Top 5 Tools for Responsive Web Design

In this post-PC era, where the use of smartphones, tablets and netbooks for web browsing has been increasing like never before, the need of responsive web design has become more important. A responsive web design is all about using scalable images and adjustable layouts in order to make mobile web access easy and hassle-free.

It is an emerging trend which is here to stay and in 2012, we’ll witness a lot many websites that will have dynamic and responsive web design. Such websites become easily accessible through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, expanding the reach of your website and business. The images in responsive web design are basically fluid images that are replaced with context aware images that are an updated version for better designing. It serves the purpose of responsive designing as the images adapt for different resolutions, ranging from larger screens to smaller ones.

In order to achieve success in creating responsive website design, there are several tools that make the entire task a whole lot easier:

1) Adobe Device Central CS5.5- This software simplifies the production of innovative and engaging content for mobile phones, tables and other mobile devices. It allows the website designer to plan, preview and test engaging experiences and deliver them to practically anyone on any mobile device. Some of the unique features of this tool include online library of device profiles, advanced device input emulation and HTML5 support.

2) Golden Grid System- The web designers who have developed responsive websites before may be very much aware of this beneficial tool. It allows the designer to split the screen into 18 even columns, with two of the columns at extreme ends being the outer margins. The rest of the 16 columns can be folded in 8 columns for tablet-sized screens and into 4-columns for mobile-size ones. Other significant features of golden grid system include elastic gutters, zoomable baseline grid and Golden Gridlet.

3) FitText- It is a JQuery plugin for inflating web type and fluid or responsive layout to achieve scalable headlines that fill the width of a parent element. This tool makes the font-size flexible, making it adaptable on different screen sizes.

4) Gridless- To have hassle-free responsive website design, Gridless comes as a handy option. It is open-source that is easy to use and works on all modern browsers. As an optionated HTML5 and CSS3 boilerplate, it facilitates responsive, cross-browser websites with beautiful typography.

5) Skeleton- It is a boilerplate for responsive, mobile-friendly development of websites. Being a small collection of CSS and JS files, it helps developers to create beautiful looking web design for 17” laptop screens or iPhones. The core principles of Skeleton include responsive grid down to mobile, fast to start and style agnostic.

By incorporating these tools in the web design process, you can enjoy the benefits of highly accessible websites, improving the reach of your business. In Sydney, several business owners are vying for greater attention from their customers and target audience and so they are investing in advanced responsive website design.