How to check if your website has a responsive design?
How many hours do you spend on your Smartphone per day?
One hour?
Two?
Or perhaps 5 hours?
It’s not surprising because, according to Statista Research Department, an average Smartphone user spends about five to six hours a day on their phone.
This is excluding work-related use!
And with smartphones coming in various sizes, brands, and screen sizes, your website must look good and easy to use on any phone.
This is where a responsive design helps.
What is responsive design?
Websites with a responsive design work well and look good on all devices, like desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. These web designs tend to anatomically adjust to different screen sizes, resolutions, and orientations as per the phone you use.
The good news is that there’s a 10-point checklist to check if your website has a responsive design and looks great on all devices.
Responsive design testing checklist
Here are ten tests you can do to ensure your site has a responsive design.
1. Navigation bar
The navigation bar is an integral part of your website providing for quick navigation to different website sections and pages and device changes.
Checking and using the right navigation bar is essential to ensure it provides a good user experience.
For example, a hamburger menu strategy is great for small screens because users look for it if they can’t find an alternative. However, the @media queries with Meta tag may end up insufficient to be clicked if scaled down on the mobile screen.
2. Different fonts
Developers may use different fonts and design methods on their websites. However, not all fonts are universally supported.
Depending on the encoding format, some may transform into random characters or device codes.
Therefore checking fonts on multiple devices is necessary to ensure your website has a responsive design.
3. Small screen device testing
With most internet users using mobile devices, first test your design to respond and suit small screen devices and then move to larger screens.
4. Website speed
According to a study conducted by Forrester Consulting, the average website visitor’s threshold for a web page to load in 2 seconds. So it’s very likely your visitor will hit the back button if your loader still rotates after 2 seconds.
That’s why checking website speed is important.
Heavy elements like images and videos may take longer to load on smaller devices like mobile with lower bandwidth. Using the same images used on big screens like laptops will increase the loading time and frustrate your end-users.
The solution lies in using alternate methods to render the same images on smaller devices.
5. Element alignments
An out-of-proportion element that cuts through the boundary is easily recognizable. The wrong rendering and alignment will not bring in formidable results to your responsive web design.
It’s the tester’s job to align the different website elements correctly on the screen.
6. Content placement
It’s easy to locate elements on bigger screens because of its more prominent viewing area. However, it’s not the case with mobile devices with their small screens.
Attempting to display everything as it is may lead to congestion and poor user experience.
7. Cross-browser compatibility
It’s crucial to test to ensure the website is cross-browser compatible. You do this by manually or automatically viewing and exploring your website on any resolution, browser, or operating system to ensure it’s responsive.
8. Interactive experience
Another essential part of checking your website’s responsive design is checking its interactive experience.
Some people may use a stylus for precise touch while others, their hands.
You need to check that no matter how the interactions occur; the experience should be the same. For example, the button shouldn’t be so small that the user clicks on two buttons while using their hand.
9. Mobile-friendly popup
Popups are no doubt an excellent means to converting website visitors into subscribers and sales. However, did you know that if the popup isn’t displayed correctly, it may end up annoying your visitors? This only hurts your website reputation with search engines.
With responsive design testing, you ensure the popups are responsive and serve their purpose on any device. Non-responsive popups only trouble the user as the close button may land out of the boundary. On the contrary, responsive popups may entice the user to avail of whatever you have to offer.
10. Test like an end-user
Last but not least, always test the website like an end-user and not a tester. Testers think technically and may miss out on trivial bugs assuming no one will see them. However, there’s a chance of at least 1% of your site visitors getting irritated by that left-out bug!
You will go through the entire site if you test like an end-user doing everything a typical user will do. Like exploring the website, adding things to buy to the cart, and completing the transaction phase. You can thus notice any mistakes in the website responsiveness while completing the sales process.
Now here’s the checklist to use to see if your website has a responsive design. However, remember that checking for responsiveness is not a one-time solution.
With new devices entering the market every day, you need to keep checking the website for responsiveness. You never know which device offers a lousy user experience just because your website design isn’t responsive.
