The Responsive Future

Some reflections on the future direction of Responsive Web Design. This deck was the final presentation of the Cantina ConnectedForum on Responsive Web Design, October 24th, 2012. Video of the event is available at http://cantina.co/2012/11/06/video-from-cantinas-responsive-web-design-connectedforum/.

Transcript

1. Cantina, October 25th The Responsive Future Sunday, November 11, 12
2. Disclaimer: Past performance does indicate future gains. What does the future hold? Sunday, November 11, 12
3. • More and more companies are adopting RWD to handle mobile • The complexity of sending content to many device types is increasing • Other approaches will work, but RWD looks like it might be the most sustainable approach to being future-friendly • Expect continued debate on the RWD vs dedicated mobile site front But the definition of “responsive” will evolve. RWD is not going away Sunday, November 11, 12
4. • The past 24 hours alone have seen the introduction of a couple of new devices • iPad Mini • Microsoft Surface • And there are new OSes coming, too • And don’t forget: the world is bigger than smartphones and tablets! • There are a whole range of devices we rarely consider More devices, more OSes, more capabilities. The key word: MORE. More Stuff Means More Work Sunday, November 11, 12
5. • Competing proposals • The picture proposal • The srcset proposal • Neither one solves all of the use cases (yet) • The Responsive Images Community Group is leading the way • http://responsiveimagescg.github.com/ri-usecases/ Native browser support for responsive images is coming. Slowly. Better Responsive Images Sunday, November 11, 12
6. • There’s a lot of debate about the speed of RWD sites • Yes, they can be slow • But that’s partially because many of them are built badly • Content management systems will need some fat-trimming in this new world • As we go through the new cycle of redesign, more designers, developer–and perhaps most importantly, the bosses–are getting comfortable with taking a Mobile First approach The “Mobile First” and “Future-friendly” concepts are taking hold. Faster RWD Sunday, November 11, 12
7. • Doing ads in responsive sites is hard • They’re fixed in size • Except when they aren’t (e.g., takeovers) • They’re built by third parties • They’re harder to sell–how do you price them? • The IAB (and everyone else) is working on this • Some vendors are starting to appear Doing ads will be easier…yay! But we’ll still have ads…boo! Responsive ads are coming Sunday, November 11, 12
8. • We see new tools everyday • Some recent useful tools: • Responsivator: https://github.com/dfcb/Responsivator • Firefox’s responsive web view • Adobe Edge Inspect (née Adobe Shadow) • Gridset: http://gridsetapp.com Frameworks, libraries, and other stuff to ease the pain. Improved tools for creating RWD Sunday, November 11, 12
9. • But frankly, I don’t know how yet • One thing: as Andy Clarke pointed out, we need to distinguish between design testing and device testing We have to get a handle on testing in a multi-device world. Improved testing for RWD Sunday, November 11, 12
10. • “Server-side Modernizr” feature detection, combined with client-side progressive enhancement, seems to be the best way to handle complex changes devices to device • PJAX and other partial page loading techniques get very powerful when combined with server-side optimizations • We still need some big help for device feature detection: Javascript + media queries + browser sniffing isn’t going to cut it • And we need to strongly consider how much of this is really needed at all Like it or not, complex RWD will need better ties to the server. More RESS Sunday, November 11, 12
11. A Selection of People You Should Follow. RWD Tastemakers • Mat Marquis @wilto • Karen McGrane @karenmcgrane • Stephanie Rieger @stephanieriger • Jeffery Zeldman @zeldman • Andy Clarke @malarkey • Brad Frost @brad_frost • Jason Grigsby @grigs • Ethan Marcotte @rwd & @beep These folks (and many others) are beating a path to the future. Use them as pathfinders to learn what’s coming next. Sunday, November 11, 12
12. Q&A Sunday, November 11, 12