In plain English
It's water poured into different glasses: the same water, taking the shape of whatever holds it. A responsive page is the same content, rearranging itself to fit the screen it's on.
Used in a sentence
“The site is fully responsive: the three columns on desktop stack into one on a phone.”
“We used to have a separate mobile site, and half the time it was missing pages the main one had.”
In detail
A responsive site uses flexible layouts that respond to the width of the screen. Columns stack, images scale, menus fold into a button and text stays readable. One site, one address and one set of content serve every device, which is also what Google recommends.
Responsive is the minimum, not the finish line. A layout can technically fit a phone and still be awkward to use there: tiny buttons, long pages to scroll before the point, forms that are a chore. That's why good sites are designed mobile-first and then made responsive.
Why it matters for your business
Customers switch between phone and laptop; a responsive site gives them the same business on both.
- One site for every screen
- One address for search engines
- No missing pages on mobile
Easy to mix up
Responsive and mobile-first are related but different. Responsive is how a layout adapts; mobile-first is designing for the phone before anything else.
Related terms
Mobile-first, UX and Accessibility. Or browse the whole glossary.
