In the past, mobile devices weren’t exactly a priority or concern in designing websites. But today, it’s essential that your website adjusts to a mobile device’s screen. It can mean the difference between attracting a loyal customer or losing someone’s interest. It’s almost unacceptable to have a website that doesn’t function properly on mobile.

It’s a great thing that responsive or adaptive mobile design has become an option now. How well your site appears on a mobile device or tablet is essential to driving traffic and gaining more visitors. It should not only be easy to view but functional and responsive as well.

Since there are two ways you can prepare your website for mobile use, it’s essential to know the difference between the two. Why should you choose one over the other? 

These points should help you decide what is best for your website:



Responsive Design

Pros

Responsive design is considered the safer and easier option. It takes less work to implement and is generally pretty flexible across devices. It’s currently the preferred design for creating new sites as it offers more certainty. There are also plenty of affordable templates that can cut your site building time even more. They’re available for most Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, and more. 

If you choose to forego templates, designers still only have to create a single design applied on all screens. Whatever decide users view your website on, it will look the same and fit to the screen. This creates a seamless experience. It’s also the more search engine friendly option as it only uses one URL for all devices.

Cons

Because your website flows from device to device, it offers no control over how it will appear on different devices. While it will appear the same and fit, there is the issue of ads. If you have placed ads around the site, the chances are high that it won’t appear the same on other devices or simply not appear at all. 

In theory, load times should be faster with responsive design. However, images on your website may affect this. Depending on the size of the assets, photos, and others, it might be slower on some devices and faster than others. So, this design creates a pretty seamless experience but not 100 percent.

Adaptive Design

Pros

On paper, the adaptive design ensures that the user has the best experience with your website. Adaptive design means creating a new layout specifically for different devices. Designers often focus on computer screens and smartphones. This method offers tailor-made solutions that give you total control over how your website will appear on different screens.

This indeed helps customers to feel more comfortable and attended to even in such a simple way. It shows users that your brand is in tune with their needs. The best thing that adaptive design offers is a more relevant and convenient experience, especially if your website hinges on a particular presentation. You can give mobile or tablet users the same quality of experience as desktop users.

Cons

Usually, designers will create around six designs depending on the users’ data and needs. It can be less, but you will need at least two or three to ensure that website development will take quite a bit of time. 

There is also the issue that adaptive websites won’t be able to address all the different requirements that different devices need. For example, tablets or notebooks are left in the middle of the desktop and mobile designs. And then, of course, there’s SEO to worry about. Multiple URLs might make it harder for your content to rank high.

Conclusion

Both design plans offer significant benefits and considerable drawbacks. While responsive design is the more popular and preferred method, adaptive is still worth looking into. In the end, it all depends on your goals and what kind of experience your website is aiming to give users. Either method can serve you well, as it’s still better than ignoring mobile and other screens altogether.

If your company needs expert web designing, we are the team for you. Minotaur Digital is a digital marketing agency. Our services range from web design, SEO, and social media management. We provide high-quality solutions and services to all our clients. To learn more about work, you can browse our portfolio and contact us if you have further questions.