By August 2012, the percentage of website hits from a handheld mobile device rose from 7.12 % to 11.78%. This clearly indicates the shift from using desktops to surf the web to smartphones and tablets being used a lot these days.
Web designers are beginning to pay more attention to mobile design, and which either involves creating a website purely for mobile users or an app, popularly known as responsive web design.
So, here are 3 benefits in taking the responsive web design approach:
#1: Minimal maintenance
With responsive web design, you will only need to maintain one website. Even if the layouts change when you access the site from different devices, the content remains the same. Better still, you can easily update content or fix bugs for all devices used to access the site.
The advantage: you don’t split your resources and time across different sites which have been created for different devices.
#2: Brand consistency
Since you will only use one website for all versions, this makes it easier to maintain brand consistency across all devices. One won’t have to hand out style guides to agencies for both the desktop and mobile version of your website. Also, the website looks just the same across all devices making it easy for people to also recognize the site as well.
#3: Usability
One attribute that stands out when it comes to using a web site that has been built using responsive web design is that it is very user-friendly. Since users are able to navigate the site easily across different devices, thanks to the site being consistent across these devices, it works as a big plus for designers to take this approach.