Responsiveness in User Interface(UI) Design
What is a Responsive User Interface Design?
Responsive design is a user interface (UI) design approach used to create content that adjusts to various screen sizes. Designers ensure their designs are responsive so their designs can automatically adapt to the browser space to ensure content consistency across devices.
Why Responsive User Interface (UI) Design is so Popular
Responsive UI design allows your design to flow freely across all screen resolutions and sizes, and renders it to look great on all devices. It makes it unnecessary to maintain different versions of your website and create a great user experience for users who surf the internet with their mobile phones and desktop devices.
“Web design is responsive design. Responsive web design is web design, done right.”
— Andy Clarke, creative director, product & website designer
Andy Clarke ( a product and web designer) had this to say about responsive UI design. A non-responsive is considered a bad design as it leaves users with only one option (either mobile device or desktop device) when surfing your website.
Breakpoint in Responsive UI Design
Designers must identify these breakpoints and optimize layouts to match multiple devices during the UI design process. In most cases, designers only have to consider three viewports:
- Smartphone/mobile
- Tablet
- Desktop/laptop
But, for a website to be fully responsive, designers should also consider both portrait and landscape layouts for mobile and tablet for a total of five breakpoints:
- Smartphone/mobile–portrait
- Smartphone/mobile–landscape
- Tablet–portrait
- Tablet–landscape
- Desktop
Best Practice & Considerations for Responsive Design
As a UX designer, i’ve been taught and i believe these are some of the best practices for designers to follow when designing user interfaces.
- Design component to be Responsive: Designing components to be responsive in UI design deploys the use of auto-layout (in Figma) when designing UI components ( buttons, cards, text e.t.c). This way it makes it faster and easier for designers to creates a mobile/desktop/tab view of a design without having to redesign components over and over again
- Design for 3 or more breakpoints: Designing for 3 or more breakpoints (mobile phones, tablet, desktop devices) makes it easier for the developer to implement you design without having issues.
- Aim for Minimalism: Minimalism is about eliminating excess and strategically placing the remaining elements. The result can be a simple but powerful design, which is simplified to convey your message.
Benefits of Responsive UI Design
- Improved browsing experience: First impressions are everything, so whether someone is visiting a website for the first time from their desktop or their smartphone, you want them to have a consistently positive experience.
- More Mobile Traffic: According to a report from SimilarWeb, more than half of traffic to top websites in the U.S. came from mobile devices in 2015. It’s important for companies to have websites that render properly on smaller screens so that users don’t encounter distorted images or experience a sub-optimal site layout. Although some businesses still choose to have a separate version of their website for mobile users, responsive design is becoming the norm because it offers greater versatility at lower development costs.
In conclusion, responsiveness in design gives users a seamlessly good experience and give them a good feeling about your company/brand which in turn generates good revenue for the company which is the sole reason for creating a website in the first instance.
