Responsive vs Mobile-Friendly Websites: What's the Difference

A responsive website and a mobile-friendly website are basically the same, with a few minor differences. Also known best advantages of Responsive Website Design To Generate More Sale

The term “responsive” typically just refers to looking good and working well on a variety of screen sizes. It should look good on my 27" monitor and it should look good on my old 11" screen. It should respond when I change the size or shape of the window.

Mobile presents other UX differences besides screen size. The touch screen is a huge difference. You don’t have a mouse or keyboard. You may need to adjust your colors and contrasts for poor lighting conditions. You need to consider what areas of the screen people can reach with their thumbs. You need to consider the risk of accidental “clicks” due to scrolling or zooming.

A design could be “responsive”, but not especially “mobile-friendly”. It can also be “mobile-friendly” but be sort of terrible on a monitor. It can be good at both or bad at both.

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Let’s take a look at responsive design vs. mobile-friendly design, and explore where the difference lies between the two.

Responsive Design

A responsive website is one that changes supported the screen size of the device. With a responsive design, texts and pictures change from a three-column layout to at least one that matches your device’s screen perfectly. If you’re on an internet site on a desktop and wish to work out if it’s responsive, simply shrink the window and observe whether or not the display changes to match the window size. Responsive websites react with the user in mind and enhance usability regardless of what the device is.

Mobile-Friendly Design

Simply put, a mobile-friendly site functions the precise same way irrespective of the device. In other words, mobile-friendly designs don’t change supported the device being employed. Nothing changes within the functionality apart from the size of the location. Many great features of the website, like navigation drop-downs, are limited, as they’ll be difficult to use on mobile.

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