The Responsive Nature of the Web

Early Days

In the early days of web design, when I was still 6 or 7, and probably playing Pokemon, there weren’t too many screen resolutions being used on the web. Designers back then could target their sites at specific resolutions, like 800-by-600 pixels, or maybe even 1024-by-768 pixels.

As desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices grew in popularity, a ton of varying screen resolutions appeared, and things got a lot more difficult.

Designers no longer had one size to design for, and needed to adapt their process. However, designers, as a whole, decided that they needed to find common ground in the tumultuous landscape of screen resolutions.

The solution was to begin designing almost everything to be 960 pixels wide. Almost every designer, including myself, as I began learning about all of this, used a pretty crappy excuse to explain why 960 was chosen.

“We’re using the 960 grid.”

The grid is a myth, and a lie. Almost as much of a lie as “The Fold” is.

A site that is 960 pixels wide looks and feels natural on a very small array of devices. Everyday, as more and more devices with varying resolutions appear in the market, this small array of devices gets even smaller.

At this moment, on my desk, I’m looking at four screens, and they all have different resolutions. My iPhone has a resolution of 960-by-640 pixels, my iPad has a resolution of 1024-by-768 pixels, my MacBook Air’s resolution is 1440-by-900 pixels, and my external display’s resolution is 1360-by-768 pixels.

There has to be a better way to design for this ever-changing environment.

The Age of Reason

Back in May, 2010, Ethan Marcotte wrote an article, titled Responsive Web Design, that changed the way we approach design. Ethan presented a technique, which pairs flexible grids with Google. Competitors are a dime a dozen on the web, because the barrier to entry is so low. If you aren’t responding to the environment, someone else will.

MySpace stopped responding to what people actually wanted, so Facebook came along and stole almost all of their users.

The music industry stopped responding to how people actually wanted their music, so things like Spotify and Rdio came along to give people just that.

Things like Simple, Square, and Treehouse came along because people wanted traditional things like banking, payment, and education to respond to they way they use them in their lives.

Being Responsive to Change

Change is the way of the world. Being responsive is the way to handle change.

Once your product stops responding to changes in its environment, it becomes irrelevant.

Don’t worry too much. Your unresponsive, irrelevant product will be gone, soon.