

Why a CEO should champion Responsive Web Design - mikehostetler
http://mike-hostetler.com/blog/2013/02/06/5-reasons-a-ceo-should-champion-responsive-web-design/

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falcolas
I disagree.

A CEO should be setting the direction, and letting his managers (and their
staff) decide upon the best way to implement it. "Make our product work on
mobile devices", not "Use Responsive Web Design because I've read it's the
best for all cases".

A CEO needs to trust his managers to do the right thing for the company while
following his direction. If they don't, then they're not doing their job, and
should be dealt with as such.

This, of course, does not apply to those who wear the CEO, Manager and
Employee hat all at the same time.

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mikehostetler
I agree that the CEO should set the direction and let their staff decide the
details of implementation, but the reality is that a CEO must be aware of the
benefits of choices like RWD in order to authorize and support the additional
investment RWD takes during implementation.

Why? Because they CEO ultimately controls the money. That's usually what it's
all about anyways, right?

RWD costs more short term but pays off long term, that's the point.

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falcolas
Again, those decisions should fall to the CEO's staff, not the CEO himself.
Responsive Web Design is just one tool in the mobile playbook, and it's not
going to always be the best tool. Sometimes the best tool is a native app, or
a different version of the page, or responsive web design.

A good CEO will have too much on their plate as it is to worry about low level
implementation details like RWD, and should be able to trust his staff to also
be looking out for the company's bottom line as well.

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jonathansampson
I'm not entirely sure the article is calling for CEOs to roll up their sleeves
and get directly involved in the development of their sites. Instead, it seems
to me that the author is calling for CEOs to gain a better understanding of
this emerging trend, so that their interactions with project managers and
others will be better informed.

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neya
In that case, neither JOBS nor Tim Cook is a Champion, I guess, because
Apple's homepage isn't responsive by any means. But, if Jobs and Cook aren't
great examples of a good CEO, then I wonder who is.

So, fuck responsive design, I'm a designer with experience and I can tell you
only this - People with retina displays and high resolutions are already used
to visiting MANY websites that aren't responsive yet, and if your site isn't,
it's only a good thing, because, responsive design is a tricky pond, if you
slip, you're screwed. It's much, much easier to break stuff trying to be
responsive than on a fixed-width website. And a perfectly working fixed-width
website is much, much better than a broken responsive website.

This article is BS. There isn't enough data to support the claims made by the
author.

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jonathansampson
With all due respect, perhaps you should re-consider. With fixed-width sites,
you wind up having buttons cut-off, and whole portions of the page missing -
you have to rely on the user being familiar enough with how the variable-
resolution web works that they know to scroll laterally for additional
content. Missing content means missing conversions.

Also, nobody is advocating a broken responsive web design. And to be honest,
depending on the way it's broken, it may still be much better than a fixed-
width design that hangs 80% off your screen. Missing content means missing
conversions.

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nathos
What broken mobile web browser are you using that can't scale and zoom a
fixed-width page properly?

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jonathansampson
I was referring to desktop monitors, which don't scale pages down to fit
within the viewport.

Often times mobile devices crush the page down into its device dimensions,
resulting in a thumbnail-looking preview of the entire site. Again, not very
helpful to many users on mobile devices.

You're asking that they either 1) have high-density displays 2) superb eye-
sight, or 3) familiarity with the site to know what is where so they can
immediately zoom into their areas of interest.

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drharris
How wide is the fixed-width website that a desktop monitor cannot display it?

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muglug
This is dumb. Responsive design doesn't necessarily increase usability, and
could massively decrease it - if you create a one-size-fits all interface, a
lot of platform-specific UX enhancements can be lost - e.g. touch events like
swiping through a slideshow etc.

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mikehostetler
Responsive Design implemented _incorrectly_ would decrease usability, but done
correctly it almost certainly enhances it. The key premise of RWD is that the
same functionality is available at all reasonable device widths (> 320px).
This does not mean it needs to look the same, but you must be able to
accomplish the same interactions on a smartphone browser as a desktop browser.

The goal of the Open Web is to provide a _OS platform-agnostic_ foundation.
The mistakes learned from building specifically towards IE6 and now building
specifically towards WebKit in the mobile space have taught us that the
platform-specific road is the road to narrowing your audience and higher
maintenance costs down the road.

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eli
Sure, but you're sort of begging the question. It's very hard to do this
perfectly correctly and in some cases I'm not sure you should try. A feature
that's designed for a user with a mouse and a big monitor may be terrible to
use on a phone even if you hack and squeeze and strip it to fit the screen.

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monsterix
Frankly, I don't buy the idea that a CEO should champion RWD or have any bias
towards it. However, it is a good idea for the CEO to _know_ what responsive
web design is. Of a start-up or a small company, that is.

Agreed that it is nice to be aligned with the web as much as possible, but RWD
can easily become an expensive undertaking for a company with fewer resources
at hand. You don't want RWD to come in between when there is just too much to
experiment with and throw away. Not recommended to start-ups, not at least to
CEOs without hands-on on design.

In fact, if you look at how fragmented the support (actually miserable) for
web standards is on the mobile, the best option would be to let the team take
this decision, not CEO alone. And if a CEO with zero technical/web-design
skills says 'Yay, RWD!' just because he/she read it somewhere then, I believe,
it is more trouble for the company than any help.

Also RWD is not feasible in several scenarios. Many a times it is safer to
premise the design for iPad and above for one part and iPad Mini and below for
the other half. Or just stick to time tested fixed-column design.

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numbsafari
I'm waiting for the Onion follow up "5 reasons the CEO shouldn't have given
the CTO a wedgie before the board meeting again".

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programminggeek
Um, a CEO should champion a direction and a vision much less than an
implementation. The job of the CEO is to make sure everybody can do their job,
the bills are paid, the company grows, etc. To run the company, not to build
the tech stack.

Also, responsive design is fine, but it's not perfect by any means. It adds
cost, it adds complexity, and it isn't always the best interface to reach the
end users.

There is upside to responsive design, but it's not magic and it shouldn't be
touted as some kind of panacea to all things.

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grahamjl
I agree with this - it just seems like last years media friendly buzzword
HTML5 has been replaced by RWD but at least the thought is there (until
facebook announce they aren't making any money because of it)

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seivan
I agree.

