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What is Responsive Web Design?

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Michael Rosario  |  Comments

Responsive web design is a new approach in which a site would appear flexible aka "responsive" as it automatically adjusts to your screen size, browser platform, and/or screen resolution. Before responsive design/development, we had something close — the ability to serve targeted CSS stylesheets for mobile, screen, and print - three separate stylesheets!

Remember these?

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="reset.css" media="all" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mobile.css" media="handheld" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="screen.css" media="screen" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="print.css" media="print" /> 

Responsive websites show the same content - but rearranged to maximize the use of the space allowed by your browser or screen using media queries. See example below, let's say – iphone screen, ipad screen, and LCD screen:

Responsive Web Development and Design
This is more like it:
/* CSS for all browser goes here */
@media only screen and (max-width: 900px) {
/* CSS for browser screen with 900px and below goes here */
}

@media only screen and (max-width: 600px) {
/* CSS for browser screen with 600px and below goes here */
} 


For more information here are a few helpful resources:

Books to Read:

Cool Frameworks/Boilerplates:


 
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