Hot Topics in Web Design School – Responsive Web Design
In the past decade, graduates of web design courses have had to grapple with an increasingly complex reality, in which it is difficult for them to predict with any confidence on which device, platform or browser their designs will reach their target audience. Will it be on a cellphone or a home computer? On a tablet or a laptop? On Safari or Firefox?
Long gone are the days – simple by comparison – where the main question, from a web design school perspective, was, PC or Mac?
Enter a new buzzword of intense interest to design students at computer schools across the land: responsive web design.
But what does this hot new web design school concept really mean? Basically, responsive web design is the process of creating content meant to work across a range of devices. It is modular and adaptable, and takes the following into consideration.
Different Devices
Design students at computer schools quickly learn that today’s users access their favourite websites on a wide variety of seemingly incompatible devices. One might read their local newspaper at home over breakfast on a tablet, and then continue on a cellphone while taking a commuter train to work, where they may switch to a desktop computer.
Different Screen Sizes
Why is it so important for design students at computer schools to have some understanding of the kinds of devices on which end users will access their content? One reason: screen size.
The screen on a Blackberry is smaller than the screen on an Android is smaller than the screen on an iPad is smaller than the screen on a laptop is smaller than the screen on a desktop, which, in turn, can come in a variety of sizes. Students are asked to practice designing for all these sizes of screens. They must familiarize themselves with the particularities of each size.A�
Different Browsers
As computer schools make a point of teaching design students, the situation complexifies further with the question of browsers. The same user may use one browser on their laptop at home, another on their cellphone, and another still, as mandated by their organization, at work. The goal of web design school is to teach students how to produce content that is responsive, i.e., modular enough to be viewed in any of these browsers, on a screen of any size, using any device, including devices that have yet to be invented, and, therefore, have yet to find their way into the explicit curriculum of computer skills. As best practices in responsive web design are still emerging, future experts can reasonably expect to have to tinker with their designs as new devices, screens, browsers, etc., arise.
Since design first started being taught at computer schools, the industry has been a hotbed of innovation. Responsive web design is just the latest in a long line of exciting developments in these courses.
