How to make an App Responsive

Responsive design is no longer a choice, but a necessity for ensuring top-notch user experience in today’s highly competitive digital landscape. 

To create a responsive app, it takes a collaborative effort from Business Analysts (BA), Designers, Developers, DevOps, and QA teams to effectively adapt to the ever-evolving mobile and high-tech landscape.

Follow along this guide to understand what role is played by different stakeholders in proper implementation of responsive web/mobile app.

What is a Responsive App?

Responsive app design is important because it ensures that an app is accessible and user-friendly for all users. Responsive design first emerged in the early 2010s.

The concept quickly gained popularity among web designers and developers, as it eliminates the need for separate mobile and desktop apps, resulting in cost savings for development and maintenance.

As mobile usage continued to grow, responsive design became the industry standard for web and mobile app design, replacing the traditional approach of creating separate versions for different devices.

These are some of the hallmarks of a great responsive app:

• Flexible and adaptable layout: A responsive design should adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions, providing a consistent and seamless user experience across all devices.
• Mobile-first approach: It should prioritize the mobile experience, ensuring that the layout and functionality are optimized for small screens.
• Optimized for touch and gesture-based interactions: A responsive design should be optimized for touch and gesture-based interactions, making it easy to use on mobile devices.
• Fast loading times: It should be optimized for fast loading times, ensuring that the website or app loads quickly on all devices.

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• Accessible to all users: A responsive design should be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, and should meet web accessibility standards.
• Usable and easy to navigate: A responsive design should be easy to navigate and use, providing a clear and intuitive interface on all devices.
• High-quality images and graphics: A responsive design should use high-quality responsive images and graphics that look good on all devices and screen sizes.
• Consistent branding and visual design: A responsive design should maintain a consistent branding and visual design across all devices, providing a cohesive and professional experience.
• Compatible with different browsers and devices: A responsive design should be compatible with a wide range of browsers and devices, ensuring that the website or app can be accessed by a large audience.
• Tested and debugged: A responsive design should be thoroughly tested and debugged, ensuring that it works correctly and provides a seamless user experience across all devices.

Importance of Responsive apps

Here’s why Responsive apps are important:

From Business perspective

The global mobile phone internet user penetration was at 52.2% in 2019 and is projected to reach 63.4% by 2023. This means that a majority of internet users are accessing the web through their mobile devices.

A responsive app allows for a faster and more efficient content consumption and buying experience, which can lead to increased conversion rates. This Google study found that mobile-friendly sites see a 75% increase in conversion rates compared to non-responsive sites.

Google favours responsive websites in its search algorithm, which means that a responsive app can improve a business’s SEO and increase its visibility in search results.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommend that all web content should be designed to be as accessible as possible, and a responsive design is an important part of achieving this.

A responsive app increases the chances of customers returning to the app as they have a better user experience and find the app more accessible on all devices.

From Design perspective

A responsive web/mobile app designer should have a deep understanding of responsive design principles, including how to create flexible and adaptable layouts that work on different devices and screen sizes.. 

By starting with the mobile experience and then expanding to larger screens, developers can ensure that the layout and functionality are optimized for small screens. A consistent branding and visual design can help to provide a cohesive and professional experience across all devices.

A responsive design based UX strategy ensures that the app or website is always optimized for new devices, making it future-proof and reducing the need for frequent updates and redesigns.

From Development perspective

A responsive design approach requires developers to write highly optimized code, which can be a challenging task if they are not up to date with the contemporary coding best practices and device landscape. This is why a responsive design based approach should be an architectural consideration for development teams.

A responsive design approach ensures that the app or website is compatible with different operating systems and platforms, including Android, iOS, and web.

Developers can use web accessibility techniques such as using semantic HTML tags, providing alternative text for images, and using high-contrast colors to make the website or app accessible to all users.

Developers should continuously test and debug the website or app to ensure that it works correctly and provides a seamless user experience across all devices.

From Testing perspective

A responsive design approach makes it easier to automate testing as only one version of the app or website needs to be tested. This allows testers to focus on creating automated test cases that cover a wide range of devices and screen sizes, resulting in faster and more efficient testing.

Testers can use tools such as BrowserStack that allow them to test the website or app on different devices and screen sizes, simulating different user scenarios.Testers can test the website or app’s usability by performing user testing, observing how users interact with the website or app, and gathering feedback on its ease of use and navigation.

Testers can test the touch and gesture-based interactions on mobile devices, ensuring that the website or app is easy to use and responsive to touch and gesture-based interactions.

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A responsive design approach reduces the need for frequent updates and redesigns, which can be costly and time-consuming. This allows QA/QC testers to focus on testing new features and functionalities rather than maintaining multiple versions of the app or website.

How to make an App Responsive?

Accommodating business constraints

The design and responsiveness of a website or mobile app should align with the business goals of the organization. For example, if the goal is to increase online sales, the design and responsiveness of the website or mobile app should be optimized for e-commerce.

It should also take into account any technical limitations that may affect its performance. For example, limitations in terms of web development languages, frameworks, or device capabilities should be considered.

The brand identity of a business should be reflected in the design and responsiveness of its website or mobile app. This includes elements such as color schemes, typography, and imagery, which should be consistent across different platforms and devices.

The target audience plays a crucial role in determining the design and responsiveness of a website or mobile app. Understanding the demographics, preferences, and behavior of the target audience can help to inform the design and ensure that it is optimized for the intended users.

Providing quality user experience design

The interaction design of a website or mobile app should be intuitive and easy to use, allowing users to complete tasks and achieve their goals quickly and easily. 

This includes elements such as buttons, forms, and modals. The features of a website or mobile app should be accessible to users with disabilities, including those using assistive technologies such as screen readers.

The navigation of a website or mobile app should be intuitive and easy to use, allowing users to find the information they need quickly and easily. This includes elements such as menu structure, search fun ctionality, and breadcrumb trails.

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The content of a website or mobile app should be easy to read and understand and optimized for different devices and screen sizes. This includes considerations such as font size, line spacing, and images.

The loading time of a website or mobile app should be optimized to ensure that it is fast and responsive, even on slower internet connections. Testing Responsiveness on real devices and browsers helps QAs to consider real user conditions while testing and get more accurate results.

Test Responsive App on Real Devices 

Best Practices for Responsive Coding

The area of research on responsive design implementation is a rich and diverse playground of ideas where new features, syntax, techniques, and modalities are evaluated for their overall impact on responsiveness.

It is not possible to capture all fundamentals of responsive coding for multiple platforms in a single guide, so we will try and bring in the best of current coding industry knowledge for reference on how to better approach the problem.

For Web

• Use grids and subgrids: Web developers can use CSS Grid Layout to create a flexible grid system that adapts to different screen sizes and devices. This allows for easy creation of multi-dimensional layouts and alignment of elements on a webpage.

.container {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(300px, 1fr));
grid-gap: 10px;
}

In this example, the container class is set to display as a grid container, and grid-template-columns is set to repeat(auto-fit, minmax(300px, 1fr)), which means the columns will automatically adjust to fit the screen size and the minimum width is set to 300px.

• Utilize Flexbox: Web developers can use Flexbox to create flexible, responsive, and efficient layout of elements on a webpage. Flexbox allows elements to be aligned, distributed, and sized based on the available space, making it a great option for creating responsive and adaptive layouts.

.container {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}

.box {
flex: 1;
margin: 10px;
}

In this example, the container class is set to display as a flex container, with flex-wrap set to wrap. The box class is set to flex: 1, which means it will take up equal space within the container.

• Use media queries: Web developers can use media queries to apply different styles to the website based on the screen size and resolution of the device, ensuring that the layout and functionality adapt to different devices. Media queries allows to target specific CSS rules to specific screen sizes, orientations and resolutions.

@media (min-width: 600px) {
/* styles for devices with a screen width of 600px or greater */
}

@media (max-width: 599px) {
/* styles for devices with a screen width of 599px or less */
}

• Optimize for touch and gesture-based interactions: To create touch and gesture-based interactions such as swipe, tap, and pinch-to-zoom, web developers can use JavaScript event listeners and handlers to detect and respond to touch and gesture events.
• Minimize the use of large images and heavy scripts: Web developers can optimize images by compressing them and minimizing the use of scripts by using a script loader or lazy loading scripts to reduce page loading times and improve performance.
• Use semantic HTML tags: Web developers can use semantic HTML tags such as header, nav, article, and section to make the website more accessible to users and search engines. This allows the search engines and assistive technologies to understand the structure of the webpage and its content.
• Using relative units: Using relative units like percentages and ems instead of absolute units like pixels allows elements to be flexible and responsive to the screen size. An example of using relative units to create a responsive design would be:

div { 
width: 100%;
}

h1 {
font-size: 2em;
}

In this example, the width of the div element is set to 100%, which will be relative to the parent, and the font-size of the h1 element is set to 2em, which will be twice the size of the body font size.

For Android:

When moving to mobile from web, you will notice that the goals for responsive mobile app design are similar to responsive web design but the constraints are different and hence the approach is also slightly different, although sharing some common principles.

• Use the Android layout manager: Android developers can use the layout manager to create flexible, responsive, and efficient layouts for different screen sizes and densities. This allows for easy creation of multi-dimensional layouts and alignment of elements on the app’s interface.
• Use the Android Support Library: Android developers can use the Android Support Library to provide backward-compatible features and widgets for older versions of Android. This ensures that the app’s layout and functionality adapt to different versions of Android.
• Using Constraint Layout: Constraint Layout is a powerful layout manager in Android that allows for flexible and responsive design. It allows for elements to be positioned and aligned in a flexible and responsive way, making it easy to create layouts that adapt to different screen sizes. 

An example of using Constraint Layout to create a responsive layout would be:

<android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">

<TextView
android:id="@+id/text_view"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Hello World!"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

</android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout>

In this example, the ConstraintLayout is set to match the parent in width and height, and the TextView element is set to wrap_content, which will make it responsive to the screen size.

• Optimize for touch and gesture-based interactions: To create touch and gesture-based interactions such as swipe, tap, and pinch-to-zoom, android developers can use the Android gesture detector class to detect and respond to touch and gesture events
• Using Dimension Resources: Dimension resources allow developers to set dimensions in dp, sp, or pt, which are relative units that adapt to different screen sizes and densities. An example of using dimension resources to create a responsive design would be:

<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Hello World!"
android:textSize="@dimen/text_size" />

In this example, the text size of the TextView is set to a dimension resource, which allows it to adapt to different screen sizes and densities.

• Using Adaptive Icon: Adaptive Icon allows for creating icons that adapt to different screen sizes and shapes. An example of using Adaptive Icon to create a responsive design would be:

<adaptive-icon xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<background android:drawable="@color/icon_background"/>
<foreground android:drawable="@drawable/icon_foreground"/>
</adaptive-icon>

In this example, the background and foreground of the icon are set to drawables, which allows it to adapt to different screen sizes and shapes.

• Using RecyclerView: RecyclerView is a powerful widget that allows for creating efficient and responsive media lists and grids. An example of using RecyclerView to create a responsive design would be:

RecyclerView recyclerView = findViewById(R.id.recycler_view);
RecyclerView.LayoutManager layoutManager = new LinearLayoutManager(this);
recyclerView.setLayoutManager(layoutManager);

• Using layouts with different densities: To create a responsive design for different screen densities, android developers should create different layouts for different screen densities. The layouts with different densities are stored in different resource directories, such as layout-ldpi, layout-mdpi, layout-hdpi, layout-xhdpi, layout-xxhdpi and layout-xxxhdpi.
• Use the Android Accessibility Framework: Android developers can use the Android Accessibility Framework to make the app more accessible to users with disabilities. This allows the app to provide alternative ways of interacting with the app’s interface, such as voice commands or gestures.

For iOS:

• Use Auto Layout: iOS and iPadOS developers can use Auto Layout, a powerful layout engine, to create flexible, responsive, and efficient layouts for different screen sizes and orientations. This allows for easy creation of multi-dimensional layouts and alignment of elements on the app’s interface.

let label = UILabel()
label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
label.text = "Hello, World!"

view.addSubview(label)

let centerXConstraint = label.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerXAnchor)
let centerYConstraint = label.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerYAnchor)

centerXConstraint.isActive = true
centerYConstraint.isActive = true

In this example, the label is positioned in the center of the screen and is aligned with the parent view on both the x and y axis.

• Using Size Classes: Size Classes is a feature in iOS that allows developers to create different layouts for different screen sizes and orientations. An example of using Size Classes to create a responsive design would be:

override func traitCollectionDidChange(_ previousTraitCollection: UITraitCollection?) {
super.traitCollectionDidChange(previousTraitCollection)
if traitCollection.horizontalSizeClass == .compact {
// Do something for compact width
} else {
// Do something for regular width
}
}

In this example, the code checks the horizontal size class of the device and performs different actions based on the result.

• Optimize for touch and gesture-based interactions: To create touch and gesture-based interactions such as swipe, tap, and pinch-to-zoom, iOS developers can use the UIGestureRecognizer class to detect and respond to touch and gesture events.
• Using Trait Collections: Trait Collections in iOS allow developers to check for different device characteristics such as screen size, display scale, and interface style. This can be used to create responsive designs that adapt to different device characteristics. An example of using Trait Collections to create a responsive design would be:

override func traitCollectionDidChange(_ previousTraitCollection: UITraitCollection?) {
super.traitCollectionDidChange(previousTraitCollection)

if traitCollection.horizontalSizeClass == .compact {
// code to execute for compact horizontal size class
} else {
// code to execute for regular horizontal size class
}
}

• Using Stack Views: Stack views are a layout manager that allows for responsive and flexible layouts. They allow for elements to be positioned and aligned in a flexible and responsive way, making it easy to create layouts that adapt to different screen sizes.
• Use the Accessibility Framework: iOS developers can use the Accessibility Framework to make the app more accessible to users with disabilities. This allows the app to provide alternative ways of interacting with the app’s interface, such as voice commands or gestures.

Testing Responsive Design

Preparing and planning for testing responsive design is crucial for ensuring that the testing process is efficient, accurate, and effective. Some key considerations for preparation and planning include:

• Defining the testing scope: It is important to define the testing scope and objectives, in order to ensure that all necessary aspects of the responsive design are covered and that the testing process is focused on achieving the desired outcomes.
• Identifying target devices and screen sizes: In order to test the responsive design effectively, it is important to identify the target devices and screen sizes, as well as the different operating systems and browsers that will be used during testing.
• Setting up the test environment: Setting up the test environment is a crucial step in preparing for testing. This includes configuring the test devices and screen sizes, as well as installing the necessary software and tools.
• Creating test cases and test scenarios: Creating test cases and test scenarios is an important step in planning for testing. This includes identifying the different types of tests that need to be performed, such as functional, performance, and usability testing, as well as creating test cases and test scenarios that cover all aspects of the responsive design.
• Choosing the right testing tools: Choosing the right testing tools is an important part of preparing for testing. This includes choosing tools that are compatible with the target devices and screen sizes, as well as tools that are able to automate the testing process, which can help to improve efficiency and accuracy.

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• Defining the testing metrics: Defining the testing metrics is an important step in preparing for testing. This includes identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure the effectiveness of the responsive design, such as load time, usability, and conversion rates.
• Scheduling the Testing: Scheduling the testing is an important step in preparing for testing. This includes identifying the testing schedule and assigning the testing tasks to the appropriate team members.
• Device and Browser Compatibility Testing: This involves testing the app on different devices and browsers to ensure that the responsive design is compatible and functions properly on all targeted devices and browsers.
• Usability Testing: This involves testing the app’s user interface and navigation to ensure that it is easy to use and provides a positive user experience.
• Screen Size and Resolution Testing: This involves testing the app on different screen sizes and resolutions to ensure that the responsive design properly adjusts to different screen sizes and resolutions.
• Functionality Testing: This involves testing the app’s core functionalities to ensure that they are working properly and that the responsive design does not affect their performance.

Run Functionality Tests on Real Devices

• Performance Testing: This involves testing the app’s performance under different loads and conditions to ensure that the responsive design does not negatively impact the app’s performance.
• Accessibility Testing: This involves testing the app’s accessibility features to ensure that the responsive design does not negatively impact the app’s accessibility for users with disabilities.
• Automated Testing: This involves using automated testing tools to perform repetitive tasks and test the app’s functionality and performance on multiple devices and browsers simultaneously.
• Visual Testing: This involves testing the app’s visual elements, such as buttons, images, and text, to ensure that they are properly displayed and that the responsive design does not negatively impact their appearance. 

Table summarising tools for making an App Responsive