4 Common Responsive Web Designing Problems & their Solutions

As we all know, the web is increasingly shifting towards mobile devices. Creating a website for the iPhone, BlackBerry, iPad and other mobile devices can be quite tedious and expensive as well. Changing the screen size, images, navigation speed, coding scripts and various other elements in your web pages requires a great deal of time and effort. The best way out is to convert your non-responsive websites into responsive ones. Nevertheless, in the conversion process, you might come across a few problems. Some of the common Responsive Web Designing (RWD) problems and their solutions are listed out below.

 

1. Navigation

Typically in the past, the primary point of navigation on websites was present either at the top horizontal portion or at the left bottom end of the page. However, the same would be inappropriate today as most readers don’t find it interesting anymore. A recent survey revealed that online readers love it when they are given easy-to-access navigations bars and icon that takes them to the menu options when clicked just once.

An effective solution to the navigation issues is to spread a consistent design throughout the web pages. You may decide the navigation functionalities keeping in mind the content size and complexities of your web pages. And most importantly, it’s always good to test your website using any of the free Mobilizer programs to ensure that it doesn’t patch up on any particular browser or device when the user accesses it.

2. Images

Any problem associated with images or icons will in most cases fall in the same category as the navigation issues. It is solely based on personal preferences to decide on how to sort it out. One key thing you need to keep in mind while altering the image viewing options on your web pages is that neither the images nor the icons should look blurry when the user views it on his or her mobile device. If left unattended, then this could be a major issue for users, especially for those who are accessing your web pages from the more advanced mobile devices.

A simple solution to your concerns circling the images on your site is to use the Oak Studios Symbolset. Typically, it’s a unique font formulated with hordes of different icons that adapt well to different browsers and screen sizes.

3. Making your site Responsive

Unfortunately, converting your site to a responsive one may not be as easy as upgrading it with a couple of flashy CSS styles. Nevertheless, you may adopt any of the two options:

  • Re-engineer the existing code
  • Revamp your website from scratch

Though it may sound a bit difficult, it’s actually easier to rebuild a site from scratch as it will help in the long run. This change largely depends on the size of your website and the codes that you wish to enable in it. But once you implement the right technique, you will find that your websites, besides gaining quick responsiveness, will also give more flexibility to users.

4. Dealing With the Old Internet Explorer Versions

The dreaded IE 8 version is probably the most painful version for most web designers. It can be quite tedious while you are trying to develop a responsive website and you find that your website doesn’t support CSS rich media content. It means your website is responsive yet.

The best solution to IE 8 related problems is to use an effective respond.js polyfill script that actually fills the void by enabling the media rich functionalities of your website according to the complexities of the pre IE8 version. The next best option is to use a specific style sheet for IE with constant widths, but this again might make your website lose its responsiveness. Just tweak the minor flaws and your website will gain all the responsive functionalities that you may want it to.

In essence, it’s always good to test your website on various mobile devices including the smartphones, tablets and basically anything using which users are going to access your website.