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TAKE POLL Responsive [RWD] or Adaptive [AWD] ?

I've said it before, but my opinion is that we should have adaptive desktop sites and responsive mobile sites.
Either one works fine; Google may claim they give extra weight to responsive, but I have yet to see evidence of this.

I find that websites that push responsive layouts too hard end up having more issues than their worth. Unless the person managing the website content understands responsive, you'll run into issues with every page working correctly.
 
Responsive is one site for all devices - @craigh I'm confused by what you're saying.

Correct. That's exactly my issue with it. That means that every page on the website has to be designed to work on my retina iMac (that's a 5k screen) and my Blackberry Bold (that's a 4:3 tiny screen). Responsive dictates that I must use the same website, stylesheets, etc on both of those devices, even though they're entirely different mediums that are used in entirely different ways.

So I would tell people that I believe in adaptive design. But this started losing me sales. Why? Because other companies would tell clients, "If they do adaptive design it means it won't look good on every device because they have to re-design a copy of the site for every single device size". Because of this nonsense, I now have to call it a combination.

The desktop site is the desktop site - it's made to work on all computers with a touchscreen or keyboard and mouse - it has many features and functions that work great on a desktop.

The mobile site is responsive. That means that whether you have a blackberry or an iPhone 6 Plus, you're getting a version of my mobile site tailored to your screen. This means that I can now tailor my mobile website to the fact that you're navigating with your thumbs on a small screen 2 feet away from your face.

This is a very different experience and while you can account for much of this with a responsive website, it means that every page that you add to the website, every video, every photo, etc has to be tagged responsively to ensure that it can shrink and grow with the rest of the site.

I don't know if that makes any more sense - I'm rambling a bit.

TL;DR

I believe in adaptive, but when you tell me I'm crazy I'll explain that my mobile and tablet sites are responsive, just not my desktop site.
 
@JessicaRuth and @craigh

Thank you both for your feedback - surprised that more people would not be interested in this topic...especially with thee impending Google updates...

anyone-bueller.jpg
 

I think this is because it matters more to their vendors than it does to them.

Dealers want a product that works and they typically expect that they're paying someone else to be an expert in that field and give them the results they need.

I also don't believe that adaptive vs responsive will be that much of an indicator to Google.
Do you think they will rank websites higher because they have width: 100% instead of width: 960px?
 
For me, its really simple. Responsive is the end game where we're all going, Responsive has performance problems that are being slowly worked out, so adaptive is a stepping stone to responsive. Anyone loyal to amazon has watched them evolve. They started adaptive (low risk) and now are woking in responsive elements into the UI.

For some fun, show me a car shopper that ever does this:
https://twitter.com/idiot/status/568084886785040384/photo/1

Google has ZERO problems with adaptive sites (vs responsive).
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Someone show me a car shopper that ever does this:
https://twitter.com/idiot/status/568084886785040384/photo/1
From this, we non-technical people conclude "thats cool, I can see it, this looks superior".

For me, its really simple. Responsive is the end game where we're all going, but, responsive has performance problems that are being worked out. Adaptive is a stepping stone to responsive.

Anyone loyal to amazon has watched them evolve. They started adaptive (low risk) and now are woking in responsive elements into the UI.


Lastly, Google has ZERO problems with adaptive sites (vs responsive).
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Once again Uncle Joe comes through in the clutch! Thanks for the clarification and for the links - very informative.

So when a vendor indicates that they have a blended version of responsive and adaptive...is that possible?
 
So when a vendor indicates that they have a blended version of responsive and adaptive...is that possible?

Yes, see amazon.com, it began as an adaptive site, that is evolving into a hybrid.

More references FYI:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/201...sign-should-not-be-your-only-mobile-strategy/
"In this article, we’ll cover... how to apply responsive design intelligently, why performance is so important in mobile, why responsive design should not be your website’s goal, and ending with the performance issues of the technique to help us understand the problem."