3 Types of Web Design Approach: Best Choice for your business

The world of web design has gone through a whirlpool of changes in recent years. As it continues to traverse the path of evolution, mobile-friendly web design has become the norm rather than being an exception. When it comes to choosing the right design approach for your mobile-friendly website, there are a few factors worth considering.

Previously, websites were built for desktop screens, you could view them on a smaller screen but you had to zoom in and zoom out for viewing the website. Nowadays, visitors want to view websites on whatever device they can get their hands on. Due to this, three different types of web design approaches or options came to the forefront: responsive web design (RWD), adaptive web design (AWD), and fluid web design (FWD).

Although these options have similar features, each approach has unique pros and cons that can help you in determining the right approach for your next website design or revamping. In this blog, we will be talking about the different approaches to web design and help you in choosing the right one for your business.

We talked to the providers of the most comprehensive website design services and responsive website design services, they provided us with the following set of definitions that will help in explaining the different options of web design.

Definition Guide

CSS breakpoints: Breaks are the various breadths at which a website can be divided into different responsive views. Breakpoints are built with the help of a media query in CSS, hence, the name CSS breakpoints.

Responsive Web Design: Responsive web design or RWD is an approach to crafting responsive websites that make use of the media queries for targeting breakpoints. These breakpoints help in scaling the images, wrapping the text, and adjusting the layout so that the website can shrink to fit any screen size. Most website design companies provide responsive website design services.

Adaptive Web Design: Adaptive web design or AWD is an approach to crafting an adaptive website that makes use of CSS media queries for identifying particular device sizes and providing a version of the website specific to the device, that is optimized only for that particular screen. One of the issues with adaptive web design is that there is a constant need for code updates every single time a new device is released.

Fluid Web Design: Fluid web design is the approach to crafting a fluid website that uses percentages for widths.

Fixed Design: Fixed design is the oldest approach to crafting a website for fixed screen dimensions. Fixed design use fixed pixel widths for providing a website that is built for one particular device. This makes the fixed design websites very hard to optimize for mobile viewing. This approach is responsible for creating mayhem in mobile users trying to visit websites built using the fixed design approach. The user experience is generally poor for mobile users accessing this type of website design.

The 3 types of Web Design Approach – Responsive vs Adaptive vs Fluid Web Design: How they compare with each other?

Responsive web design

Google loves responsive web design and ranks responsive websites higher than other types of website designs. The algorithm of Google is constantly evolving to wholeheartedly welcome the exploding population of mobile users, that is why Google considers the level of responsiveness of a website like a search engine ranking factor. If your website is not crafted using RWD, it may end at the bottom of the stack. Other than rankings, responsive web design can help you in gaining more profits by ensuring that your website offers a brilliant user experience that makes the end-users tempted to be there.

However, many web designers argue that adaptive web design is a better option for older websites with a robust domain and web history, but requires revamping to look new. Therefore, instead of completely crafting a new website that can frustrate end-users who are accustomed to a specific look and feel, adaptive web design helps in bringing out a more mobile-friendly website without the tricky acclimatization period.

Therefore, if you have a new website to build, always go for responsive website design services.

Adaptive web design

Adaptive web design helps in detecting the screen size of a device and then pulls the correct static layout from a programmed library of options. There are a total of six common screen widths that help in covering the way an end-user will see a website, so all adaptive websites must have these six options. Although the creation of multiple widths for a single website may seem like a taxing job, it is worth the effort.

In adaptive web design, you can gauge the particular option that works the best for your target audience, this makes choosing the right version of the website easier for you. For instance, your desktop website is garnering the most traffic, then you are required to optimize the speed, usability, aesthetics, and media load time for that UX. With the help of AWD, you can save a few bucks and some precious time that can be utilized for more pressing matters.

Responsive web design is ideal for new websites, but for websites that already have a desktop version, adaptive web design is the best bet given its ability to retrofit. Keep this in mind, whatever design approach you choose, you need to conduct QA testing on different devices before, throughout, and after the launch of the website.

Fluid web design

The third option is using a fluid design to build a website. The fluid design offers the same adaptability as responsive and adaptive web design. The only exception is the non-usage of the fixed units that RWD and AWD rely on. Rather, fluid design makes use of the percentages instead of fixed widths. It makes use of the same percentage of space regardless of the device it is being viewed on. Due to this, the website fills the width of a page all the time. It is like water, that takes the shape of the vessel it is poured in.

The fluid design offers a more organic feel when an end-user transitions from one device to another. However, this approach helps in creating challenges due to the varying size of the browser. In the case of a mobile device, your content can look crowded. On the other hand, when viewing the same content on a large desktop screen or television screen, the content can look stretched.

The only benefit of fluid web design is that it is user-friendly since it adjusts to any device the viewer is using to access the website, the same as the responsive web design approach.

Conclusion – Choosing the best approach for your website design

There are so many similarities between responsive web design, adaptive web design, and fluid web design, that it becomes difficult to choose one style that is best suited for your business. The website of your company is the first point of contact for a potential customer, and if the user experience is not up to the mark, you can lose them forever and get bad feedback.

That is why you should assess your target audience first, figure the devices they use for viewing the most, and then choose the right option for your website design. If your analysis shows a high bounce rate, then maybe you need to optimize the page loading speed, or offer a more aesthetic view and feel, or it may not have adjusted to fit the screen size of the user.

The second thing to consider is whether you are building a website from scratch or revamping it. If you are revamping an old website, then adaptive web design is the best for you. But if you are going for a completely new website, then going for responsive web design is the best choice.

That is why going for responsive website design services is your best bet. Most providers of comprehensive website design services offer responsive website design, but always specifically ask for responsive web design when consulting your web designer.