Quentin

I have been having a look at responsive themes and it is amazing how these are really taking off.

What Is a Responsive Theme?

A responsive theme is one that will shrink to fit any size screen so you can have the main desktop site and then when you view it on a Ipad it reorders the elements and then on an iphone reorders again.

Have a look at this video.


A little different way of doing Content

I have been playing around with a few and you have to change the way you think about your content layout a little.

By making sure you order your content correctly then they work perfectly This involves trying to add graphics above text etc

Your Free Responsive Wordpress Theme.

The best way to see them in action is to load one on your test site. iTheme seems like a really good one to play with and its free.

Demo

iTheme2

Download

iTheme2

So my question to you is what are some other great Wordpress or non wordpress responsive design sites you have found.

Quentin

sonix

hey, one option is to use a plugin to customize a theme and make it more responsive.
Create a Responsive Slider Plugin With FlexSlider for WordPress | Wptuts+
WordPress › responsive « Tags « WordPress Plugins

danifae

Quentin, are you suggesting we should make sites which are pc and mobile friendly instead of creating a site for pc AND a site mobile optimized? I just started learning how to make sites for mobiles and I wanted to propose them to people who already own a site which is not visible on mobiles. Do you think I'm wasting my time and I should concentrate myself on sites which are "all devices friendly"? Do you think market will go on this direction, replacing old kind of sites, or will mobile optimized sites be added to old ones?

LiorN

Thanks for the share, very interesting.
Quentin, what score do these responsive themes test over at the w3c validator?

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Quentin

Having played with many of them they are not quite up to scratch yet but mobile sites will always have their place but possibly in the future these responsive sites could be good for new clients.

Not real sure how they validate but I imagine not well when they are on wordpress

Quentin

Jay Moreno

for me there are no good responsive themes for mobile

KCNL

Hi Quentin,

I just look on responsive - files | ThemeForest
There are new responsive themes launched almost everyday.

Makes you wonder where website design for mobiles is going.
Business owners will like these themes especially because they look good on tablets..
For smaller local sites i think this will be the best and fastest way to build sites for clients.

Charles.

ballanrk

I use a few and they for the most part have popular and well built grid systems, HTML5 and are very customizable without a lot of fluff added in. The skeleton theme has shortcodes that make mobile look very good.

Skeleton - A Free Responsive WordPress Theme

Good Portfolio responsive
Mixfolio - A Free Responsive WordPress Theme

Constellation Theme for WordPress

Whiteboard Framework for WordPress | Learn How to Use WordPress

Very impressive free responsive themes.

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KaylaB

Quentin - how do you decide whether you are going to use an HTML site, a Wordpress site, or a responsive Wordpress site for you client?
I am testing out different options, but was wondering which you use, when.

Thanks

Quentin

Its on a case by case decision Kay. I probably will not go with responsive design till I find a really good template. They look good but when I actually add them to my test site some of the formatting and adding content can be a bit of a pain but will be excellent for new sites when someone does a good one.

For example I have had 3 calls today.

One is a book publisher and I would probably go with html for them as it will be small and mainly info about the publisher.

Another is a tv show so I imagine they will want something a bit more robust with lots of visitors so maybe a CMS or Wills script. Just have to see what they want.

The last is an orchard that grows apples so again probably Wills script or html

I usually give the a choice and let them pick if it is a choice but small niche industries I tend to go with the icon html sites.

Quentin

KaylaB

Thanks Quentin!

Kayla

WillR

The problem I see with responsive web design is that the content you are serving up to the PC user and mobile user is still the same. Generally speaking I want to give my mobile users a condensed version of the PC website with special priority given to information that will be relevant to the mobile user.

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Jay Moreno

I'm thinking right now the best use for responsive design is for desktop and tablets only, and have a properly optimized site for mobile.

There are many Wordpress Themes that are responsive now, use them for your desktop and tablet sites then with a decent redirect script it will ignore the responsive design changes and instead redirect to your mobile optimized mobile site when your mobile visitor is detected - that way you can have the best of both worlds. And not to forget still have a mobile site that validates and out performs the responsive layout in terms of speed and filesize.