Responsive Design vs. Adaptive Design: What’s the Best Choice

Can you imagine a world without the internet? No right? In today's world, everything be it food, shopping, groceries, entertainment, matchmaking, and much more happens on the internet and one of the first steps in this direction is to setup a website. Website designers, be it independent or from a UX design company, are frequently struck by one common question: Would the website in question be adaptive or responsive?

What is Adaptive Vs Responsive Web Design?

To answer this question, we need to understand what is an adaptive website and what is responsive. Adaptive sites are sites that involve the creation of multiple templates and layouts, each of which is created for a specific screen size. For example, Mr. X was to set up an auto parts website that would be accessed across phones, tablets, and computers. In the adaptive scenario, multiple layouts, templates, codes, CSS’s and more would need to be created for each device that the website would display on.

On the other hand, in a responsive scenario, usually, a single layout is created which adapts itself to the size and shape of the screen it is being viewed on. This is achieved through the use of flexible grids, layouts, and images, as well as the use of media queries in CSS. Responsive designs are usually easier to create, faster to implement, and ensure that the website that Mr. X is trying to setup will look good on all sorts of screens and would be easy to navigate as well.

Difference Between Adaptive & Responsive

Responsive design and Adaptive design are often a bone of contention between a designer providing UX Design Services and a knowledgeable client because there is a lot of argument on which method is good for a website launch. Responsive design is generally considered to be faster to use and implement as well as future-ready because it involves a single design that can be made to look good on multiple devices. It also involves much lesser coding with the same code used for site display on different devices. 

Adaptive Design on the other hand is considered to be more useful for people who have time at hand because, most obviously, making separate designs for separate websites would take much longer when compared to the responsive pattern that has one design for all views. However, that being said, Adaptive designs give a designer providing UX Design Services, a lot more control over the look, feel, and navigation of the website. Taking the example of Mr. X above, let's say he wants a top navigation on the main website, a hamburger menu on a tablet, and a small icon-based menu on screens up to 7 inches. This is easily possible using the adaptive design strategy. 

Adaptive Vs Responsive Design: Which Is Better?

We cannot state that one of these strategies is better than the other. The choice among them is purely between a designer and his client based on factors that include Speed, Time, Levels of Code needed, Devices that the website is being created for, fine-tuning requirements, and more. This is exactly why you need a UX Design company like Gate6 that has years and years of experience in both - Responsive Design & Adaptive design. Get in touch with us today to launch to turn your website dreams into material realities!