What is the difference between responsive and fluid design

Fluid vs. They also have Responsive Web Design Guidelines and Tutorials for an overview of responsive with plenty of links should you want to dig deeper into Responsive Design. Responsive Design is very much "in" at the moment thanks to Mobile, Smashing actually has a whole tag for responsive design.

No matter what browser you're using: Smartphone, Tablet, Desktop, the site will look mostly the same and have the same proportions this element will take up half the screen.

This is because in your CSS, everything is defined in terms of percent, or ems, or some other metric that scales nicely from device to device Whereas defining fixed sizes in pixels might make and element take up half the screen on a desktop, the whole screen on a tablet, and be bigger than the screen on a smartphone. Responsive design is usually more on the programming side, where you detect the user's browser via useragent or the size of their screen, and actually show them a different view based on the size of their device.

For example, you might use a three column layout for desktops, a two column layout for tablets, and a single column layout on smartphones. In this case, the view on each device looks very different, because you are actually changing the view based on the device. You are correct in that a fluid design is one that uses percentages to allow for content to grow or expand based on user's device screen width.

Responsive takes fluid or fixed design one step further with CSS3 media queries. This might look nice on a mobile device, but larger tablets and desktops will look rather unpleasant, so you could target [ media screen only and min-widthpx ] and reset the width to be a smaller percentage, making it responsive. Fluid will grow and shrink content when the browser window is re-sized, however this isn't to say that it will change it's layout and style when resized so your website could look awful at full width or smallest width.

Responsive is similar, however care is taken to ensure the content is usable at different sizes, so for example a conditional style sheet may take effect if the browser is greater or less than a specified width. This gives designers and developers control over how content will appear on different devices at different sizes.

Beyond that it's just pure semantics :. Look at Office Ribbon for real-world example for Responsive Responsive well probably look at Office as product line Imho people want to write code use everywhere dream and after years and years of watching these solutions crash and burn, simply put its a rare thing to find in the wild. Again, this can be overcome using media queries, but the above serves as a good example of why responsive design — whilst being a popular choice — is not always the best for mobile.

Responsive design will remain popular, but that might be because we have not yet found a decent solution to the heavy maintenance that adaptive demands.

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Search close. Responsive Design vs. Why not test it out yourself in UXPin? Without specific instructions for how to accommodate specific dimensions, a purely fluid approach might not perfect your UX.

But, it can get you pretty close. Originally published Oct 12, AM, updated November 02 Logo - Full Color. Contact Sales. Overview of all products. Marketing Hub Marketing automation software. Service Hub Customer service software. CMS Hub Content management system software. Operations Hub Operations software. App Marketplace Connect your favorite apps to HubSpot. Why HubSpot? Marketing Sales Service Website.

Subscribe to Our Blog Stay up to date with the latest marketing, sales, and service tips and news. Thank You! You have been subscribed. Start free or get a demo. Website 5 min read. The second thing to consider is whether you will be building a brand new site or working with an existing site.

Most new sites are made with responsive design automatically. Older sites can still transition to mobile, but updating the design will always improve user experience. The time it takes to launch or re-launch a website depends on your financial resources and your human resources aka your team. No matter which design you choose, every designer will have a slightly different take on responsive versus adaptive design, or even why fluid is equal to both of them.

Whichever you decide, the principal goals to keep in mind are desired functionality, adaptability to mobile, and the overall user experience. Learn more about responsive design with our responsive design video and tutorial , or by joining our responsive design online course.

Very informative article and helpful as well. It has cleared my doubt regarding adaptive and responsive design. Your tips are also very useful I would like to read more such posts. Keep sharing your valuable knowledge. Informative and incredible post, some of the things are similar in the responsive and adaptive design.

Because of, responsive design uses only one template as compared to the multiple templates adaptive design. I also use the fluid layout design it specifies the sizes not in pixels, but in percentages. For example, if the screen size changes, the section of elements will stay the same. I had no idea there was a difference between responsive, adaptive, and fluid. Thanks for the info. I realize now that I was looking at adaptive designs and immediately assuming they were responsive!