Yesterday I wrote a little post about the exact definition of the terms responsive and adaptive, in which I asked for comments. And I got some comments, and all of them were excellent. It’s clear that my hypothesis at the end of my post — it could be that I haven’t thought about it long enough
— turned out to be true.
What is the difference between responsive web design and adaptive web design? It’s a bit of a boring question, but I think we need an answer to it, since these terms are both used, and people mean different things by them. It causes confusion.
We often hear that it’s necessary to test your work on as many devices as possible. There are many reasons why this makes sense. Devices might not act like you’d expect them to act. For instance, on many Android devices the device pixels are not always the same as the viewport pixels — the real resolution is not the same as the amount of pixels the browser thinks it has. Another reason is because browsers are weird, so things can look crazy. An example of this is Blackberry Bold with OS6. This is, is far as I know, the only browsers that’s ever been made that has a default font-size of 20 pixels, instead of 16. This completely messes up your design if you use em (like you should).
I know these things because I tested many sites on many different devices.
This article was originally published on Smashing Magazine.
Responsive design is about more than just layout; it’s about designing for the Web, which means, mostly, for people with browsers. And that’s just about everything we know about the people who visit our websites: they are probably using a browser. All the rest we just don’t know.
This column was published in edition #56 of the Dutch, paper version of Web Designer Magazine. It’s in Dutch. Onze huidige deliverables, de dingen die we ter goedkeuring aanbieden aan onze klanten, zijn verouderd. En eerlijk gezegd zijn ze ook nogal onzinnig. Vaak gaat het nog als volgt: allereerst wordt de complete website in uitgebreide wireframes beschreven. Tot in detail wordt elke pagina, elk componentje, gespecificeerd. Deze wireframes worden na goedkeuring van de klant ingekleurd in Photoshop. Als de klant blij is met deze plaatjes dan mogen de web-developers ze ombouwen naar iets wat daadwerkelijk werkt. Er is veel mis met deze werkwijze.
The previous time Adobe started selling a new version of its software bundle there were some amazing new features in it. Fantastic, incredible stuff. Unbelievable! So cool! Can we really do that with computers? Magic! People were amazed, so everybody bought the new version. Now. If you ask the amazed people what the killer feature was again, most of them won’t remember.
I am currently reading The Modern Web, a new book by Peter Gasston, and so far I love it. In it he writes about the different kinds of devices that people use to access the web. In the part about mobile phones he says: within a year or two, who knows how much power they’ll have.
Tomorrow I’m going to record a podcast together with Peet. In it I will talk about an article that will be published early next week. By the time you are able to see the podcast — either in the sneak preview or somewhere online — this article has been published. We should record this episode in a Delorean instead of an old Mercedes.
Last week the incredible Bret Victor released a video of a presentation he gave in which he shows what computer art should look and behave like. He thinks computer art should be more like a computer game than like a painting: the thing that makes a computer unique is the fact that you can actually interact with it. The computer can react to what the artist, or the viewer, does. In his own words:
Next week I’m organising a live viewing of a video podcast me and Peet Sneekes create. We will show the video we’re going to shoot this weekend and show it to everybody who wants to attend. That’s four people so far, including Peet and me. Many more people than I expected.
Today, twenty years ago, the first web page was published on the web, and the web was made available, for free, to everybody. This has changed the lives of everybody who reads this post. I’ve seen many tweets about this anniversary, but there’s one tweet by Jared Spool that I like in particular.
I just finished reading A Pocket Guide to Combining typefaces by Tim Brown. In just 33 pages he explains what steps to take when you want to combine typefaces. A fantastic little book, filled with excellent tips. The book made me realise once more that good design is really, really hard. This book will help you in becoming a better designer.
Yesterday I published a post about a tech radar meeting I attended where I heard about technologies that I had never heard of before. I concluded that all those specialists should get together more often and work together. We should know and understand each other and use each others knowledge to create better products.
Last Friday I attended the first technology radar session with a group of colleagues. We created an inventory of the tools, technologies and platforms we use and support, and we took a good critical look at each and every one of them. It was a very interesting afternoon. It was good to explain to colleagues what we use and why we use it. Or why we don’t want to use it anymore. Or why it was never a good idea to begin with. But the thing I liked most was the fact that I didn’t understand most of what I heard.