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I prefer to think that responsive design is still in its relative infancy and as an industry we simply have not completed the shift in mindset that is necessary

I prefer to think that responsive design is still in its relative infancy and as an industry we simply have not completed the shift in mindset that is necessary. When we work stakeholders who are not technical it's clear that they're 1,000 miles away from the mindset, and the average designer is still somewhere from 10-999 miles away. Fluid design is a big step forward and while we still don't have anything near a bible these are some example principles: * Size elements relative to the size of the viewport, some things should be smaller on little viewports, some things should be a little bigger, the CSS units for this are still just coming together. Use formulas and percentages, not pixels. * Think about the correct layout direction for everything on a portrait vs landscape orientation, should those items be in a row or a column? This often requires only one CSS property to change * Hide information density behind an accordion or modal if you need to on small viewports, don't just remove the functionality for all versions of the application. When people strip away functionality, I find design is rarely the true justification -- more commonly they no longer want to pay the maintenance cost of the feature and are using a redesign as an excuse.

throwup238 2y ago
> I prefer to think that responsive design is still in its relative infancy and as an industry we simply have not completed the shift in mindset that is necessary. Absolutely. We finally just got container queries! Responsive design using screen width was always a sham. A stop gap to all the work the browser devs and standards bodies had to do to figure out what worked.
- whstl 2y ago
  You are correct, but I think we're lacking in things even more basic than that. Pretty much every single responsive design I ever worked had either the mobile or desktop version as an afterthought. The mobile was just a "scaled down" version that was done last-minute, or vice versa. Is there a sidebar? Hamburger menu it is. Is there a list? Well just put every row on top of each other. Sure, this makes things easier for the both the designer and the developers, but putting just a bit more effort in the "secondary" version would be enough to make both versions better.
- troupo 2y ago
  > A stop gap to all the work the browser devs and standards bodies had to do to figure out what worked. We now exactly what works. UI didn't suddenly appear in 2024 out of nowhere. What you need are actual tools to build UIs, and not a hodge-podge of hacks thrown in together with no long-term planning, and aimed at displaying only text and a couple of images. Just giving the ability to get an element's size without causing a full-page re-flow and re-layout would give much more power to UIs than any number of relative sizes and container queries.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - skydhash 2y ago
    There's only a few apps that qualifies to be app, and for those, flexbox is usually enough. But most apps are actually document viewers and a few buttons to select, filter and sort data (you don't doom-scroll on Photoshop). And if you want to design a document (or a form for that matter), you either go with the reflowable mindset, or you do preset sizes and constraints.
    - troupo 2y ago
      I've yet to see a web app approach anything close to Norton Commander with "flexbox is enough", much less anything more complex. Well, there are a few standalone examples here or there, but "flexbox is enough" is verifiably false. Here's an actual app and not the anemic crap that people call "apps" on the web: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1424052288205856773 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1424052288205856773
      - skydhash 2y ago
        Even with native toolkit, an app like this one will require custom widgets and layout engines. The equivalent is Canvas, but I don’t know how performant it is.
        troupo 2y ago

throwup238 2y ago

> I prefer to think that responsive design is still in its relative infancy and as an industry we simply have not completed the shift in mindset that is necessary. Absolutely. We finally just got container queries! Responsive design using screen width was always a sham. A stop gap to all the work the browser devs and standards bodies had to do to figure out what worked.

whstl 2y ago
You are correct, but I think we're lacking in things even more basic than that. Pretty much every single responsive design I ever worked had either the mobile or desktop version as an afterthought. The mobile was just a "scaled down" version that was done last-minute, or vice versa. Is there a sidebar? Hamburger menu it is. Is there a list? Well just put every row on top of each other. Sure, this makes things easier for the both the designer and the developers, but putting just a bit more effort in the "secondary" version would be enough to make both versions better.
troupo 2y ago
> A stop gap to all the work the browser devs and standards bodies had to do to figure out what worked. We now exactly what works. UI didn't suddenly appear in 2024 out of nowhere. What you need are actual tools to build UIs, and not a hodge-podge of hacks thrown in together with no long-term planning, and aimed at displaying only text and a couple of images. Just giving the ability to get an element's size without causing a full-page re-flow and re-layout would give much more power to UIs than any number of relative sizes and container queries.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- skydhash 2y ago
  There's only a few apps that qualifies to be app, and for those, flexbox is usually enough. But most apps are actually document viewers and a few buttons to select, filter and sort data (you don't doom-scroll on Photoshop). And if you want to design a document (or a form for that matter), you either go with the reflowable mindset, or you do preset sizes and constraints.
  - troupo 2y ago
    I've yet to see a web app approach anything close to Norton Commander with "flexbox is enough", much less anything more complex. Well, there are a few standalone examples here or there, but "flexbox is enough" is verifiably false. Here's an actual app and not the anemic crap that people call "apps" on the web: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1424052288205856773 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1424052288205856773
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Even with native toolkit, an app like this one will require custom widgets and layout engines. The equivalent is Canvas, but I don’t know how performant it is.
      - troupo 2y ago