So you’re wondering what RWD is? We each have our own guess the first time we see those letters. When I first saw them I thought it stood for Rear Wheel Drive.
RWD > Responsive Web Design.
Web design has always been moving forward since the internet started, which their wasn’t much design aspect to it in the beginning. As technology progressed we started to design for desktop computers.
Several years ago as mobile phones came onto the market with internet browsing it created a web designer problem. Desktop design was not displaying properly on mobile and thus a need for a second mobile platform with website solely. Now in 2013 we have had more devices than there has ever been between mobile phones, 7” tablets, and 9” tablets.
With all of these different size screens, trying to design a website for every device is nearly impossible. RWD is the way to go which allows you to have one website but will display on multiple size screens. It is all about the width of the device that will change how your website displays. You can set how it is displayed on the different screen size by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) edits. The layout of your website will re-flow when you have a smaller screen.
The image above will show you how RWD works between desktop and mobile On the left is a desktop version that has a wider screen. On the right is a moblie phone screen, and as the width of the screen begins to become smaller it will reflow the layout and start becoming taller with your content flowing in a vertical fashion.
RWD is fundamentally changing how we design websites.