5 Mistakes you simply must Avoid with Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design (RWD) – or mobile-friendly design – is essential these days. The majority of website visitors browse from their smartphones or tablets, and web pages meant only for desktops don’t offer a good-enough experience on smaller screens. However, implementing RWD isn’t easy, and many website owners end up sacrificing quality or performance – or both – to make web pages accessible on small-screen devices.

Here are some costly mistakes you should avoid while building a responsive website:

Low-resolution images

Using low-resolution images for mobile-friendly web pages is not a good idea just because visitors will be browsing on a small-screen device. Every image should be high-quality and be a treat to behold. Nothing spoils a business’ reputation as much as poor-quality content, including images.

Cluttered content

Don’t create cramped content that has little or no whitespace. Text, images, and videos should all be easy to see and easy to access. Minimalist or clean design which makes use of a grid-based layout should be adopted.

Sacrificing quality and performance

Mobile phones, especially low-end devices, don’t have a lot of processing power and RAM. Because of this, they can’t handle flash content, videos, and web apps as well as desktop computers. When shifting to mobile-friendly design, ensure that the content can run well on devices that have little processing power.

Poor navigation

Just creating a miniature version of your regular pages isn't enough – they have to be designed for touch screens in mind. Often, visitors are going to be accessing your online presence while they are out and about and won’t be able to make precision gestures. Icons should be big and the page easy to navigate even for someone moving.

Not enough testing

Testing a prototype or beta testing is paramount on a range of devices, including tablets and popular smartphone brands. Even if the prototype renders correctly on a single device, there’s no guarantee that it will do so on another. Also, most phones and tablets (and wearable) come in a variety of screen sizes.

By recruiting the services of an experienced web design and development team, you can avoid making these errors and provide an improved experience to mobile visitors. 

How to Quickly and Effectively Optimize your WordPress Website?

Setting up and running a WordPress site is easy – getting it to stand out in a crowd of almost a billion other sites, though, isn't. It takes time, effort, and a constant stream of updates to build an active, fast-loading, high-performing WordPress website. Here is a collection of simple but useful tips that show you how to drastically enhance the performance of your existing website:

Use a caching plugin

A caching plugin creates static HTML files of your dynamic pages. When a visitor requests a page, the static file is sent to it quickly. That significantly speeds up loading times on both desktops and mobile phones. You can use plugins like WP Super Cache to implement the functionality.

Optimize images

Images take up the bulk of a web page’s size. Some HD images can be as big as a few dozen megabytes (MBs). By compressing images – especially for thumbnail use or previews – you can maximize loading times. If you must show videos, make use of third-party tools like YouTube to host them and embed the link to them in your pages.

Always update to the latest version

Developers are regularly releasing updates to plugins and the platform itself. By staying up-to-date, not only do you ensure your pages load as quickly as possible, but also make your web presence less vulnerable to security threats.

Cut down on the use of plugins

Don’t use more plugins than you have to. Nothing slows down a website like a dozen plugins all competing for bandwidth/screen space. Too many plugins – even if the server can support the demand – place a significant load on a browser.

Embrace minimalist design

Make use of a minimalist design philosophy – like Google’s Material Design. That means make liberal use of whitespace, arrange content in a grid-based layout, and never stuff a single page with too much content – use multiple pages instead.

The tips mentioned here can improve load times by a couple of seconds – or even more – depending on your existing setup. If you want a truly professional, high-performing website, though, you should consider hiring a professional WordPress development team to upgrade your web pages at an affordable rate.