This Is Where Responsive Design Fails

Saurabh Tiwary | 15th July 2016

The Responsive Design has been in the vogue for a while now. The causes seems quite obvious owing to the fact that they easily adapt to any screen size and fits every component of the website on the viewport. This versatile nature of responsive design has made them the first choice of web and mobile UX designers to employ in a majority of the design projects that do not want to engage themselves in designing the individual website for desktop or mobile devices.

However, while you Design A Business Website, responsive design is not always the ultimate solution for your website design. Depending on the need and the functionalities to be imparted into the website, you may need to bring changes accordingly. Let’s look at some instances where responsive design might not be the best choice to go with.

Responsive Design Fails

Scaling vs. Fluid

To make better use of responsive design and choose whether to employ them in your design or not, it is important to understand scaling and fluid design.

Scaling layouts are used when it is required to scale various element which is relative to every other element. These are responsive, as they scale the content dynamically with changes in the size of the viewport. However, the layout remains static, but it changes the size of every other element in order to maintain a consistent appearance throughout.

If we talk about Fluid layouts, they are different in the way that they scale container elements as per the size of the viewport. This is often achieved by making use of relative units such as ems to solve the problem of shrinking text. The design can also be broken if user scales it. Take a look at the image below which clearly differentiates between Scaling and Fluid layout.

This Is Where Responsive Design Fails  

The Major Drawbacks Of Responsive Design

  • One of the major issues encountered in responsive design is the resizing of images. An image which is meant for desktop viewing needs to to be completely downloaded to mobile devices, even though they are not required.
  • Another concern with responsive design is the speed issue related to the mobile devices. If a design is carried out by keeping in mind the desktop viewability, it often loads slower in mobile devices, although the user experience does not get affected. Also, the responsive design incorporates a lot of coding making it load slower.
  • Although such designs load CSS, HTML, and Javascript media queries, but they do not get rid of unnecessary codes.
  • The ability to adapt to any viewport is what makes the responsive design very cool, but they are not specific for mobile devices as the user interface design is entirely different in mobile devices.
  • Images are often modified in terms of width when they are loaded in viewports in different aspect ratios.
  • Element distortion can make different layout elements get separated from one another affecting the user interface.


So, that’s all about limitations to the responsive design. Oodles Studio is preeminent name being Website Wireframe UX designing Expert as well as in Mobile App Design Services. Our web designing services include vast services such as, Video Animation Creation Services, Branding and Logo Design etc. We provide best-in-class and cost-effective web and mobile design works in accordance with the client’s requirement.

About Author

autor-img

Saurabh Tiwary


No Comments Yet.


Leave a Comment

Name is required

Comment is required




© Copyright 2015-2024 Oodles Studio. All Rights Reserved.

Request For Proposal

Recaptcha is required.