Responsive web design is an important feature of any modern website, and its importance is only growing as different devices and different ways of engaging with content become more and more prevalent. That evolution of the online ecosystem also expands the opportunities for a web design company to explore the full potential of responsive web design.

When thinking about how to approach this topic, it may be helpful to regard responsive web design as serving two distinct functions. In the first place, it should guarantee that a website displays an equivalent aesthetic and an equivalent sense of user-friendliness regardless of the device or browser used to access it. This is the most imperative function of responsive web design, and it is the first thing that a web design company should focus on when tailoring a site to multiple platforms.

But beyond that, a truly skilled web design company should be able to complete that tailoring process by integrating distinct features into each version of the same website. The goal here is not to make the mobile version wildly different from the desktop version, but rather to give users a reason to seek out the experience of visiting that site on more than one device.

When it comes to completing the first function, responsive web design should take into account all of the subtle ways in which internet users interact differently with websites based on how they are accessing them. While amateur web designers might consider it sufficient to make sure that all the elements of a desktop website display properly on the mobile version, seasoned professionals will tend to recognize that other tweaks may be needed to provide visitors with an equally pleasant experience in both cases.

Possible examples include tweaks to the placement of buttons and links. If you think about how you interact with websites on your phone, you may find that at least some of the time you are navigating with only your thumb. Therefore, on any given page, interactive elements should be positioned so they are within reach of the user’s thumb, while the page itself should be designed so the user can scroll with their thumb and avoid accidentally changing an element or navigating away.

Analyses of a website’s user base may also reveal other behaviors that warrant attention on one version of the site but not necessarily the other. Voice search is becoming increasingly familiar to some users, so it may be worthwhile for certain modern websites to utilize a type of responsive web design that allows visitors to search the site by voice, or even interact with chat bots in that way.

These possibilities begin to hint at the ways in which responsive web design can make for a truly unique user experience. The ubiquity of cameras on phones opens the door for mobile websites to utilize augmented reality, while the larger display on a computer screen allows for desktop sites to fully utilize modern, visually rich website elements like 3D animations. These are just some of the possibilities that are available to modern web designers, and the range of possibilities is sure to continue growing as responsive web design continues pushing responsive web design in multiple directions at once.