Web Design: Responsive or Adaptive? What is the difference?

One of the most important objectives in web page design is to guarantee good accessibility and usability for our users. This is a tremendously important component since to a large extent it will determine such important things as the influx of visitors and what is more important the strength of the ties that our visitors strengthen with our site or their loyalty. It is necessary that we take a look at the panorama that exists today: The types of pages that exist, the types of users that there are and the types of access and ways of browsing that there are. There is a great variety of access routes to the Internet: computers, tablets, smartphones ... So the pages that we design must be completely prepared to be reproduced on any of these devices.

There is much talk about adaptive design and responsive design. But do these concepts allude to the same thing? Not really, there are differences between both concepts and it is necessary that we know them and choose the alternative that best suits us in each case.

As there are different types of devices and screen resolutions, it is necessary that we be able to create sites that are reproducible in all formats. It is a fact that an increasingly high percentage accesses the network through portable devices, although paradoxically many companies ignore this detail so that the experience of these users when they visit their pages is of much lower quality and therefore they abandon the page and also get a bad impression of the business in question. There are problems such as a too long loading time when trying to reproduce desktop pages on portable devices, problems when making downloads and of course at a visual level with the deformation or distortion of the original design. To avoid these problems, it is essential that developers and designers observe how the consumption of online information is taking place and try to adapt to the new modus operandi because otherwise it will only mean a delay and a possible loss of visitors.

The alternatives that exist today to face this challenge are the modalities of responsive design and adaptive design. Both consist of a fairly flexible programming system that provides the possibility of reorganizing or even restructuring the elements that make up our web architecture so that they finally adapt to any screen resolution and offer an attractive and functional result. However, both modalities do not mean the same thing.

What are the differences between responsive design and adaptive design?

• Responsive web design what it does is adapt the structure of the web and all the elements that make it up to the screen of our device to offer an excellent visual appearance and great functionality according to criteria such as accessibility to the content. To achieve this type of design, it is necessary to establish proportional size values ​​instead of establishing fixed values. Media queries and style sheets are used to achieve a good result. In many cases it is necessary to modify the original structure to favor the user experience by changing the layout of the menus, for example and avoiding excessive scrolls or uncomfortable access methods from other devices.

• Adaptive web design it is not as flexible as responsive design. This uses fixed and preset screen sizes for each of the devices where the page in question will be reproduced. One of its virtues we could say is its simplicity at the code level. Creating an adaptive design doesn't need as much code as a responsive design.

For all this, the most advisable thing is to opt for a responsive web design and although it may take us extra time in its development, it is finally worth it, all this if we are going to be the one who takes care of the integral development of our website. In case we are working through a template with CMS such as WordPress we must make sure that our template is responsive (the most current proposals are so it is easy to find them), in this way it will not be necessary to work on it. It is not a new trend, keep in mind that we have been immersed in a multiplatform system for many years now, although it is something that many companies do not take into account, it is important since the quality and number of customers will vary significantly.