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Responsive Design

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rom smartphones and tablets to notebooks and TVs, the ways in which people access the web are growing all the time. It’s great news for anyone who sells online. You can now reach your customers whenever and wherever they may be – whether they’re travelling, commuting, socialising, or simply relaxing on the sofa.

The explosion in internet-ready devices has sparked a wealth of marketing opportunities but it also means that companies need to give careful consideration to how their website looks and behaves on all these new platforms.

Until now, the trend has been to create a different site or even a native application (app) for each device and screen size. But this is costly, time-consuming and as new devices with different capabilities and screen sizes are being launched all the time, it is impractical and a never-ending game of catch-up. The smart alternative, the Zolv alternative, is Responsive Web Design. By delivering a device-independent, responsive design, we can ensure that your site will always look perfect, regardless of the device that it is viewed on, and remove the need to maintain multiple versions. This gives our customers a cost-effective and future-proof solution.

Responsive design for the travel industry

When it comes to booking travel products, people don’t always want to wait to get to a desktop PC. Perhaps they are discussing holiday plans with a friend in a coffee shop, or want to research holiday options while waiting for a train or sitting on the sofa watching TV. Well, wherever your customers are when inspiration strikes, we ensure you’re there too, and able to take their enquiry or booking, no matter what device they are using.

Responsive Design is still relatively new within the travel industry – but before long it will be commonplace. At the time of writing, 44% of UK adults access the web on a mobile device, it’s only a matter of months before mobile overtakes desktop, and let us not forget: mobile devices come in all shapes and sizes. By making Responsive Design the standard now, we’re keeping our customers one step ahead of the competition.

How responsive design works

A responsive website has the ability to adapt its layout to best suit the environment where it’s displayed. It takes into account the device type, network speed, resolution, available content display area and device orientation; by flexing, re-organising and re-shaping the page content to deliver an optimal layout and viewing experience.

For example, if you were to change from a desktop display with a keyboard and mouse, to an iPad, you would see the website change in a number of ways. Content would be re-organised to fit, certain content may be prioritised over others and mouse-dependent interactions, such as ‘hovering’ would change to work on ‘touch’. In addition, some traditional elements that can cause interaction issues on a smaller screen - like large navigation menus - can be hidden, replaced or reformed to better suit the new environment. Here are some of the things Zolv can do with responsive design:

Fluid grids

We use content-based, not device-based break points to ensure that no matter what size the screen, your content is always presented flawlessly.

Adaptive functionality

Using progressive enhancement, we not only take into account the device’s screen but also its capabilities, offering total usability at all times. For example, if it is a touch device we will exchange traditional mouse and keyboard inputs for ones based upon gestures.

Flexible images

High resolution images look great on large displays but can cause unnecessarily long load times on smaller devices. Rather than compromise the quality of images on top-end devices by serving low resolution across the board, we can download the most appropriate resolution per image, per user, based on the screen dimensions and available bandwidth.

Variable content levels

When the screen size gets too small to display everything, we can reformat or dock the content to suit the particular device.