Adaptive Design
What is Adaptive Design?
The term “adaptive design” is used to describe GUI layouts that change in response to a user’s device’s screen resolution. It is used by designers in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) like websites, which need to adapt to screens of varying sizes. In adaptive design, numerous fixed-width layouts are used, and depending on the size of the user’s browser window, the system will choose the layout best suited to the user’s device.
In this respect, adaptive design is akin to the more widely used responsive design. In adaptive design, on the other hand, the content sticks to a predetermined layout size, whereas in responsive design it shifts and repositions itself automatically. That is to say, adaptive design employs a small number of predetermined layouts and automatically applies the most appropriate one based on the device’s display dimensions. In contrast, responsive design employs a single layout that adapts to varying display widths. Frequent practise in adaptive design is to create six different layouts, one for each of the six most common screen widths (320, 480, 760, 960, 1200, and 1600 pixels).
Using adaptive design, the designer can create bespoke solutions to ensure the GUI is shown in its best light across a range of device sizes. Adaptive design has a high cost since it requires the designer to make up to six unique GUIs (or, in a nutshell, six versions of a single webpage) to ensure that the best one is always available to latch with the user’s screen characteristics. One potential drawback of adaptive design is that it may not provide the best experience for people who aren’t working with a standard-sized screen. However, no designer should overlook its significance as a viable choice for presenting output that may not be well-suited to another method.
Learn more about Adaptive Design
According to Comscore, mobile usage surpassed desktop usage back in 2014, and the gap between devices has only worsened since then, with the increase in mobile usage twice the loss witnessed on desktop. With so much emphasis now placed on mobile traffic, designers, marketers, and developers need to be proficient in mobile user experience if they want to remain competitive. Learn the fundamentals of designing for mobile devices, with an emphasis on the best practises for mobile usability, with this course.
Using common sense design methods or learning by doing won’t cut it when you’re trying to build a fantastic user experience on a mobile device. Such naive tactics could be fatal for your product or website, as Google found that 61% of customers were unwilling to return to a mobile site they had problems accessing, and even worse, 40% chose to visit a competitor’s site instead. Mobile users have a 50% lower understanding rate than desktop users, thus content, navigation, and visual design aspects must be twice as intuitive. When faced with such unavoidable truths, it’s imperative to remember that limited viewing space means there’s little room for error. Learning the skills necessary to make an intuitive mobile user interface and, hence, a fantastic mobile user experience, is more than just important if you want to design for mobile, where you have to balance the rough of the risk with the smooth of the sheer profit potential.
This training was developed using methods based on evidence and data collected over many years of study and application. Here, Frank Spillers, CEO of ExperienceDynamics.com and a renowned speaker, author, and Senior Usability practitioner, will teach you what you need to know to succeed in this cutting-edge industry.
