enu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiversity Wikidata item Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Challenges, and other approaches 2 History 3 Related concepts 4 See also 5 References Toggle the table of contents Responsive web design 28 languages العربية Български Català Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Eesti فارسی Français Magyar Bahasa Indonesia Italiano 日本語 한국어 Lietuvių Nederlands Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Русский Српски / srpski Svenska Українська Tiếng Việt 粵語 中文 Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiversity Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Responsive design" redirects here. For the computer-aided design approach, see Responsive computer-aided design . Not to be confused with Responsiveness . Approach to web design for making web pages render well on a variety of devices A screenshot of Wikipedia with the responsive skin Vector 2022 , on a computer screen (left) and on a mobile phone screen (right). The elements rearrange themselves into a more mobile friendly layout. Content is like water , a saying that illustrates the principles of RWD Cascading Style Sheets Style sheet CSS Zen Garden Concepts Animations Box model Flexbox Grid Image replacement Philosophies Tableless Responsive "Holy grail" CSS hack Preprocessors Sass Less Stylus (stylesheet language) Frameworks Tailwind Bootstrap Foundation Extensions Stylish Stylus (browser extension) Comparisons Stylesheet languages   Cascading Style Sheets v t e Responsive web design ( RWD ) or responsive design is an approach to web design that aims to make web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes from minimum to maximum display size to ensure usability and satisfaction. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] A responsive design adapts the web-page layout to the viewing environment [ 1 ] by using techniques such as fluid proportion-based grids, [ 3 ] [ 4 ] flexible images, [ 5 ] [ 6 ] and CSS3 media queries , [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] an extension of the @media rule, [ 10 ] in the following ways: The fluid grid concept calls for page element sizing to be in relative units like percentages, rather than absolute units like pixels or points . [ 4 ] Flexible images are also sized in relative units, so as to prevent them from displaying outside their containing element . [ 5 ] Media queries allow the page to use different CSS style rules based on characteristics of the device the site is being displayed on, e.g. width of the rendering surface (browser window width or physical display size). Responsive layouts automatically adjust and adapt to any device screen size, whether it is a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, or a mobile phone. Responsive web design became more important as users of mobile devices came to account for the majority of website visitors. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] In 2015, for instance, Google announced Mobilegeddon and started to boost the page ranking of mobile-friendly sites when searching from a mobile device. [ 13 ] Responsive web design is an example of user interface plasticity . [ 14 ] Challenges, and other approaches [ edit ] Luke Wroblewski has summarized some of the responsive and mobile design challenges and created a catalog of multi-device layout patterns. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] He suggested that, compared with a simple responsive web design approach, device experience or RESS (responsive web design with server-side components) approaches can provide a user experience that is better optimized for mobile devices. [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] Server-side CSS generator implementation of stylesheet languages like Sass can be part of such an approach. Google has recommended responsive design for smartphone websites over other approaches. [ 21 ] Although many publishers have implemented responsive designs, one challenge for responsive design adoption was that some banner advertisements and videos were not fluid. [ 22 ] However, search advertising and (banner) display advertising came to support specific device platform targeting and different advertisement size formats for desktop, smartphone, and basic mobile devices. Different landing page URLs have been used for different platforms, [ 23 ] or Ajax has been used to display different advertisement variants on a page. [ 24 ] [ 16 ] [ 25 ] CSS tables permitted hybrid fixed and fluid layouts. [ 26 ] There have been many ways of validating and testing responsive web designs, [ 27 ] ranging from mobile site validators and mobile emulators to simultaneous testing tools like Adobe Edge Inspect . [ 28 ] The Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers and developer tools have offered responsive design viewport resizing tools, as do third parties. [ 29 ] [ 30 ] History [ edit ] Further information: History of the World Wide Web and Web 2.0 The W3C specification of HTML+ stated that websites have to be rendered according to the user preferences. [ 31 ] The customization of web page layout was lacking however. Many web developers resorted to ordinary HTML tables as a way to customize the layout and bring some basic responsiveness to their websites at the same time. First major site to feature a layout that adapts in a non-trivial manner to browser viewport width was Audi .com launched in late 2001, [ 32 ] created by a team at Razorfish consisting of Jürgen Spangl and Jim Kalbach (information architecture), Ken Olling (design), and Jan Hoffmann (interface development). Limited browser capabilities meant that for Internet Explorer, the layout could adapt dynamically in the browser whereas, for Netscape, the page had to be reloaded from the server when resized. Cameron Adams created a demonstration in 2004. [ 33 ] By 2008, a number of related terms such as "flexible", "liquid", [ 34 ] "fluid", and "elastic" were being used to describe layouts. CSS3 media queries were almost ready for prime time in late 2008/early 2009. [ 35 ] Ethan Marcotte coined the term responsive web design [ 36 ] —and defined it to mean fluid grid / flexible images / media queries—in a May 2010 article in A List Apart . [ 1 ] He described the theory and practice of responsive web design in his brief 2011 book titled Responsive Web Design . Responsive design was listed as #2 in Top Web Design Trends for 2012 by .net magazine after progressive enhancement at #1. [ 37 ] Mashable called 2013 the Year of Responsive Web Design. [ 38 ] Related concepts [ edit ] See also: Unobtrusive JavaScript and Progressive enhancement Mobile-first design and progressive enhancement are related concepts that predate responsive web design. [ 39 ] Browsers of basic mobile phones do not understand JavaScript or media queries , so a recommended practice was to create a basic web site and enhance it for smartphones and personal computers , rather than rely on graceful degradation to make a complex, image-heavy site work on mobile phones. [ 40 ] [ 41 ] [ 42 ] [ 43 ] User interface plasticity is the capacity of a user interface to withstand variations of both the system's physical characteristics and the environment while preserving usability . [ 44 ] See also [ edit ] Internet portal Adaptive web design Bootstrap (front-end framework) CSS framework Em (typography) § CSS Foundation (framework) Tableless web design T Layout References [ edit ] ^ a b c Marcotte, Ethan (May 25, 2010). "Responsive Web design" . A List Apart . ^ Schade, Amy (May 4, 2014). "Responsive Web Design (RWD) and User Experience" . Nielsen Norman Group . Retrieved October 19, 2017 . ^ "Core concepts of Responsive Web design" . September 8, 2014. ^ a b Marcotte, Ethan (March 3, 2009). "Fluid Grids" . A List Apart. ^ a b Marcotte, Ethan (June 7, 2011). "Fluid images" . A List Apart. ^ Hannemann, Anselm (September 7, 2012). "The road to responsive images" . net Magazine. ^ Gillenwater, Zoe Mickley (December 15, 2010). Examples of flexible layouts with CSS3 media queries . Stunning CSS3. p. 320. ISBN   978-0-321-722133 . ^ Gillenwater, Zoe Mickley (October 21, 2011). "Crafting quality media queries" . ^ "Responsive design—harnessing the power of media queries" . Google Webmaster Central. April 30, 2012. ^ "@media rule" . w3.org . W3C . ^ "Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update 2014–2019 White Paper" . Cisco . January 30, 2015 . Retrieved August 4, 2015 . ^ "Mobile share of U.S. organic search engine visits 2021" . Statista . Retrieved October 29, 2021 . ^ "Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Rolling out the mobile-friendly update" . Official Google Webmaster Central Blog . Retrieved August 4, 2015 . ^ Thevenin, D.; Coutaz, J. (2002). "Plasticity of User Interfaces: Framework and Research Agenda". Proc. Interact'99, A. Sasse & C. Johnson Eds, IFIP IOS Press . Edinburgh. pp.  110– 117. ^ Wroblewski, Luke (May 17, 2011). "Mobilism: jQuery Mobile" . ^ a b Wroblewski, Luke (February 6, 2012). "Rolling Up Our Responsive Sleeves" . ^ Wroblewski, Luke (March 14, 2012). "Multi-Device Layout Patterns" . ^ Wroblewski, Luke (February 29, 2012). "Responsive Design ... or RESS" . ^ Wroblewski, Luke (September 12, 2011). "RESS: Responsive Design + Server Side Components" . ^ Andersen, Anders M (May 8, 2012). "Getting Started with RESS" . Creative Bloq . Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. ^ "Building Smartphone-Optimized Websites" . ^ Snyder, Matthew; Koren, Etai (April 30, 2012). "The state of responsive advertising: the publishers' perspective" . .net Magazine. ^ "Google Partners Help" . google.com . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ "Server-Side Device Detection: History, Benefits And How-To" . Smashing magazine. September 24, 2012. ^ JavaScript and Responsive Web Design Google Developers ^ "The Role of Table Layouts in Responsive Web Design" . Web Design Tuts+ . January 23, 2013 . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ Young, James (August 13, 2012). "Top responsive web design problems... testing" . .net Magazine. ^ Rinaldi, Brian (September 26, 2012). "Browser testing... with Adobe Edge Inspect" . ^ "Responsive Design View" . Mozilla Developer Network . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ Malte Wassermann. "Responsive design testing tool – Viewport Resizer – Emulate various screen resolutions - Best developer device testing toolbar" . maltewassermann.com . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ "An Overview of HTML+" . w3.org . W3C . ^ Kalbach, Jim (July 22, 2012). "The First Responsive Design Website: Audi (circa 2002)." [ self-published source? ] ^ Adams, Cameron (September 21, 2004). "Resolution dependent layout: Varying layout according to browser width" . The Man in Blue . Archived from the original on February 24, 2024 . Retrieved August 19, 2014 . ^ "G146: Using liquid layout" . w3.org . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ "Media Queries" . w3.org . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ "OutSeller Group - Organize, Optimize, Maximize" . outseller.net . Archived from the original on February 2, 2017 . Retrieved May 21, 2015 . ^ Grannell, Craig (January 9, 2012). "15 top web design and development trends for 2012" . .net Magazine. Archived from the original on September 11, 2013 . Retrieved October 29, 2021 . ^ Cashmore, Pete (December 11, 2012). "Why 2013 Is the Year of Responsive Web Design" . Mashable . ^ "What is Responsive Web Design" . July 23, 2012. ^ Wroblewski, Luke (November 3, 2009). "Mobile First" . ^ Firtman, Maximiliano (July 30, 2011). Programming the Mobile Web . O'Reilly Media. pp.  512 . ISBN   978-0-596-80778-8 . ^ "Graceful degradation versus progressive enhancement" . February 3, 2009. Archived from the original on November 13, 2014. ^ Parker, Todd; Wachs, Maggie Costello; Jehl, Scott (February 2010). Designing with Progressive Enhancement . New Riders. p. 456. ISBN   978-0-321-65888-3 . Retrieved March 1, 2010 . ^ Thevenin, D.; Coutaz, J. (2002). "Plasticity of User Interfaces: Framework and Research Agenda". Proc. Interact'99, A. Sasse & C. Johnson Eds, IFIP IOS Press . Edinburgh. pp.  110– 117. v t e Design Outline Designer Disciplines Communication design Advertising Book design Brand design Exhibit design Film title design Graphic design Motion Postage stamp design Print design Illustration Information design Instructional design News design Photography Retail design Signage  /  Traffic sign design Typography  /  Type design Video design Visual merchandising Environmental design Architecture Architectural lighting design Building design Passive solar Ecological design Environmental impact design Garden design Computer-aided Healthy community design Hotel design Interior architecture Interior design EID Keyline design Landscape architecture Sustainable Landscape design Spatial design Urban design Industrial design Automotive design Automotive suspension design CMF design Corrugated box design Electric guitar design Furniture design Sustainable Hardware interface design Motorcycle design Packaging and labeling Photographic lens design Product design Production design Sensory design Service design Interaction design Experience design EED Game design Level design Video game design Hardware interface design Icon design Immersive design Information design Interactive design Sonic interaction design User experience design User interface design Web design Other applied arts Public art design Ceramic  /  glass design Fashion design Costume design Jewellery design Floral design Game art design Property design Scenic design Sound design Stage/set lighting design Textile design Other design & engineering Algorithm design Behavioural design Boiler design Database design Drug design Electrical system design Experimental design Filter design Geometric design Work design Integrated circuit design Circuit design Physical design Power network design Mechanism design Nuclear weapon design Nucleic acid design Organization design Process design Processor design Protein design Research design Social design Software design Spacecraft design Strategic design Systems design Test design Approaches Active Activity-centered Adaptive web Affective Brainstorming By committee By contract C-K theory Closure Configuration Contextual Continuous Cradle-to-cradle Creative problem-solving Creativity techniques Critical Design fiction Defensive Design–bid–build Design–build architect-led Diffuse Domain-driven Ecological design Energy neutral Engineering design process Probabilistic design Ergonomic Error-tolerant Evidence-based Fault-tolerant Feminist For assembly For behaviour change For manufacturability For Six Sigma For testing For the environment For X Framework-oriented Functional Generative Geodesign HCD High-level Hostile Inclusive Integrated Integrated topside Intelligence-based Iterative KISS principle Low-level Metadesign Mind mapping Modular New Wave Object-oriented Open Over Parametric Participatory Platform-based Policy-based Prevention through Process-centered Public interest Opinion poll Public opinion Rational Regenerative Reliability engineering Research-based Responsibility-driven RWD Safe-life Speculative Sustainable Systemic SOD Tableless web Theory of constraints Top-down and bottom-up Transformation Transgenerational TRIZ Universal Design for All Usage-centered Use-centered User-centered Empathic User innovation Value-driven Value sensitive Privacy by Quality by Secure by Design choice computing controls culture flow justice leadership management marker methods pattern research science sprint strategy theory thinking Tools Intellectual property Organizations Awards Tools AAD Architectural model Blueprint Comprehensive layout CAD CAID Virtual home design software CAutoD Design quality indicator Electronic design automation Flowchart Mockup Design specification Design system Prototype Sketch Storyboard Technical drawing HTML editor Website wireframe Intellectual property Clean-room design Community design Design around Design infringement Design patent Fashion design copyright Geschmacksmuster Industrial design rights European Union Organizations American Institute of Graphic Arts Chartered Society of Designers Design and Industries Association Design Council International Forum Design Design Research Society Awards European Design Award German Design Award Good Design Award (Museum of Modern Art) Good Design Award (Chicago Athenaeum) Graphex IF Product Design Award James Dyson Award Prince Philip Designers Prize Related topics Agile Concept art Conceptual design Creative industries Cultural icon .design Dominant design Enterprise architecture Form factor Futures studies Indie design Innovation management Intelligent design Lean startup New product development OODA loop Philosophy of design Process simulation Reference design Slow design STEAM fields Unintelligent design Visualization Wicked problem Design attributes brief change classic competition architectural student director education elements engineer firm history knowledge language life load museum optimization paradigm principles rationale review specification studies studio technology Authority control databases GND Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Responsive_web_design&oldid=1355210316 " Categories : Responsive web design Internet properties established in 2001 Human–computer interaction Mobile web Usability User interfaces Web design 2010s neologisms Hidden categories: All articles with self-published sources Articles with self-published sources from October 2015 Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Use mdy dates from September 2015 Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images This page was last edited on 20 May 2026, at 14:51  (UTC) . Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Legal & safety contacts Code of Conduct Developers Statistics Cookie statement Mobile view Search Search Toggle the table of contents Responsive web design 28 languages Add topic