
Responsive Design Patterns - sirwitti
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1514
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jmitcheson
I've done a lot of front end development work but I always wonder about how
responsive design will work out. It's not that I think responsive design is no
good, it's just that high end web design firms are obsessive about having
everything on the page look exactly correct. With a fixed width design, it's
possible to get pixel perfect results.

What happens when a $5000 design is stretched out and looks different? Of
course it's possible to code things that way, but my question lies with
whether or not the bosses of these design firms are going to look at it and
say "That looks fine, lets deliver it", or "That looks ugly, lets fixed-width
it and design a completely different version for tablet". After all, you can't
control what resolution your client will view your work in, and when they are
paying that much money you want it to display the "best" way (ie. the same way
it looked in Photoshop).

It kind of seems that in the very short term, the money flowing around front
end design will be stuck in the past (IE7 support, no responsive design,
distrust of css3 fonts, etc.) while the web in general will be moving in
another direction.

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adrianhoward
Generally the bosses of the design firm are fine with responsive design. Good
responsive designs take more effort. More effort == more billable hours. You
also have the chance to up-sell existing clients. It's a win-win all round if
you have the skills to do it.

The current problem is persuading the client that a responsive design is
worthwhile. I still regularly encounter folk who don't understand the number
of folk looking at the web using mobiles - let alone the necessity to design
something to work on a variety of displays and contexts.

This is getting easier as more people interact with the web with more devices.
Once folk actually use two different kinds of device to look at stuff online
selling responsive solutions becomes _much_ simpler. When it gets to three or
four it sells itself.

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richbradshaw
This is a really nice summary complete with loads of good examples - future
article writers - if it isn't at least this standard, don't bother!

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alexchamberlain
Totally agree. This was a great read. The only problem with the internet is
it's greatest strength - it's free. Unfortunately, a lot of _writers_ abuse it
(and the English language) by trying to write when they should consume and
comment instead.

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Flam
I want to just quote your post and re-post it.

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reilly3000
I love the off canvas concept. It fits so nicely on mobile and in tablets -
but this article got me thinking it can/would create a nice experience for
large monitors as well. There have been some examples of horizontal scrolling
sites (mostly design portfolios...) but it would be cool to see more "Off
canvas" content out in the wild for regular screens.

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ricardobeat
Accordion/collapsible elements implement a similar abstraction on the desktop.

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mangoman
When I saw that this was about UI/UX, I was a little confused; I was expecting
something about a Singleton, or a factory or something. Still a really cool
read!

