Adaptive Vs. Responsive Web Design - Studio Brief 04 - OUGD504

With web design, there are two main techniques that are used in the development process. One being Adaptive web design, and the other being Responsive web design.

Throughout tis post I will outline the basic differences between the two and how I am going to utilise one or the other and why.

Adaptive:

• Requires knowledge of HTML5 and CSS/CSS3
• Page size determines the width of the site and how much is displayed
• Provides instant mobile/tablet viewing by condensing the content from the full desktop site

Responsive:

• Requires separate designs for desktop/tablet/mobile to fit the screen size
• Overall width is restricted to around 960px
• No coding skill required

With the above outlined, and when taking the brief into consideration, it is obvious that responsive is the way to go when wanting to give a functioning 'prototype', or in other words, an advanced wireframe that can be viewed by any browser or computer.