Responsive layout: the questions we get asked most

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. The questions about responsive layout that come up most often on our calls.

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

Do we need to care about this?

Design for the smallest screen first and let the layout grow. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets.

How do we know it is working?

Test on a real phone, not just a resized browser window. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

How to tell if yours is fine

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about responsive layout before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Breakpoints should follow your content, not device names — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.