Mobile First Made Responsive Web Design More Meaningful

The mobile first approach is the new fundamental unit of web design. Developed over half a decade of observation, contemplation, experimentation and drawing conclusion. It seconds the idea of the rise of mobile phone users hence a rise in mobile internet has to be catered at some point otherwise the desktop and mobile websites would go obsolete in the near future. It has totally changed the way a website looks or is designed.

A decade ago we saw a boom in the mobile phone technology, it was the advent of smartphones. They were becoming popular and prevalent and websites were being made especially for mobile phones. This revolutionized the web industry into a whole new genre and suddenly the accessibility of a smart phone user increased tremendously. The rise in smartphones can also be attributed to rise of mobile websites and vice-versa.

For past few years we have seen a epochal decline in the mobile websites. The question is what happened in the in the later half of the decade?

Responsive Web Design happened.

On May 2010 Ethan Marcotte coined this term to change our and everyone's worldview about websites and other devices on an article on A List Apart. This marked the birth of of mobile first idea.

Everything you need to know

• Responsive Web Designs were necessary because the world was moving out of the desktop.
• New type of devices with various screen sizes like i pads and tabs were being launched so something was required to run websites in all platforms.
• After the concept of Responsive Web Design (RWD) the idea of mobile first approach was developed.
• This came from the already existent idea of progressive enhancement earlier used to write the code of website for various browsers.
• Stemming out from progressive enhancement mobile first approach states to build a code, a design and content for mobile first then slowly build upon it for rest of the devices.
• The sheer brilliance of this idea also compliments the concept of responsive web design.
• The most suited web design, layout and content is sought and coded into a responsive website which will impart all the necessary information to mobile users including all the necessary functions that a desktop user have access to.
• This gave power to the smartphone users and laid down the foundation of a perfect website for other platforms as well.
• RWD proves to be hell of a costly affair but mobile first significantly brought down the cost of building a website.
• Apart from cost effective solutions it reduced the wastage of code created usually moving down the hierarchy.
• Not to mention the amount of time this approach saved for web designers and their employers.

Overall there is overwhelming response of the web design community in the favor of this approach and unless you are on a very strict budget with a very specific need you will definitely end up using this as an ideal tool for your website.