If you browse the Internet on a smartphone, you've probably noticed that there are still many fixed-width sites on the web. The site also drifts to the left in the device window, instead of displaying in the center. Unfortunately, this isn't a very accessible browsing experience! I can read the text on the image slider and the text in some of the sidebar advertisements, but I can't make out any of the navigation links without zooming in. Here's what the fixed-width site,, currently looks like on a smartphone: Fixed-width websites frustrated visitors, forcing people to zoom in on text with their fingers just to read a menu, or to find an important phone number. They often didn't look much like the original site, and many were made in haste to meet the rising demands of mobile viewing. Mobile-only websites tended to confuse visitors. As a designer, you just crossed your fingers and hoped that your fixed-width website wasn't too small to be readable on a mobile phone! The second method involved creating an entirely separate, special site just for visitors accessing your site on mobile. The first way was to not design a mobile site at all. As the browser gets smaller, the images will scale proportionally and sidebar columns will rearrange down to a single column of text.Ī responsive website adapts to the size of the browser window.īefore responsive web design took hold, there were two different ways to design mobile sites. A responsive site is a website that will adapt fluidly to the size of the browser window. Responsive web design is all about designing websites with a wide range of viewing devices in mind.