Mobile Friendly EMC23
Written by Rob | 05.13.12
EMC23 - Web Development Blog
We’ve been doing a lot of research (as we do) and we’ve recently had the opportunity to apply some new techniques we’ve been reading about these last few months.
Responsive design is the buzz word du jour, and like a lot of our industry’s advancements, it seems to still be in transition between concept and application.
Clients are beginning to get a true sense of their undoubtedly “mobile” customers’ expectations, and design agencies are experimenting with deploying suitable solutions.
As developers, we have a few responsibilities.
To implement designs that work across a variety of devices, and to ensure they are as future-proof as possible.
Responsive design is the preference, I think, because it is
- Device-agnostic - "mobile" is not limited to mobile phones and the predictable dimensions of their tiny screens. Instead, it's designing for "mobile" people; those who want to access information on-the-go.
- Web-oriented - we're still in relatively familiar territory, so we can build on our current skill sets and apply what we already know about effective design.
- Content-focused - finally, superfluous design can take a back seat. We're back to the basics. Slower connection speeds, reduced view port real estate, people with clumsy fingers using technology that's new to them - all these and more need to be taken into account.
The layout for a responsive website is reliant on a floated, div-based grid. Each cell, or series of cells, houses content of some sort, and when viewed at different widths, these cells act like blocks, and stack as the viewport narrows.
There are many intricacies that we still have to explore, and an array of different tools and frameworks to help us web developers make the transition. While investigating the various options, we found ourselves getting genuinely excited about the possibilities. And of course, we had to try one.
Joomla Dublin is now responsive!
For our first experiment, we’ve launched a responsive Joomla website as the Joomla 2.5 upgrade of JoomlaDublin.org
We’ve used the Joomskeleton template developed by Johannes Hock (and inspired by many) and customised it slightly (moving module positions and changing module styles) to suit. Joomskeleton seems to be a great starting point for anyone who knows a little about responsive design and Joomla.
