The Transition to Responsive Design

Since being hired on to an internship working with and designing websites, I have learned a great deal about responsive design and it's advantages.  I came into the internship not knowing a thing about responsive design and knowing limited CSS3 and HTML5.  After completing a few tutorials, I caught on really quick.  My first task was to re-create an already created website.  This took me awhile to get my homepage set up the way they wanted it and looked the way they wanted it.  After finishing with all the HTML5 and CSS I thought I was done.  The website looked good.

I was then introduced to responsive design.  Apparently, my website was just at it's beginning.  I had created the homepage and all the subpages and it looked great!  My boss then asked how it looked when I decreased the window size.  The website then started breaking down and looking cluttered.  The formatting did not look good at all.  I was then introduced to media queries.  These are a savior when it comes to responsive design.  It allows you to design how the website will look at different window sizes.  This took a great deal of time to get everything organized to where it looks good at any window size, but when it was done I felt very accomplished.  I realized I create an entire website to not only work on a desktop computer, but to work on a mobile phone.  I searched the website on my phone and it looked great!

This really made me feel very good about myself when I finished the website.  I came in not knowing anything about responsive design.  I was then able to think intuitively and learn how to use media queries.  Now my website looks great no matter what the screen size.  In my management class we talked about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and I didn't really believe that people get more motivated from intrinsic motivation.  After this project, I fully endorse that intrinsic motivation is the best way to go.  The feeling of accomplishment is very underrated.  I will continue my internship and hopefully learn even more about website design!



Posted by: Nate Gaskill