Owen C137
Administrator
Staff
LEVEL 5
225 XP
Responsive Design 101 – Making Your Website Look Good on All Devices
People visit websites from desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones — all with different screen sizes.
Responsive design ensures your site adapts to each device, providing a great user experience no matter how it’s viewed.
This guide covers the basics of making your website responsive.
Summary:
Responsive design ensures your website looks professional and is easy to use on any device.
By using fluid layouts, media queries, and flexible images, you’ll make your site accessible to everyone — whether they’re on a 4K monitor or a phone.
People visit websites from desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones — all with different screen sizes.
Responsive design ensures your site adapts to each device, providing a great user experience no matter how it’s viewed.
This guide covers the basics of making your website responsive.
1. What is Responsive Design?
- A design approach where layouts adjust to different screen sizes.
- Content, images, and elements scale or rearrange automatically.
- Uses flexible layouts, media queries, and fluid images.
2. Why Responsive Design Matters
- Improves user experience — no zooming or side-scrolling.
- Better SEO — Google prioritises mobile-friendly sites.
- Increases visitor engagement and reduces bounce rate.
3. Using the Viewport Meta Tag
Add this to your HTML `<head>` to tell browsers how to scale your site:
HTML:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">4. Flexible Layouts with CSS
Instead of fixed pixel widths, use percentages:
CSS:
.container {
width: 90%;
max-width: 1200px;
margin: auto;
}5. Media Queries
Media queries let you apply different styles for different screen sizes:
CSS:
@media (max-width: 768px) {
body {
font-size: 16px;
}
.sidebar {
display: none;
}
}- The example above hides the sidebar and adjusts text size on smaller screens.
- Common breakpoints: 1200px (desktop), 992px (tablet), 768px (mobile).
6. Flexible Images
Make images scale with the screen:
CSS:
img {
max-width: 100%;
height: auto;
}7. Testing Your Design
- Resize your browser window to check responsiveness.
- Use Chrome DevTools (F12 → Toggle Device Toolbar) to preview on various devices.
- Test on real phones and tablets for accuracy.
8. Frameworks for Easy Responsive Design
- Bootstrap – Popular responsive grid system.
- Tailwind CSS – Utility-first CSS framework.
- Foundation – Another flexible grid-based framework.
Summary:
Responsive design ensures your website looks professional and is easy to use on any device.
By using fluid layouts, media queries, and flexible images, you’ll make your site accessible to everyone — whether they’re on a 4K monitor or a phone.