Week 2 Page 11: New Reality
The New Reality of Screen Design
Welcome to the new world of multiple screen sizes!
In this new world, the screen designer can no longer rely on specific sizes and parameters. Designs can no longer be static. They need to be flexible and to work on multiple devices, screen sizes, resolutions, connections and with a variety of browsers. This represents a significant adjustment for a print graphic designer who is used to having a design that is inked on a page and never changes. Designers need to think more in terms of content "modules" that can shift in size and placement in response to different devices and screen sizes.
Responsive and Adaptive Design:
The screen designer needs to think about a design as fitting or adapting to whatever container it lands in; responsive or adaptive design. A device's screen is just a viewport through which a user can look at content. The design itself may actually be larger than the viewport size! If you think about it, screens are infinite! We will cover this in more depth during our discussion of Navigation and Interface.