Benefits of Responsive Web Design

Hello readers,

Today, I am feeling like an old school teacher. So, let’s wear our imagination goggles and picture me as an old time school teacher standing in front of your class at the start of winter. I am wearing a short-sleeve shirt with a tie properly knotted, my pants are short with starched creases in front, and my socks reach to the knee well tucked in my shiny brown shoes – so reflective you could see your face in it – okay, only if you bent that low!

That was back in the day, when computers were locked in a room with a big sign screaming – Out Of Bounds! Right, I know none of you remembered those days. That is how far it seemed since web developers had to design for only one platform – the computer screen or do different designs for every different platform.

Today, information is shared across platforms such that the same message is passed from desktop to laptop, iPad to iPod, and everywhere else to mobile phones.

So, what did we ever do without these things? Well, let’s turn the question round and ask how difficult it is for people to design for all these platforms?

Well, it’s really not that difficult – there are various design templates that allows us to think multi-dimensionally (pardon my French) as we design. What more, it is easier because once we design using these templates, we set the foundation for better and easier content management. How? Well, when you design multi-dimensionally, you only need to use one template. Once that template is completed, you simply save and hit publish or whatever you do and it is available on all platforms - pronto.

This means that web managers have more time to do other things. They save precious time (remember time means money), and yet reach more clients simultaneously. So how is this possible? Well, one popular way to do this is the Zen Garden web design template – which allows you to design for all platforms at once. Google has that capacity too and several others.

In the age of podcasts/downloads, responsive web design makes work available on or offline without losing the resolution or the aesthetic beauty of the work. As a web developer/administrator, you are king of the pack if you are able to design responsively. You save time, save money and you are regarded as modern in your approach. This means you can take a lot of work off dinosaurs who have no clue what responsive design means.

Any questions? Please send them to tundeasaju@gmail.com 

Heh, I thought I just heard the bell ring. This means it’s time to go. You should be happy that I did not come with my cane. Hope you learnt something. Till we see again – tara!

Tunde Asaju

New Trends in Web Development

By Tunde Asaju

The advent of new media is changing the way we see and perceive web development. When the internet first started, it was working in a whole room filled with junk machines dubbed computers. Times have changed and we seem to have forgotten those bad old days. Today, we have internet on the go and that is a great but interesting challenge for any web developer.

For one, we have moved from big screens located on our desktops to the smaller monitors. Our telephone lines are no longer just for making and receiving calls and text messages, they are now an all-purpose secretariat for all our web needs. Of course we still make those boring calls and our telephones ring in odd places from crowded elevators to conference rooms and political rallies. Not to talk about going off when we are invites to a radio or television show. If you still go to church or mosque, you should be forgiven for having your quiet time with God disturbed by the annoying decibels of a phone from your neighbour’s pocket.

But by and large, our phones and devices (androids, ipads and iphones) are our secretariat from where we send and receive mails; they have calendars that help us keep tab of our appointments and of course, have apps that helps us check the proper spelling of words. But most of all, if we need to do research on the go, we must use the browser. This is why there is a challenge for the web developer.

The devices we use range from really small to really big. Things we design display differently on different monitors. Thus, the first challenge is to make our designs responsive – viewable on all devices – from monitors to LCD screens.

Our pictures must be sized or positioned in such a way that they are also viewable across platforms. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it must be visible to convey its needed message.

Just Google social media and click on images and you are bound to be impressed or confounded by the array of buttons which take us to the social media. Looks like we are nothing without them. So, we have to take the appropriate design that would convey the message and retain its cool techy feeling.

You wouldn't want to keep scrolling as you are reading this brief work. That is another challenge – to make sure that the layout is short and simple and navigable. That also means that navigation has to be friendly both to the eyes and to the user.

Heh, what about fonts? We have to be conscious that the people we are designing for don’t want to usually put on their binoculars to read what we have posted or designed. So, we have to find user-friendly fonts that appeals to the eye of all.

There are more challenges, but then, this is not meant to be a Bible of web design, just for us to ruminate on few of the challenges that confront us as we work.

See you at the next blog and thanks for showing up here.