Responsive web design refers to that approach of web designing in which web pages work equally well across a variety of devices and different screen sizes. With the number of users searching the net using mobile devices increasing by the day, responsive web design has become a necessity. Also, these mobile devices come in different screen sizes. As the name suggests, responsive web design is one which responds to the requirement of the user and the device they are using. The layout changes and adapts to the size and proficiency of the device.
Earlier responsive web development involved working separately for desktops and mobile devices. A lot of tools are now available which have made designing a responsive website a lot easier. Some of the tools of responsive website design as utilized by a Vancouver Web Design Company are discussed here.
Bootstrap
Developed by Jacob Thornton and Mark Otto, Bootstrap is an open source platform for developing websites with CSS and JS. Its responsive grid and prebuilt components allow developers to build websites that workthe great on latest mobiles devices and desktops. The customize feature lets you choose and pick different elements to make up a page.
Gridset
It allows web designers and developers to build and archetype responsive grid-based customized layouts for their websites. It enables you to make specific grids across any defined break points for a potent responsive design, thus ensuring that the content looks good any screen. It works with different content management systems like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. It is also compatible with graphics apps like Photoshop and Fireworks.
Wirefy
Wirefy is another great tool for creating responsive website development. Some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is required though. It is quite easy to construct creative wireframes without having to worry much about doing numerous calculations. It is a stream of amenable templates and snippets of HTML, that scale with the resizing of the browser through multiple devices.
Adaptive Images
The Adaptive Image tool automatically detects the visitors’ screen size and accordingly creates, caches and then delivers device fitting resized version of the embedded HTML images of the web page. It is meant to be used for responsive designs in combination with fluid image techniques. There is no need for any markup changes.
Invision
Communicating the design transition and the journeys between screens to the other members of the team has really been made simple by the Invision app. It facilitates the uploading of designs and constructing connections between users. One of its preeminent attributes is Its capability to transfer clickable designs, via SMS, to your phone. This emphasizes the value of testing the designs yourself.
Browerstack
With Browerstack, a mobile testing platform, developers can test their websites and mobile application across various on-demand operating systems, browsers and mobile applications. Without worrying about cost, time or maintenance overheads that is associated with testing, Browserstack allows developers to focus on building better products with great experiences. Developers can choose from over 1200, browsers, mobile devices and operating systems that support thousands of manual and automated tests.
Cross Browser Testing
Cross Browser Testing allows developers to test their web applications across several devices and browsers. It can perform interactive exploratory testing on 1500 various devices and browsers to ensure the application works perfectly on all the devices. Automatically takes screenshots across multiple browsers simultaneously to compare full page layout of the responsive design.
Ghostlab
With ghostlab any website can be tested on diverse browsers and mobile devices simultaneously. You can start testing by just dragging the URL into ghostlab and clicking the play button in any one of the connected browser or device. All other connected browsers and devices will simultaneously start performing the same action- clicking buttons, filling out forms, scrolling the page, following links, hovering the mouse over particular elements.
Am I Responsive
With Am I Responsive tool a quick screenshot can be taken on responsive design breakpoints. Enter your URL, click and drag on any device and you can rearrange and reorder all the devices. By using the Am I RWD bookmarklet, the responsiveness of any site can be checked by a single click on your own browser.
Adobe Edge Reflow
Edge Reflow is an application based on the visual layout of the web page instead of the code that makes it. With this tool, it is possible to visually develop a responsive web design. With Reflow developers can transform PSD files into CSS and HTML. Then, using the cutoff point in the Reflow, designs can be visually fine-tuned. Reflow is basically a graphic which can also be used to make structuring edits.
Adobe Edge Inspect
Adobe Edge Inspect is an application that helps developers sort out how a page would look on different devices and divergent screen sizes. The appearance of a web page on diverse devices can be previewed through a single device. There is no need to test it separately.
To sum up:
These are only some of the important tools of responsive web designing. There are quite a few more tools available that aid in designing a responsive website. It must be said that these tools have really made the job of website developers a lot easier.
