I just got back from An Event Apart – Austin 2015, and I had a great time! In addition to the amazing food, I had three days of great speakers about the future of web design. Here are my three takeaways:
1) Responsive web design is essential for our multi-device future
With the growth of the mobile web, we need to design in a device-agnostic way. There are over 19,000 different Android devices, each with their own unique screen size and pixel density. No team, no matter how well-funded, could design a fixed-width layout for each of those devices. We need to think and design our web applications in a way that they scale and resize smartly for each browser and device.
2) Users want a seamless user experience across all of their devices
Research shows that 83% of consumers say that a seamless experience across all their devices is important to them. They want to be able to access their content and do their jobs in the same way rather than having to learn different input methods for their phone and their desktop. We need to design responsively while maintaining a unified user experience.
3) Responsive design is not just about layout – it will affect your whole process.
You cannot simply take the latest CSS or JS framework and attempt to apply it to your existing web application. Features and content need to be appropriately designed to work on all device sizes as well. “Going mobile” is not something you can just bolt on top of your existing app; it needs to be something which permeates the whole development process from beginning to end.
Of course, there is a lot which I have not covered! For more, you can check out http://aneventapart.com/news/post/aea-resources-from-an-event-apart-austin-2015.