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I agree that performance is a design feature. The days of the non developing designer are drawing to a close. I still don't buy this "Design for Mobile First"

I agree that performance is a design feature. The days of the non developing designer are drawing to a close. I still don't buy this "Design for Mobile First" idea though, for a couple of reasons. - Your first media query is no media query - This mobile up approach means your responsiveness is dependent on Javascript, which smells funny to me. - Most websites don't live that long, and desktop users still account for the lions share of traffic. If you had to pick one, you'd probably pick desktop. So it makes sense to me to start there. - I personally find it easier to work backwards towards mobile. But that's just me.

criley2 13y ago
Remember, sites like Facebook get more hits on mobile than they do on desktop. Mobile includes more than phones, it also includes the rapidly expanding tablet form factor. I think it would be wise to understand where your traffic comes from and how your audience consumes what you provide and pick the best solution for you. If 70% of your users access your service over mobile, prioritizing desktop over mobile seems very backward! But that's just me.
jlebron2 13y ago
I think what has to be considered here is how we view the future of the desktop vs. that of mobile. With the ever growing numbers in the mobile space along with tablets and other devices, I don't see desktops being as widely used/valued. Major companies are shifting their focus to these other devices which means more apps, which means more functionality, which means more possibilities, which means less need for desktops. So I think this is where the idea of "Design for Mobile First" is coming from.
jonathanstark 13y ago
> Your first media query is no media query What don't you like about this? > This mobile up approach means your responsiveness is dependent on Javascript, which smells funny to me. Hm... I don't see how a mobile first approach depends on javascript. In my experience, it's quite the opposite, in fact. Mobile first is all about progressive enhancement and starting small. Granted, many web devs build their sites in a way that doesn't work w/o js, but IMHO, this should be the exception not the rule. > Most websites don't live that long, and desktop users still account for the lions share of traffic. If you had to pick one, you'd probably pick desktop. So it makes sense to me to start there. If designing mobile first meant "build two websites, and the first one you build should be the mobile one" then I might agree with you. But using RWD means that you only need to have one site, and that it will work across mobile and desktop. Because of the was CSS works, it's just way easier to start with a bare bones style for small screens, and use min-width media queries to progressively add more complex styles for screens with more real estate. > I personally find it easier to work backwards towards mobile. But that's just me. I'm shocked to hear that, but obviously can't argue; your experience is your experience. I teach RWD classes, and without exception, students who have dabbled in RWD have had a really hard time trying to shoehorn a desktop site into a mobile format using RWD principles. It's not impossible but it is really painful. I've worked on responsive sites for some of the biggest publishers in the world and I can't imagine how would could have worked from desktop down to mobile. This is because CSS is much easier to use in an additive fashion, as opposed to subtractive. Just my two cents.
nearengine 13y ago
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of RWD somewhere along the line. Your first point is the entire point of mobile-first design. Old and less capable browsers, such as older version of IE don't understand media queries, so they get the "simple" non-media-query, mobile-optimized site and you avoid problems with patching CSS3 queries on browsers which don't support them. There's absolutely nothing about mobile-first design that makes your site dependent on JavaScript. Third point depends ENTIRELY on the site, but your logic doesn't really follow. If I only had to pick HTML or CSS, I'd pick HTML. That doesn't mean I'd launch a site with only HTML and no styling. You're creating a false dilemma.
jasondemeuse 13y ago
> This mobile up approach means your responsiveness is dependent on Javascript, which smells funny to me. How so? In my experience it's the complete opposite. You certainly don't need any JS to make a responsive site, besides responsive images if you need it. The whole point of mobile first is to get low site load, low http requests, JS only when necessary, etc, as to not keep anyone from accessing your content. I think you have a really distorted view of what mobile-first design is.
gorkamolero 13y ago
All of the rest of the comments is perfect reply. I see how you could be concerned with the use of javascript but that is part of the progressive enhancement escalation, you just put it on top of your 'ready goodness'! Also you might be half right about the lions share of traffic. But be sure to check videos by the great Karen McGrane (like this awesome one: http://vimeo.com/50609566 http://vimeo.com/50609566). She can argue that most of the new population in occidental first world countries and most of the population in the rest of the world uses mobile as their primary point of access to the internet. To them, mobile is the internet! As she says, if you don't put it on mobile, your content doesn't exist for this people

criley2 13y ago

Remember, sites like Facebook get more hits on mobile than they do on desktop. Mobile includes more than phones, it also includes the rapidly expanding tablet form factor. I think it would be wise to understand where your traffic comes from and how your audience consumes what you provide and pick the best solution for you. If 70% of your users access your service over mobile, prioritizing desktop over mobile seems very backward! But that's just me.

jlebron2 13y ago

I think what has to be considered here is how we view the future of the desktop vs. that of mobile. With the ever growing numbers in the mobile space along with tablets and other devices, I don't see desktops being as widely used/valued. Major companies are shifting their focus to these other devices which means more apps, which means more functionality, which means more possibilities, which means less need for desktops. So I think this is where the idea of "Design for Mobile First" is coming from.

jonathanstark 13y ago

> Your first media query is no media query What don't you like about this? > This mobile up approach means your responsiveness is dependent on Javascript, which smells funny to me. Hm... I don't see how a mobile first approach depends on javascript. In my experience, it's quite the opposite, in fact. Mobile first is all about progressive enhancement and starting small. Granted, many web devs build their sites in a way that doesn't work w/o js, but IMHO, this should be the exception not the rule. > Most websites don't live that long, and desktop users still account for the lions share of traffic. If you had to pick one, you'd probably pick desktop. So it makes sense to me to start there. If designing mobile first meant "build two websites, and the first one you build should be the mobile one" then I might agree with you. But using RWD means that you only need to have one site, and that it will work across mobile and desktop. Because of the was CSS works, it's just way easier to start with a bare bones style for small screens, and use min-width media queries to progressively add more complex styles for screens with more real estate. > I personally find it easier to work backwards towards mobile. But that's just me. I'm shocked to hear that, but obviously can't argue; your experience is your experience. I teach RWD classes, and without exception, students who have dabbled in RWD have had a really hard time trying to shoehorn a desktop site into a mobile format using RWD principles. It's not impossible but it is really painful. I've worked on responsive sites for some of the biggest publishers in the world and I can't imagine how would could have worked from desktop down to mobile. This is because CSS is much easier to use in an additive fashion, as opposed to subtractive. Just my two cents.

nearengine 13y ago

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of RWD somewhere along the line. Your first point is the entire point of mobile-first design. Old and less capable browsers, such as older version of IE don't understand media queries, so they get the "simple" non-media-query, mobile-optimized site and you avoid problems with patching CSS3 queries on browsers which don't support them. There's absolutely nothing about mobile-first design that makes your site dependent on JavaScript. Third point depends ENTIRELY on the site, but your logic doesn't really follow. If I only had to pick HTML or CSS, I'd pick HTML. That doesn't mean I'd launch a site with only HTML and no styling. You're creating a false dilemma.

jasondemeuse 13y ago

> This mobile up approach means your responsiveness is dependent on Javascript, which smells funny to me. How so? In my experience it's the complete opposite. You certainly don't need any JS to make a responsive site, besides responsive images if you need it. The whole point of mobile first is to get low site load, low http requests, JS only when necessary, etc, as to not keep anyone from accessing your content. I think you have a really distorted view of what mobile-first design is.

gorkamolero 13y ago

All of the rest of the comments is perfect reply. I see how you could be concerned with the use of javascript but that is part of the progressive enhancement escalation, you just put it on top of your 'ready goodness'! Also you might be half right about the lions share of traffic. But be sure to check videos by the great Karen McGrane (like this awesome one: http://vimeo.com/50609566 http://vimeo.com/50609566). She can argue that most of the new population in occidental first world countries and most of the population in the rest of the world uses mobile as their primary point of access to the internet. To them, mobile is the internet! As she says, if you don't put it on mobile, your content doesn't exist for this people