Responsive web design

Here's the slides for a presentation I gave on responsive web design in November 2011.

Responsive web design is a very powerful idea: it makes your website look great and usable on desktop computers and all mobile devices. In this presentation I talk about why responsive web design is here to stay. But I also highlight problems that come with it, along with possible solutions.

Transcript

1. RESPONSIVE WEBDESIGN FRONTEERS / MECHELEN / NOV 2011 These slides are the blueprint of a presentation I did at Fronteers recently. I tried to make them understandable to people that didn’t attend the presentation by including these dull looking quick notes.
2. THOMAS BYTTEBIER IS HOW MY MOM CALLED ME
3. my brother is the cute one
4. as a kid, I wanted to be Maradona
5. picture says it all
6. FREELANCE WEBDESIGNER NOW I WORK AS A FOCUS ON DESIGN
7. I realize that looks like quite a fail to the public, but I enjoy doing it
8. I tweet about all things design and web, follow me @bytte
9. my old-school website is at thomasbyttebier.com
10. RESPONSIVE WEBDESIGN PROBLEMS / SEMI-SOLUTIONS / OWN EXPERIENCES here’s what I talked about and what these slides are about
11. here’s a responsive website I made in 2010: sleepstreet.be
12. this one I did early 2011
13. I went to Build a few weeks ago
14. with a few Belgian freelancers photo by Jelle Desramaults
15. I was lucky to see Wilson Miner speak at Build
16. if you don’t know Wilson Miner: he designed this pretty famous website
17. he talked about how few products had such in impact in our lives as the car in the 20th century
18. it even drastically changed our environment
19. at the end of the 20th century the pc was another product that dramatically changed our lives
20. here’s an office anno 1962
21. that one is replaced by a hard drive
22. that one is in the cloud now
23. type writers are now called Microsoft Word
24. and sadly she’s replaced by a computer as well
25. leaving only this boring mofo
26. mobile is having a huge impact in our lives right now
27. everywhere
28. everyone
29. this dude even sleeps with his phone
30. there will be 7 billion connected phones in about 3 months from now
31. SEVEN FUCKING BILLION
32. last year I went to Indonesia
33. poor but beautiful country
34. one of the Indonesian sulfur miners that risk their lives every day just to eek out a living
35. here’s the Ijen Crater full of poisonous smoke, see the sulfur down there?
36. this guy goes up and down the crater a few times a day carrying many kilos of sulfur on his shoulders
37. here’s a few more sulfur miners, they likely won’t live long as their lungs are poisened with sulfur
38. even these really poor people carry a phone, they get to know the internet through cheap mobile devices
39. the question is: how can we deliver a great experience to these 7 billion people?
40. first thought: we need an app! hipness!
41. oh and one for Android too!
42. and Windows phones
43. and let’s not discriminate the Blackberry people
44. hard + expensive to maintain, and frankly kind of silly to have an app mirroring your website
45. second thought: let’s make a mobile version of our website, it’ll work on all devices!
46. some good thinking there, but it’s still two versions...
47. “90% of all websites are too simple to justify the time and money it takes to develop a separate mobile version.” — COMMON SENSE THINKER it’s hard to argue with that
48. one guy sat down and thought really hard
49. he wrote this article on A List Apart about responsive webdesign (Ethan Marcotte)
50. awesome idea: one website that adapts, looks and works great on all devices!
51. HTML CSS STRUCTURE LAYOUT based on simple principles we all know and stand behind
52. simple, but end products are great simple, but great results emerged from it
53. meacuppa.be by chilli.be
54. antarcticstation.org by jérôme coupé
55. jobat.be, not sure who made this
56. lalemant.com by gorilla-webdesign.com
57. handelsbeurs.be by netlash.be
58. wolfslittlestore.be, freelance web designer
59. trentwalton.com
60. thisismadebyhand.com by Mandy Brown & Candi Ligutan
61. Ethan Marcotte, Scott Jehl ea. a new trend setter: bostonglobe.com by Ethan Marcotte, Scott Jehl and others
62. this is charles darwin
63. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — CHARLES DARWIN we all agree that the best design is to be found in nature and nature is full of responsive design
64. everyone knows this animal and how it responds to mood changes
65. this little spider turns yellow when it’s on yellow flowers...
66. ...and white when it’s on white flowers—invisible to predators and insects
67. this octopus scares predators by mimicking the color and shape of its predators’ predators Source: webecoist.com
68. responsive design may be hip at the moment, it’s based on a proven design principle and it’s here to stay
69. HOW IT WORKS 2 COMPONENTS
70. % 1—fully based on fluid web design
71. which is logical: this way it kind of automatically fits all screens
72. “don’t get me started on fluid web design”
73. it’s so nineties and is ugly from a certain viewport size onwards
74. CSS MEDIA QUERIES 2—meet css media queries
75. <link rel="stylesheet" href="print.css" media="print" /> nothing new: we all have used this media query for ages
76. <link rel="stylesheet" href="layout.css" media="screen and (min-width:400px)" /> @media (min-width:400px) { } this one’s different: as soon as the browser viewport reaches 400 px, use this stylesheet
77. that’s awesomeness: load different styles as soon as the fluid layout becomes unreadable or just ugly
78. here’s a simple example: looking good at 1024x768
79. but as it’s designed fluidly, the text becomes unreadable at larger viewports
80. thanks to css media queries, we can change the layout at larger screen sizes: text is readable again
81. similar for smaller screens: default website scaling makes our initial design unreadable
82. all hail to media queries: this is a readable and usable layout
83. of course it works on other devices too
84. even this strange tablet
85. 320 480 768 1024 most responsive designers use media queries to change layout at common sizes, but that’s no necessity
86. GREATNESS! responsive web design is great, don’t you agree?
87. WORKS IN ALL BROWSERS? CSS MEDIA QUERIES... but does it work in all browsers?
88. no
89. not in older versions of internet explorer, but that’s ok, right?
90. 1. Write CSS for desktop browsers— the way you always did. 2. Use media queries to optimize for smaller mobile screens. SPOILER: DON’T DO IT THIS WAY! using this workflow, older IE’s will always show the desktop version, which is ok as they’re used on desktops
91. but we need to dig deeper for better mobile browser stats
92. here’s a more detailed table representing media query support for all common mobile browsers
93. you know, not all of us browse the web using the latest and hippest mobile devices
94. there’s lots of older, popular and less capable devices around that don’t support media queries
95. 1. Write CSS for desktop browsers— the way you always did. 2. Use media queries to optimize for smaller mobile screens. using this workflow means these devices won’t show our mobile layout. argh.
96. friends who can’t afford a desktop computer or expensive mobile phones will have a bad mobile experience
97. and frankly: there’s lots of them—developing countries get to know the internet through mobile devices
98. Brian Rieger make sure to check out Brian Rieger’s presentation on that matter, it’s on Slideshare
99. DAMN
100. NOW WHAT?
101. here’s the solution!
102. dude even wrote a book about it
103. HUH? what’s mobile first?
104. 1. Start with a fluid mobile layout. 2. Use media queries to optimize for bigger screens. this is a mobile first approach: all devices are served a mobile layout at first
105. meaning even devices that don’t support media queries will display the mobile version of your website!
106. YAY!
107. most desktop browsers understand media queries so they’ll serve the desktop layout
108. but what about older internet explorer versions?
109. NOT GREAT, YET NOT CRAZY BROKEN the layout will be broken but the content will still be readable
110. unless you use javascript solutions such as respond.js, forcing older ie versions to interpret media queries!
111. meaning as good as all desktop browsers will show your desktop layout! greatness!
112. “Mobile first forces you to focus.” — LUKE WROBLEWSKI the book dude there’s even more advantages to a mobile first approach
113. websites tend to get stuffed with mostly irrelevant information nowadays
114. thinking about mobile first forces you to focus: there’s less screen real estate to abuse, so relevance first
115. the design community picked this up earlier with great results
116. thinking mobile first is an excellent exercise in design, usability and information architecture
117. pretty obvious, right?
118. LESS & CLEANER CSS A MOBILE FIRST APPROACH LEADS TO another advantage of mobile first, at least in my experience
119. about a year ago I designed sleepstreet.be using a desktop first approach
120. /* CSS for desktop version */ @media (min-width:320px) and (max-width:380px) { /* make it white & 1 column */ } @media (min-width:381px) and (max-width:480px) { /* make it white & 2 columns */ } @media (min-width:481px) and (max-width:800px) { /* make it black & 2 columns */ } /* all the way up... */ DON’T DO IT THIS WAY! it led to cluttered, repeated, less-readable and hard-to-maintain CSS code
121. a few months ago I worked on madebywolf.com, using a mobile first approach
122. /* CSS for mobile version */ @media (min-width:400px) { /* from now on white & 2 columns */ } @media (min-width:800px) { /* from now on 3 columns */ } @media (max-width:1100px) { /* from now on black & 4 columns */ } /* all the way up... */ the CSS is much cleaner, easier to read, easier to maintain and there’s just less code
123. RESPONSIVE IMAGES HOW CAN WE MAKE one problem solved, but here’s another one
124. Use desktop-sized images in your mobile first design & scale down using CSS. SPOILER: DON’T DO IT THIS WAY! the solution’s easy at first thought
125. img { width:100%; } here’s a 600px wide image scaled down using CSS to a more appropriate mobile size
126. They look great on the desktop version of your website too. that’s a plus!
127. But their filesize looks great on the mobile version of your website too. 200kb for a 300px wide photo! that’s a minus!
128. “If I hadn’t used media queries, the user would have seen the desktop website with desktop-sized images anyway.” — UNCARING WEB DESIGNER there’s truth in that
129. but bandwidth is expensive
130. and connections are slow
131. and if we don’t care, who will?
132. Use desktop-sized images in your mobile first design & scale down using CSS. have a heart: we just can’t do it this way
133. there’s many possible solutions yet not one is ideal
134. 2 if I were you, designing a responsive website, I’d have a look at at least two of them
135. first one is the one Jason Grigsby is going to write about in his upcoming book on responsive web design
136. Jason looked at all solutions & made a choice based on a number of factors, most noteably future friendliness
137. he chooses the sencha.io technique and it’s based on device detection. hmmmm....
138. “How strange it is to think of device detection as the most future friendly technique for responsive images? I find it hard to argue with the logic.” — JASON GRIGSBY make sure to read Jason’s blog posts on the topic at cloudfour.com
139. “At least that’s how I see it for the book. For your project and use case, it depends.” — JASON GRIGSBY as always: make a deliberate choice, because, well, it depends on all kinds of factors
140. here’s another interesting technique
141. I’ve used it on sleepstreet.be, it works and I’m more than ok with it
142. it’s also used—in a modified way as I understand—on bostonglobe.com
143. <img src=”small.jpg?full=large.jpg” /> here’s how it works, pretty easy huh?
144. small.jpg large.jpg using javascript and url rewrites the appropriate image is served to the appropriate device
145. small.jpg large.jpg an advantage: as the technique requires 2 images, you can create more detailed images for smaller devices
146. small.jpg large.jpg it’s written mobile first and browsers that don’t support javascript will only download the small image
147. older ie’s (6 & 7) will download both images, but I can live with that
148. SCALABLE VECTOR GRAPHICS let’s talk svg
149. No pixels. Always crisp at all sizes. Extremely small file sizes. Scalable in every fucking way. Pretty epic. the best invention since sliced bread
150. I’ve used svg for the sleepstreet logo
151. here’s the logo, designed by Ward Heirwegh
152. it’s used proportionally on small screen devices
153. but scaling it up proportionally on larger screens would render the logo quite big
154. and it would result in a huge logo on desktop computers (clients would have loved it :)
155. then again I could’ve used it proportionally but I didn’t like the extra whitespace
156. as it’s svg I could use javascript to reposition anchor points based on screen width (thanks @christaanvdp)
157. resulting in the side banners expanding/contracting as the browser window scales
158. an improvement if you ask me
159. So why is not everyone using svg? if svg is so great, why is not everyone using it all the time?
160. frankly: it’s a pain in the ass to implement in a cross-browser fashion
161. there’s a solution: raphaël is a cross-browser solution I used to implement the svg logo
162. but it required me to redraw the logo using javascript. and that’s not how you want to spend your day.
163. but the future is bright! @joggink is working on a solution called willistrator (no joke!)
164. VIDEO responsive video will kill the video star
165. I’ve used responsive video on madebywolf.com
166. OK NOT OK! .video { width: 100%; } you can’t use the same css you’d use for scaling images
167. but smart people have written good articles about the matter, such as Thierry Koblentz on a list apart
168. another great article about responsive video, by Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com
169. video { width: 100%; height: auto; } basically this is all you have to do if you want responsive video using the html5 video tag
170. but if you depend on external video hosting services you may need to support different embedding solutions
171. fitvids.js takes care of that: it makes video scale responsively with embed, object, iframe tags...
172. DATA TABLES we’re almost done... let’s look at data tables
173. spoiler: not easy, if you have a site that depends heavily on data tables, better close your browser window
174. “Data tables don’t do so well with responsive design. Just sayin’.” — GARRETT DIMON excellent tweet, couldn’t have said it any better
175. Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com came up with a possible solution
176. Chris takes this table...
177. ...and turns it to this on mobile: it’s ok, but not ideal for many reasons...
178. eg. there’s no way to easily compare rows
179. Scott Jehl took this data table...
180. ...and made a pie chart of it on mobile! great but works only with numerical data of course
181. DESIGN I wrapped up my presentation sharing some thoughts about designing responsively
182. basically it came down to this: less than ever we have a fixed canvas to design in
183. there’s no right tools for the job
184. I can’t design in the browser, it’s no design tool whatsoever—still need to find a better workflow
185. fact is: fluid grids grow more and more important
186. web design & typography is moving away from print design more than ever (great poster by Wim Crouwel)
187. THANKS FOR LISTENING TALK TO ME ON TWITTER: @BYTTE
188. Thanks to these people for sharing their photos with a creative commons license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashakimel/6189771935/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/strebkr/3151902438/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/julietbanana/4733245476/sizes/z/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadianveggie/167924582/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3568718036/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/missningyou/2679843655/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwanja/3169449999/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/crfullmoon/22195292/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/42244964@N03/4325982802/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/frak_tal/2455855855/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dinoowww/4557829098/sizes/z/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentclark/4720549350/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanneorla/1439963888/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ter-burg/1405605889/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/spyker3292/3721376470/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/soylentgreen23/491093601/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/6209676842/sizes/l/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/extraketchup/459020985 http://www.flickr.com/photos/torek/2266105751 http://www.flickr.com/photos/smokingpermitted/2052869864/