what is the difference between responsive and adaptive web design - Ayatas Technologies
ByAndy Leverenz February 22, 2021 4624 Views

What Is The Difference Between Responsive And Adaptive Web Design?

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In the present era, where mobiles are primarily used for surfing the internet and online purchases, designing your site to fit itself into multiple screens is most important. Scaling websites to mobile size is more challenging, and if not done, there could be a problem of losing customers, and traffic to your site drops drastically. There are two ways of scaling your website, responsive and adaptive. It is essential to know the difference between responsive and adaptive web design and choose the best one suitable for your website.

What Is Responsive Web Design?

Web designer and developer Ethan Marcotte first used the term Responsive Web Design in his famous book “Responsive Web Design.” This book explains that your website’s elements should adjust according to the changes in browse and the screen’s width. The site’s content adjusts itself accordingly, and the available space of the browser is also checked before the site gets loaded.

What Is Adaptive Web Design?

Web designer Aaron Gustafson introduced the concept of Adaptive Web Design in his book “Adaptive Web Design: Crafting Rich Experiences with Progressive Enhancement.” In adaptive design, the website presents itself in the best layout appropriate for the screen and detects the site’s available space. The browser’s size has no impact on the design of your website. It is most common in the adaptive design concept to design different websites for widths like 320, 480, 760, 900, 1200, and 1600 pixels.

Comparison Between Responsive and Adaptive Web Design

1. Responsive Web Design Is Harder To Make

Responsive design is more critical than Adaptive design as it requires extra attention to CSS code and makes sure that the functions work well in all types of screens. A single layout has to be made to work on all screens, while in Adaptive design, the site is designed according to the layout of the screen.

2. Adaptive Sites Are Less Flexible

Responsive websites guarantee to work on all types of screens, and adaptive designs only work on as many screens as their layouts can. If a new device is introduced, responsively designed websites work well on the new one, but adaptive designs may take time to rearrange themselves.

3. Responsive Sites Load Faster Than Adaptive

For any website, load time is crucial to give the user a better experience. A responsive website needs to load the elements required for a platform, while an adaptive site needs to load all the possible layouts. The loading of extra layouts makes an adaptive site slower than a responsive site.

4. SEO Friendliness

Google recommends that sites be responsive and also reward them. While adaptive designs can be challenging for SEO, responsive web site gains higher rankings in searches.

Advantages Of Responsive Web Design

  • Your Website is User Friendly and Adapts Itself to different screen resolutions.
  • Low-Cost Maintenance
  • SEO Friendly
  • Easy to connect between mobile and Desktop sites

Advantages Of Adaptive Web Design

  • Even a complicated site can be efficiently designed.
  • It can be Implemented at a lower price.
  • Time-efficient as coding is easy.
  • Testing of the site is easy and more accurate.

How to Choose Between Responsive and Adaptive Web Design?

Both responsive and adaptive website designs can provide the best and seamless experience to mobile users. Compared to Adaptive, it takes more time to create a Responsive design. So which one to choose? You need to consider some of the below points before making a choice.

  • Choose Responsive web design if your site is an online store and uses CMS concepts like Magento or Shopware. You have the option to buy an in-built theme.
  • If your website has more content with buttons and many other features, you can opt for Adaptive Web design. To implement your concept, you need to hire an expert team for maintaining your site.
  • To rank much higher in Google or other search engines, you need to choose a responsive design. The content in responsive design is much highlighted in search engines.

Conclusion

Responsive or Adaptive website designs are needed to give the user a seamless experience. Both the design methods help your customers to navigate through your website easily. If you are thinking about designing a new website for your company and need additional consultation on the design version to use, then our Professionals at Ayatas Technologies are always there to help you. Contact us for more detailed information.