responsive design Articles & Videos

  • Web UX: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn how users interact with the web and how to design effective web user experiences.

  • Content Dispersion: The Downside of Mobile-first Design

    Content dispersion occurs when the content of a responsive webpage appears overly large and stretched out on large laptop or desktop screens. What negative affects can it create?

  • Breakpoints in Responsive Design: What & Why

    Breakpoints determine when a webpage may adjust to different layouts. They help designers (and developers) maintain layout consistency across multiple screen sizes, orientations, and devices.

  • Breakpoints in Responsive Design

    Breakpoints determine when a webpage may adjust to different layouts. They help designers (and developers) maintain layout consistency across multiple screen sizes, orientations, and devices.

  • Responsive Web Design: 3 Key Fundamentals

    Responsive web design adapts to various screen sizes while emphasizing developmental efficiency over device-specific designs. It's key to prioritize content based on different contexts of use across devices and create a cohesive experience for all users.

  • The Negative Impact of Mobile-First Web Design on Desktop

    Mobile-first web designs cause significant usability issues when viewed on desktop. Content becomes overly dispersed across long scrolling pages with expansive white space and enlarged images and fonts, making it difficult for users to consume and understand the information.

  • Easier Input on Mobile Devices

    Form filling and other user input on mobile devices such as smartphones can be awkward and error prone, but by taking advantage of the strengths of the phone, designers can improve the usability of these tasks substantially.

  • User Interface Design Fails

    Jakob Nielsen discusses the biggest failures in today's user interface design. (Recorded at the Virtual UX Conference.)

  • Designing Effective Carousels for Websites and Mobile Apps

    Sliding hero images that rotate through a set of promotions, news, or the like on the top of web pages are often annoying to users and are definitely error prone, unless they are designed according to usability guidelines.

  • Breadcrumbs: 11 Design Guidelines for Desktop and Mobile

    Support wayfinding by including breadcrumbs that reflect your site's information hierarchy. On mobile, avoid using breadcrumbs that are too tiny or wrap.

  • Variable Fonts and Wide-Screen Layouts: Adopting Data-Driven Progressive Enhancements

    The NN/g website homepage now incorporates variable fonts and a wide-screen layout — 2 technical adjustments which improve the user experience for a subset of users on supported devices.

  • Mobile Tables: Comparisons and Other Data Tables

    Locking headers and allowing users to select a subset of data according to their needs make large data tables usable on mobile devices.

  • Small Pictures on Big Screens: Scaling Up from Mobile to Desktop

    To transition images from mobile to desktop, consider relative screen space and information density. Pay attention to cropping, scaling, and proportions.

  • Design to Match the Medium

    Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to UX design. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each platform when presenting information.

  • Don’t Use Split Buttons for Navigation Menus

    Menu on hover, category landing page on click: we discuss challenges and solutions for replicating this pattern on touchscreens.

  • Big Pictures on Small Screens: Remove, Resize or Reorganize

    When using large-screen images on smaller screens, remove images that don’t add information. Then, pay close attention to cropping, scaling and placement.

  • Anchors OK? Re-Assessing In-Page Links

    While jump links have caused problems in the past, they can successfully be used to move users down long pages and directly to content, on any screen size.

  • Hamburger Menus Hurt UX Metrics

    Discoverability is cut almost in half by hiding a website’s main navigation. Also, task time is longer and perceived task difficulty increases.

  • Mobile Websites: Mobile-Dedicated, Responsive, Adaptive, or Desktop Site?

    Different approaches to implementing mobile websites have each their advantages and disadvantages. All should follow the same mobile user-experience principles.

  • Supporting Mobile Navigation in Spite of a Hamburger Menu

    Mobile sites using a hamburger or three-line menu need to support navigation activities throughout the site, in case users don't locate or use the main navigation.