flexible images and media, and
• Media queries.
• Something else.

9. Flexible, Grid-based Layout

10. Ok, so what’s the problem?
• Non-responsive sites are no fun.
• Fixed-width sites are not the best experiences.
• Design tools tend to use pixels.
• Sometimes a pixel does not equal a pixel.
• So how do we turn pixels to their em
counterparts?

11. Pixels to Ems Algorithm

13. Responsive Web Design READ MORE >>
h1 { h1 {
em font-size: 24px; 24 / 16 = 1.5 font-size: 1.5em;
} }
h1 a { 11 / 24 = h1 a {
% font-size: 24px; 0.458333333+ font: 0.458333333+;
} }
1 2 3

14. Didn’t You Say Something About a Grid?

15. Flexible Images and Media

16. A Simple Solution
Works on images, as well as other media like <video>.

17. Another Possibility
Filament Group – depends on cookies and JavaScript

18. Media Queries

19. Not so long ago…
• We could define media types: screen and print.
• But not easily respond to the user’s display.
• Lots of grunt work.
• Didn’t spend much time thinking about mobile
devices.

20. CSS3 Media Queries
• The CSS3 Media Queries Module specifies
methods to enable web developers to scope a
style sheet to a set of precise device capabilities.

21. Simple Example
@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {
body {
font-size: 80%;
}
}

22. Other Queries
@media screen and (min-width:320px) and (max-
width:480px)
@media not print and (max-width:600px)
@media screen (x) and (y), print (a) and (b)

23. Can be declared…
In the Stylesheet
Import Rule
@import url(mq.css) only screen and (max-
width:600px)
link Element
<link rel=“stylesheet” media=“only screen and
(max-width:800px)” href=“mq.css”>

24. Supported Media Properties
• min/max-width • color
• min/max-height • color-index
• device-width • monochrome
• device-height • resolution
• orientation
• aspect-ratio
• device-aspect-ratio

25. demo
Little Pea Bakery

26. What About Devices?
• viewport meta tag
• <meta name=“viewport”
content=“width=device-width”>
• device-width vs. width
• maximum-zoom

27. What about non-supportive browsers?
• css3-mediaqueries-js by Wouter van der Graaf
• Just include the script in your pages
• Parses the CSS and applies style for positive media
tests

33. Hey, what was that 4th thing?
• Design.
• Do we start with mobile-first?
• Is it best that all sites are responsive?
• Do we need or want to do visual comps for every
device?
• Don’t dismiss mobile as walking and looking something
up.
• We are at the beginning, that’s what makes this
interesting!

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36. Q&A

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The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should
not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
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