3 Best Tools for Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design is the need of the time. Companies are coming up with this new advent in the web world to put forth their command on the market. There are 3 basic and most important elements on which the Responsive web Design is based on:-

1. Flexible/Fluid grid,

2. Responsive Images and

3. Media Queries

The best tools are those that help you to achieve the elements necessary to make your site responsive on as many devices and screen sizes possible.

1.         Prebuilt Flexible/Fluid Grids: - Prebuilt flexible/fluid grids can quickly download and helps save time and get your responsive site completed easily and effectively. The other benefit of using prebuilt grids, such as the Golden Grid System, is because it easily adapts 16 to 8 or 8 to 4 columns through “folding”. The Golden Grid System also has a small browser overlay that will expose the grid on your page so you can test your design.

The 1140px CSS Grid is another good prebuilt flexible/fluid grid you can use. This tool allows you to design from a wide desktop resolution down to the smallest of devices. It is best fit into the 1280 monitor but is also fluid and adapt to smaller monitors correctly.
Responsive Calculator is also helpful in workflow as well. A responsive calculator will calculate pixels to percentages and also will generate CSS rules that can then be easily copy/pasted into your style sheets.

2.         Tools for Responsive Web Design Images and Text: - In order to have Responsive Web Design, it is required to have responsive images and text. The Filament Group’s Responsive Images can be best used for achieving fluid images and text. Responsive Images allows sending appropriately sized images based on the screen resolution. Adaptive Images is based on this same premise. However, with Adaptive Images by Matt Wilcox, PHP and some JavaScript are used to serve the appropriate image size but without the extra mark up.

As for responsive text, there is some plug-ins available to help improve the workflow. jQuery plug-in and  FitText can be well used to make font sizes flexible which helps to achieve scalable headlines. The headlines will fill the width of the parent element. To make bold blocks of text resize responsively you can use the Slab Type Algorhythm.

3.         Media Queries: - Once you can envision the fluid/flexible layout of your site along with how to make your images and text responsive across all devices, now there is a need to concern yourself with media queries. Media queries are necessary to shift the pages elements into a responsive state.

CSS3-Mediaqueries.js is a tool that will enable appropriate rendering on older versions of Internet Explorer and other browsers. Adapt.js is a tool that detects browser dimensions of the user’s device and works correctly with older and newer browsers.

The Categorizer is another helpful tool that will assume devices being used are mobile unless the user’s tablet or desktop informs otherwise. Using the Categorizer allows service of the resources to the browser sympathetically.

These are some of the best Responsive Web Design tools available, but are in no way an all-inclusive list. There are many tools available to help improve the workflow. When Responsive Web Design is used, it will gradually become an essential tool to have as many as possible so that the designers can come up with best design in the least amount of time. Many web designers will attest that one of the quickest and most effective ways to improve workflow is to use shortcuts available which do not decrease their creativity. Allowing Responsive Web Design generator tools take on some of the busy-work will not affect the overall creativity of the site. It gives the web designer, more time to focus on making your design fresh and unique.