Responsive design in the social space

Responsive design is something I've been really interested in for a while now. It has it's champions and detractors, I spoke in February at Social Media Week London on it, and even since then the sands have shifted. What I've tried to do here is give a high-level run through of the approach and where it's headed.

Thinking back to how people used the web 10 years ago, people would make a conscious decision to sit in front of a desk/laptop and surf the net. Now, with the proliferation of different platforms, the net has become so much more accessible and part of our daily lives.

Now people are accessing the net across platforms as varied as mobile, tablet, and now the Kindle Fire too. This means that a company that doesn't have a solution that optimises their site for these platforms is losing out on potential customers. It doesn't need backing up with figures any more, if you don't have a site that is at least optimised for mobile, you need one - now!

For companies that use social platforms as part of their marketing strategy, being aware of 'mocial' is key - the using of social platforms on mobiles. The figures speak for themselves:

Having a site optimised for this market is crucial, and the figures are set to only increase into 2012.

So, what is responsive design and how does this help address the issue?

“A method of designing and developing websites to cater specifically to the medium they’re being delivered to”

Generally, responsive design scales to fit three main platforms: desktop, tablet and mobile.


As the platforms screen size reduces down from a desktop, so does the design. The flagship, and first main site to be designed responsively by the godfather of responsive, Ethan Marcotte, was the Boston Globe's site. Here's a quick snapshot of how the content and images reduce down across the three main platform sizes:

When seeding links across social platforms, to provide a link to a site that isn't optimised for mobile is a major fail. Be it an offer, a link to an article, any call to action that takes a mobile user to a site not set up for the user should be addressed.

The other options when targeting content at mobile users are dedicated mobile templates, or even an app. They offer, from an accessibility and experience-rich angle, a better solution, albeit often more expensive in development.

So, which solution is right for you? Well, it depends. You need to know what your audience wants, what content you need to surface, what the journey is. Play that off against the business benefit angle, and you should be able to make the right decision.

That is now, but it is important to keep one eye on the future. As we see increasingly faster phones and the advent of HTML5, it is arguable that we are heading towards an app-like experience available in the browser.

Then there's the proliferation of platforms to consider, with social TV setting up to be one of the major tech breakthroughs of 2012...