Responsive vs. Adaptive website design – know the difference!

According to a recent analysis, 81% of smartphone users use their phones for web browsing and 79% of people use their phone for online shopping. Taking into consideration the use of smartphones and tablets, it is essential to design and develop a website that is accessible and properly visible to all devices. Terms like responsive, fluid, adaptive are used with the web development context. As many of us think that these all are same but the fact is that these are different from one another. It is necessary to know the difference between these to build a website. So let us see the difference- Responsive vs. Adaptive website design and which one is suitable for which requirements. 

What is Responsive Design?

Responsive web design acclimate itself to different screen resolutions by adjusting the height and width of various screen elements, so that the appearance of website should not affect with change in screen size. In technical terms, responsive websites use the same code and same design for all devices with just a minor change in CSS for adjustment in form factor of the screen.

Features of Responsive Design-

• Due to the presence of single codebase, one website version needs to be maintained.
• User- friendly and flexible on different screen resolutions.
• SEO friendly and there is no page version distinction, keeping the SEO strategy consistent.
• Less maintenance
• Takes less work to implement.
• All the images are downloaded in full size and then resized for the device size.
• Easy to build new responsive web design, while for the existing website, rebuilt should required.
• Single website layout of template is used, so it maintains website’s uniformity.

What is Adaptive Design?

Adaptive web design uses different layouts for multiple screen sizes, the layout largely depends on the screen size being used so with each of these sizes in mind a layout would have to be designed for it. In adaptive design, developing six designs for the six most common screen widths—320, 480, 760, 960, 1200, and 1600 pixels—is standard practice for designers.

Features of Adaptive Design-

• Multiple website codebase need to be maintained – this increases time and cost.
• Images are resized and designed as per the device size offering ideal viewing experience for the website visitor.
• Complexity in design and code maintenance, adaptive design requires more knowledge of JavaScript and CSS.
• Website layout is optimized for different mobile devices, this maintains website uniformity across all devices

Responsive vs. Adaptive website design –

Responsive VS Adaptive Website Design

A responsive website shows content based on the space available on browser. If user opens site on the desktop that is responsive and then minimize the size of the browser window, the content will move dynamically to arrange itself optimally for the browser window. On mobile phones, this process is automatic, the site checks for the available space and then presents itself in the ideal arrangement.

Adaptive design has multiple fixed layout sizes. When the site detects the available space, it selects the most appropriate layout for the screen. So, when you open a browser on the desktop, the site chooses the best layout for that desktop screen, resizing the browser has no impact on the design. The benefits of an advanced web design are that you can analyze which views and resolution options are performing best and then modify the design and development for the sizes that are getting the most traffic.

Pros and Cons of Responsive Web Design-

Pros-

1. Good User interface
2. Lot of templates are available  
3. SEO friendly
4. Easy to implement
5. Saves Time and Cost

Cons-

1. Advertisements lost on screen.
2. Longer mobile download times.

Pros and Cons of Adaptive Web Design-

Pros-

1. It can build best UX for specific device.

Cons-

1. Tablets and netbooks can have trouble with site configuration
2. Challenging to SEO

When to use and which one to use from Responsive vs. Adaptive website design ?

• If your website has a lot of content, then you should choose responsive design.
• If you need your users to always have access to all the pages of your website, responsive design is a better choice.
• For e-commerce websites, where users access websites with specific purpose, whether it will be purchasing of product or browsing products, you should choose adaptive design because it gives limited but targeted options.

Final Words-

As Responsive Design and Adaptive Design both have their pros and cons. So, we couldn’t decide, which one is best from Responsive vs. Adaptive website design. The selection among the best one is totally depends on your requirements. 

Confused to select the best website design strategy? Kindly refer the above tips to differentiate Responsive and Adaptive website design. For any query and consultation kindly contact us . We will surely give the best solution.