Responsive Design Definition

I've been getting ready to give a webinar on responsive design. I enjoy getting ready for this kind of talk as it gives me an opportunity to think about definitions and concepts. A few years ago, Mick Couper and I had a paper on "responsive vs adaptive" design. My thinking hasn't evolved much since that paper.

In preparing the talk, I thought it might be helpful to define responsive design by contrast with ... that which is not responsive design. The contrasts were 1) pre-specified designs, and 2) ad hoc designs.

The first category is a design where a pre-specified design is implemented and the results are pretty much as predicted. I personally haven't worked on many surveys like that, but I'm not yet ready to call it a "straw man."

The second category is an approach I have seen in action. I sometimes call this approach "shooting from the hip." This is the situation where we start with a pre-specified design, but when it goes off the rails we don't have a plan. Valuable time is lost coming up with a plan. During the lost time, sub-optimal effort continues.

I thought it was helpful to take the "this is not responsive design approach" to defining responsive design. I suppose we can also cross off the list "responsive design" as used by web designers. This is a kind of web design that adapts to the format of the device and browser. Again, not "responsive design" in the sense we mean here.

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