Implementing Responsive Design: Building Sites for an Anywhere, Everywhere Web

by Tim Kadlec

New devices and platforms emerge daily. Browsers iterate at a remarkable pace. Faced with this volatile landscape we can either struggle for control or we can embrace the inherent flexibility of the web.

Responsive design is not just another technique—it is the beginning of the maturation of a medium and a fundamental shift in the way we think about the web.

Implementing Responsive Design is a discussion about how this affects the way we design, build, and think about our sites. Readers will learn how to:

- Build responsive sites using a combination of fluid layouts, media queries and fluid media
- Adopt a responsive workflow from the very start of a project
- Enhance content for different devices
- Use feature-detection and server-side enhancement to provide a richer experience

Genres: Website Design, Design, Web, Nonfiction, Programming, Reference, Technology

271 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2012

About the author

Tim Kadlec is a web developer living in northern Wisconsin. His diverse background working with small companies to large publishers and industrial corporations has allowed him to see how the careful application of web technologies can impact businesses of all sizes. He is the co-founder of Breaking Development Conference, one of the first conferences dedicated to design and development for mobile devices using web technologies. He also writes about a variety of topics at http://timkadlec.com.

Reviews

[Denise Murphy]

This book was exactly what I needed to move into the world of responsive web design. The information is clear and easy to understand, especially for someone who has built various web sites, but is not skilled in coding. There are HTML and CSS examples, as well as some JavaScript, links to outside resources, and a web site with all the live examples in the book. This book is a step-by-step approach that gives the why behind the how to help a designer/developer think about the web as we should--as a limitless, sizeless space that grows and shrinks and jumps from device to device now and far into the future.

[Urchin Ceviche]

Ironically, the book terribly fails at being "future-friendly", especially the last three chapters.

[David]

I wanted to get a refresher course on new ways to look at web design, as I move away from Actionscript to full Javascript implementations, and it is a great primer to using all the CSS tags to their full effect, as well, as grasping with how to develop for a wide range of devices.

We are moving away from designing to just a desktop, or the largest size we can get away with, but adding dynamic function, starting from the most popular small screen and mobile devices, and then enhancing that experience to discover new inputs and pixel real-estate. Content, page size, layout and even behavior radically change to provide an experience that transfer across platforms.

Now nothing is set in stone, and never will be; what is being offered are strategies to consider in each stage of development, but it does provide doorways to using HTML and web interfaces as the new standard to create a systems-wide experiences.

Just a note: it's a little light on the programming, but it does raise the pitfalls that can happen, so reading more in-depth on Javascript techniques to achieve these concepts are in order.

[Joana]

A very well written book, that follows a logic structure on how to build a responsive design, with tons of references and additional sources for those who want to dig deeper.

Coming from a design background, the book leans towards a more technical development side, though I still found it useful. Since the book is so well written and the examples and build so clear, I found it possible to understand the gist of the code tricks even though I am not an expert developer.

I am looking however for a book that focuses a bit more on the design side of creating responsive websites -
If anyone has recommendations I would greatly appreciate it!

[Alessandro Pellizzari]

Un libro che forse cerca di essere anche troppo vasto.

Parte spiegando come imbastire un HTML (e relativi CSS) per fare un sito responsive, ma poi si allarga per diversi capitoli cercando di spiegare anche come organizzare un team e come gestire il cliente, oltre che come organizzare e ottimizzare i contenuti.

Argomenti che possono interessare chi è un novizio freelance, ma che forse sono un po' eccessivi quando si fa parte di un'agenzia (quindi con più esperienza e con figure dedicate alla gestione del cliente e del team).

[Graham Herrli]

This book has no clear target reader. At points it seems to be addressing designers, but the content varies between implementation details for front-end developers and strategic planning information for product managers. It even has a chapter aimed at content strategists.

Overall, the book provides an overview of some of the ways in which websites can be designed to be future-friendly and responsive to a variety of contexts. It delves too deeply into the actual PHP and Javascript implementation of these contexts to be of much interest to me.

[Tim Rueb]

Very good book. First have of the book was very direct and to the point, second have seems to have been stretched out to fill pages a bit, but all-in-all, I am strongly considering adding this text to my "Advanced Web Design" class I teach.

[Clint Robinson]

This book is not only extremely complimentary to Ethan Marcotte's "Responsive Web Design" it will help develop a mindset that there is more to responsive design than having your site adjust to the plethora of screen sizes.

[Alea]

Good book for beginers to responsive desing. Everything is well explained and you get into the way of thinking. Thought I would recomend that you know a bit about HTML, CSS and JavaScript before reading this book. It's not necessary to understand what's going on, but it makes it easier.

[Jeroen]

Thought provoking, eye opening.
Much to learn... Will definitely revisit this book in the near future for an in depth re-read.

[Fabrício]

A good start point to learn about responsive design.But after the chapter 5 the content is very repetitive.

[Miguel Frias]

Everything you need to know about Responsive Web design is in here.

[Craig Cecil]

Good, solid info regarding responsive design, mobile first, user experience and HTML5. However, some of the info is a little dated now--the curse and treachery of technology-centered books.