Responsive Design Tools & Resources

Responsive Design
in the Real World
Tools & Resources to Make
Responsive Design Easier

Cleveland Web Standards Association
October 30, 2012

Clarissa Peterson
@clarissa

What We’ll Cover:
Frameworks
Navigation Patterns
Preprocessors
Responsive Images
Responsive Data Tables
Polyﬁlls

Captions added for those of you playing
along at home!

Almost as good as being there.*

Responsive Web Design

This is not an introduction to responsive web design. If you’ve been doing some
responsive design, or at least know what it is pretty well, this presentation is going
to tell you about some tools and resources that will make it easier for you to build
responsive sites. But for those of you who need a little background, I’m going to
explain reaaaaally quickly what responsive design is. The rest of you can just click
forward a few slides. The non-technical description ﬁrst:

When the iPhone was introduced, this is what websites looked like. They
were very, very tiny, and you had to zoom in and out to read anything.

This kind of sucked, because if you made the text big enough to read, you couldn’t
even see the whole line of text at once. (yes, a lot of sites are still like this)


Responsive design solves that problem. Instead of making the
website really tiny so it ﬁts, the browser is able to keep the content
a normal size regardless of what size your screen is, and then it just
kind of rearranges everything so it ﬁts on the screen in a way that
makes sense and takes advantage of the available space.

Go to the Boston Globe site in your browser and then make the browser
window narrower and wider — see what happens. The text stays the same
size, but the content rearranges from three columns to two and then one
column as the browser window gets narrower. That’s responsive design.
http://www.bostonglobe.com

Resizing your browser window is just an easy way to see the changes all
at once. But what we’re really talking about is the difference in how a site
looks from one device to the next — such as a mobile phone, a tablet, a
laptop, or a desktop computer. Making your browser window very narrow
(about 300 pixels) will give you a decent idea of what a website looks like
on a mobile phone, but not entirely. Make sure to test on actual devices.

1. Flexible Grid
2. Flexible Images/Media
3. Media Queries

There are three parts to responsive design.

1. Flexible Grid
3. Media Queries

The first two, the flexible grid and flexible images/media are pretty easy to explain.

I’ll demonstrate on The Boston Globe site. This
is the site at about 1280 pixels wide.
http://bostonglobe.com/

This is the site at a somewhat narrower width. Note that the columns have
each decreased in width in proportion to the site. So has that big picture off
on the left. That’s because everything is measured in percent instead of pixels.
http://bostonglobe.com/

In contrast, check out the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
website. It’s also a newspaper, also with three columns.
http://www.jsonline.com/

But look what happens at a narrower width. The columns all stayed the exact same
width, so although the empty margins gave us some room to maneuver, after those
were gone, the browser had no choice but to chop off the right side of the page.
http://www.jsonline.com/

1. Flexible Grid
3. Media Queries
The third part of responsive design is media queries. This is the magic part of
responsive design. Okay, it’s not really magic. It’s actually pretty simple how a
media query works. It’s just an if-then statement, if any of you are
programmers. And even if you’re not a programmer, the concept is simple:

If X is true, then do Y. If X is not true, then don’t do Y.

If those letters look too much like algebra, I can give you an example:
If the time is 12:00, eat lunch. If the time is not 12:00, then don’t eat
lunch. That sounds pretty straightforward, right?

That’s a media query. In responsive design, what we’re generally going to be
querying is the viewport width. That is more or less the same thing as the
width of your browser, which is why we can resize our browser window to
demonstrate responsive design. For mobile devices, the viewport width is
essentially the same thing as the screen width, since you can’t have a non-
full-size browser window like you can on your computer. So you’ll often
hear people referring to screen width in responsive design when they really
mean viewport width. They know what they mean, though.

In responsive design, media queries are querying the viewport width, and telling
the browser to do something different depending on the viewport width.
http://www.unitedpixelworkers.com/

So as the viewport gets wider on the United Pixelworkers site,
you can see the site looks different. The icons at the top
rearranged themselves a bit, and the font changed size.

Now, there are two columns instead of one! The media query is telling the
browser: When the viewport is wider than X pixels, do this section of the CSS to
make it be two columns instead of one. If the viewport is not wider, ignore that

And things just keep on rearranging! You can have
as many media queries as you want.

And a media query can make pretty much any change to the CSS
that is being used to render the website. For responsive design,
normally it’s going to be parts of the CSS having to do with layout.

But if you wanted, you could make the entire site turn purple if the screen is
wider than X pixels. I’m not sure why you’d want to do that, but you could.

@media screen and (min-width: 640px) {
.section1, .section2 {
float: left;
width: 50%;
}
}

This is what a media query looks like.

float: left;
width: 50%;
}
}

This is the “if” part of the if-then statement. All media queries start with
@media. Then we’re saying: if you’re displaying this page on a screen (as opposed
to print or something else), AND the viewport is a minimum of 640 pixels wide...

float: left;
width: 50%;
}
}

This part in the middle is the “then.” If the query is true, then do this
CSS. If the query is not true, then ignore this CSS. It is THAT easy!

@media screen and (min-width: 40em) {
float: left;
width: 50%;
}
}

You’ll notice our query was for a viewport width of 640 pixels or wider.
Actually, a better way to do a media query is to use ems instead of
pixels, so the page will be even more ﬂexible. Ems relate to the base font
size for the page. So if our page has a different-than-usual base font size,
either via the browser or via user preferences, things will still look okay.

You’ve probably heard that responsive design is hard. Well, it isn’t. I
mean, it’s not any harder than web design is. Sure, web design was a lot
easier in the days before computers were invented. We just sat around
and read the paper all day, waiting for computers to be invented.

But eventually we had to learn HTML and CSS. We didn’t
try to learn it all at once, so it wasn’t too bad. Plus, we just
copied other people’s stuff until we got the hang of it.

And it turns out that the awesome thing about web design is that there are a lot
of people out there who want us to copy their stuff. In fact, they make cool stuff
and put it on their websites for everybody to download and use. Our job as
responsive designers is actually not all that hard, because there are people out
there who are much smarter than us, and they are doing all the hard parts for us!

Sure, it’s nice to be a purist and code all our websites from scratch. Just like we
make all our own clothes from fabric that we wove ourselves from cotton that
we grew ourselves on our own farms in our backyard. Right?

Or we can let someone else do the hard parts so that we can go
home at a reasonable hour in time to play with our kids
or watch Law & Order: SVU (your choice).

Frameworks

A framework is a starting place for designing or building a website. Not
the whole design, just a starting place. Like the frame of a house.

There are a lot of frameworks, and they’re all a bit different, so you’ll have to ﬁgure
out what works best for your project and for your style of working. Foundation is
one of the most popular. It’s a 12-column, nestable, responsive grid.
http://foundation.zurb.com/

That doesn’t mean your site will have 12 columns.You can have any number of
columns up to 12, as long as the proportions are divisible by 12. For example, you
can have two columns, the ﬁrst is 4/12 of the screen wide, the other is 8/12 wide.
http://foundation.zurb.com/grid-example1.php

Here’s a site that uses Foundation.

http://www.zurb.com/soapbox

Once you decide what columns you want, that doesn’t have to
apply to the whole page. Here they have 4 columns,
(3+3+3+3) and right below that, 3 columns (4+4+4).
http://www.zurb.com/soapbox

When you download all the ﬁles for Foundation, you get CSS,
JavaScript, and this sample ﬁle which you can use as a template (or you
can just start your own HTML page and not use the template).

It’s responsive by default.


There’s only one breakpoint, and the default behavior is for the columns to stack
vertically. This might not be what you want to happen, but you can change it to
work however you want by adding more breakpoints or different behavior.

<div class="row">
<div class="twelve columns">
...
</div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<div class="three columns">
...
</div>
<div class="nine columns">
...
</div>
</div>

The grid is built around two key elements: rows
and columns. Each row gets a class of “row.”

<div class="row">
<div class="twelve columns">
...
</div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<div class="three columns">
...
</div>
<div class="nine columns">
...
</div>
</div>

The columns within the rows: each gets a class of “columns,” and then a
number that correlates as to how wide it should be out of 12. The ﬁrst row
has one column that spans the entire width of 12. The next row has a
narrow left column (3 of 12) and a wider right column (9 of 12).

Responsive

Foundation is by default responsive. All the widths are
percentages. It has one breakpoint at 768 pixels, but you’re not
stuck with that; you can easily change it or add more breakpoints.

class="show-for-xlarge"
class="show-for-large"
class="show-for-large-up"
class="show-for-medium"
class="show-for-medium-down"
class="show-for-small"

breakpoints at:
767 px, 1279 px, 1441 px
There are built-in classes you can use to show or hide elements at speciﬁc widths;
for example, if you want a nav button to appear on small screens, but the full nav to
appear on wide screens.You can change the built-in breakpoints.

class="hide-for-xlarge"
class="hide-for-large"
class="hide-for-large-up"
class="hide-for-medium"
class="hide-for-medium-down"
class="hide-for-small"

breakpoints at:
767 px, 1279 px, 1441 px

class="show-for-landscape"
class="hide-for-landscape"

class="show-for-portrait"
class="hide-for-portrait"

class="show-for-touch"
class="hide-for-touch"

You probably won’t use these much, but there are built-in classes to show/hide
elements depending on screen orientation, or whether it’s a touch screen.

Prototyping

You already know that prototyping/designing in PhotoShop doesn’t work when
you need to plan for varying screen widths. Frameworks are really great for
responsive prototyping, because you can build a basic site layout very quickly.

Frameworks generally come with built-in styles for various elements, such
as forms and buttons.You probably won’t use these basic, default styles on
your actual design, but they are handy when doing a quick prototype.
http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/forms.php

And they are basic enough that the site will look like a prototype
and not a ﬁnished design, so your client won’t be confused.

http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/buttons.php

Typography styles are also included.

http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/typography.php

Twitter Bootstrap is another framework that is very popular. Besides giving
you a responsive grid, there are also lots of pre-styled UI elements.

http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/index.html

Skeleton is another responsive framework. It’s more lightweight (less styled
elements), easy to use, and there are WordPress and Drupal versions.

http://www.getskeleton.com

320 and Up is a great framework, because it’s intended for small-screen ﬁrst.
That’s the best way to design a responsive site: by starting with the small screen,
you can focus on your content, which is the most important part of your site.
http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/

SimpleGrid is another responsive framework. It has three different breakpoints by
default. Again, you can make any changes you want. It’s very simple to implement.

http://simplegrid.info/

The Semantic Grid System is a little more complicated, but allows
you to set variables for things like gutter and column widths.

http://semantic.gs/

Frameless is not exactly a framework — you don’t
download anything — but more of a way to code your site.
http://framelessgrid.com/

HTML5 Boilerplate is HTML5 by default, and includes a lot of
additional styles, tools, and polyﬁlls to help you build your site.

http://html5boilerplate.com/

The Golden Grid System is a “folding grid”: the columns
collapse from 16 to 8 to 4 as the viewport narrows.

http://goldengridsystem.com/

Resources: Frameworks

Which Is Right for Me? 22 Responsive CSS Frameworks and Boilerplates Explained
(Joshua Johnson) - August 2012
http://designshack.net/articles/css/which-is-right-for-me-22-responsive-css-
frameworks-and-boilerplates-explained/

15 More Responsive CSS Frameworks & Boilerplates Worth Considering - August
2012
http://speckyboy.com/2012/08/21/15-more-responsive-css-frameworks-
boilerplates-worth-considering/

Navigation Patterns

One of the tricky parts about making a responsive site is
ﬁguring out what to do with the navigation. The good news
is that someone else already ﬁgured it out for us.

Brad Frost has this great website where you can view sample code
for different types of things you might want to add to your
responsive site. (there are a lot of other links and resources too)
http://bradfrost.github.com/this-is-responsive/patterns.html

Top Navigation

Navigation nearly always follows one of several “patterns.” The ﬁrst we’ll
look at is top navigation. This is the easiest thing to do with your
navigation, and generally requires only minimal CSS to make it responsive.

When we go from wide to narrow width (on the next slide), you’ll
see that the navigation stays in the same part of the page. It moves
down below the logo, but otherwise is pretty much the same.
http://www.gravitatedesign.com

This may work okay if we only have a few navigation items, but they might end up
wrapping in weird ways. Or we may have to make them really small so they’ll ﬁt, in
which case it would be difﬁcult to accurately select the links on a touch screen.
http://www.gravitatedesign.com

This site has a lot of different navigations and navigation items.
They used a strategy of keeping all the nav items at the top...
http://www.tuj.ac.jp/

But what happens is they end up ﬁlling the whole screen with navigation,
and you can’t see the content. People aren’t coming to our websites for
the navigation, they’re coming for the content. So this isn’t good.
http://www.tuj.ac.jp/

Footer Anchor

Footer anchor navigation is also fairly simple to implement. (by the way, all the
code examples in this section are from Brad Frost’s This Is Responsive site)

This is Contents magazine. This is what the site looks like
on a desktop. Basic horizontal navigation.
http://contentsmagazine.com/

On a small screen, instead of seeing navigation at the top, you see a button,
“Explore.” You click this to get to the navigation. It’s an anchor link.


When you click it, you jump down to the bottom of the page where the navigation
is. The problem with this is that it can be disorienting to the user to jump around
on the page. However, it’s really easy to implement footer anchor navigation.

<div id="site-nav">
<form> ... </form>
! <nav>
! ! <ul class="nav nav-primary">
! ! ! <li><a href="#">Archive</a></li>
! ! ! <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
! ! ! <li><a href="#">Write For Us</a></li>
! ! ! <li><a href="#">Subscribe</a></li>! ! !
! ! </ul>
! </nav>
</div>

The way this works is that the navigation is at the end of the HTML source
order, so by default it’s at the bottom of the screen. So that’s what you get
on the small screen, with the “Explore” button at the top of the page.

@media screen and (min-width: 48em) {
! #site-nav {
! ! position: absolute;
! ! top: -5em;
! ! width: 100%;
! ! z-index: 5;
! }
}
For larger screens, there’s a media query. This simply takes the div
containing the navigation, and uses absolute positioning to put it at the top
of the page. That only happens when the viewport is 48 ems or wider.

So here it is at the top. That was just the positioning; you’ll
need some additional CSS to make it look the way you want.


Toggle Navigation

Toggle navigation is a bit more complicated to implement.You’ll see a full navigation
at a wide screen width. At narrow width, you’ll get a Menu button or icon at the
top, which you’ll click to see the navigation. This is getting to be pretty common.

This is the Starbucks site. The three-line icon in the top right
means navigation. It’s a fairly common convention.

http://starbucks.com/

When you click it, you get the navigation, and the rest of the page content is
pushed down below it (the navigation doesn’t overlap the content).


The site has media queries to put the nav items either in one or two
columns, depending on how much width is available. When you click the ‘X,’
the navigation will disappear and the content will go back to it’s normal spot.

Starbucks uses a toggle navigation, which is one of the patterns on Brad
Frost’s website, so you can look at this example code to see exactly
how it works, and then implement a toggle navigation on your own site.

The example works the same as Starbucks’ site, but has minimal styling
so it’s easier for you to see which parts of the code are relevant.


<a href="#menu" class="menu-link">Menu</a>
<nav class="" id="menu" role="navigation">
! <ul>
! ! <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">Products</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">Services</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
! </ul>
</nav>

This is the HTML. The line at the top is the Menu button.

<a href="#menu" class="menu-link">Menu</a>
<nav class="" id="menu" role="navigation">
! <ul>
! ! <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">Products</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">Services</a></li>
! ! <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
! </ul>
</nav>

Below that is the navigation, an unordered list inside a <nav> element.

.js nav[role=navigation] {
! overflow: hidden;
! max-height: 0;
}
nav[role=navigation].active {
! max-height: 15em;
}

This is the CSS to make the navigation appear and disappear.

! overflow: hidden;
! max-height: 0;
}
! max-height: 15em;
}

There are two relevant lines of CSS that apply to the <nav>: one shows the
navigation, the other hides it. We’ll switch between the CSS using JavaScript, which
will apply the class “active” to the <nav> element when the Menu button is clicked.

! overflow: hidden;
! max-height: 0;
}
! max-height: 15em;
}

The ﬁrst line of CSS, before the Menu button is clicked, hides the <nav>. So the
navigation is already hidden when the page loads for the ﬁrst time.

! overflow: hidden;
! max-height: 0;
}
! max-height: 15em;
}

The second line of CSS makes the <nav> visible by giving it a max-height of 15em
(so it’s no longer hidden, and there’s plenty of space to display the whole thing).

@media screen and (min-width: 48.25em) {
! a.menu-link {
! ! display: none;
! }
! .js nav[role=navigation] {
! ! max-height: none;
! }
}

For the wide screen, of 48.25em or wider, we’re using this media
query to override what we just set up for the narrow screen.

! a.menu-link {
! ! display: none;
! }
! }
}

The ﬁrst line of CSS hides the Menu button, because we
don’t need it on the wide screen: the navigation is visible.

! a.menu-link {
! ! display: none;
! }
! }
}
The second line gives the <nav> the max-height of none. This isn’t the
same as zero; it actually means unlimited. There is no maximum. The
<nav> can take all the space it needs on the wide screen.

To determine where to put your breakpoint for this type of navigation, you just
have to try it out and see where the horizontal navigation starts to wrap. Keep in
mind it might be slightly different on different devices or browsers.

Left Nav Flyout
Left nav ﬂyout is also used a lot, but it’s more complicated to implement,
so I’m not going to show you the code, but I’ll show you what it looks like.

Keep in mind that as the navigation code gets more complicated, you need to make
sure there’s a fallback for any devices/browsers that don’t support the code.You
don’t want users coming to your site and not having access to the navigation.

Like the previous example, there’s an icon at the top,
horizontal bars, to click to get the navigation.
http://www.emerilsrestaurants.com

The difference is that here, the content slides off to the side, instead of sliding
down.You would then click the navigation icon again to go back to the content.
Notice how you can still see the content, so you know that it’s still there.

You can also have submenus within the navigation.


Three-Dimensional Menu

This isn’t from the navigation patterns that I referred
to, but it’s an example of something pretty cool.

See the arrow over on the left side of the screen? To get the navigation to
appear, you just swipe on your touch screen. On a non-touch interface, you
simply need to hover your cursor on the left side of the browser.
http://lab.hakim.se/meny/

After you swipe/hover, you get this. It’s similar to the previous example of
left nav ﬂyout, but instead of the content just moving to the right, it is
displayed so that it looks like a side of a cube that has turned.

This is how it looks on a mobile device.


Resources: Navigation

Responsive Navigation Patterns (Brad Frost) - February 2012
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/web/responsive-nav-patterns/

Complex Navigation Patterns for Responsive Design (Brad Frost) - August 2012
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/web/complex-navigation-patterns-for-responsive-
design/

10 Tips How To Handle Responsive Navigation Menus Successfully (Sabina Idler) -
October 2012
http://blog.usabilla.com/10-tips-how-to-handle-responsive-navigation-menus-
successfully/

10 Responsive Navigation Solutions and Tutorials - August 2012
http://speckyboy.com/2012/08/29/10-responsive-navigation-solutions-and-
tutorials/

Preprocessors

Next, lets talk about how we write CSS. A preprocessor helps
you write CSS. It doesn’t add new functionality to the CSS, but
rather it makes your CSS more ﬂexible and easier to maintain.

There are several different preprocessors. Sass and LESS are two of the more
popular. They all do similar things, but have some different features and work in
different ways.You need to pick which one works best for you.
http://sass-lang.com/ and http://lesscss.org/

Sass

I’m not going to say that one or another is better, but for the purpsoes of this
presentation, I need to pick one for the examples, so I’m going to show you a bit of
how Sass works. (all code examples are from the Sass website)

The easiest way to explain how this works: you’ll still be writing CSS for
your site, but in special files that have a different extension.You then have
the ability to add in what are essentially shortcuts as part of your CSS.

The preprocessor then will take the files with all your shortcuts and
change them to regular CSS files. When the website is rendered, the
browser will be looking at the regular CSS files, not your shortcuts.

It’s called a preprocessor because your code will be processed to change it
to valid CSS before it’s processed by the browser to render the website.

Nesting

Nesting is really handy to keep you from repeating the same things
over and over again in your CSS, and also can make it easier to
understand your CSS when you’re looking at a lot of it.

#navbar {
width: 80%;
height: 23px;
ul {
list-style-type: none;
}
li {
float: left;
}
}

Here we are nesting the ul and li within the #navbar.

#navbar {
width: 80%;
height: 23px;
ul {
}
li {
float: left;
}
}

All the other CSS is contained within #navbar

#navbar {
width: 80%;
height: 23px;
ul {
}
li {
float: left;
}
}

The width and height only apply to #navbar

#navbar {
width: 80%;
height: 23px;
ul {
}
li {
float: left;
}
}

But then we have the ul and li within #navbar. So
they’re actually #navbar ul and #navbar li.

#navbar {
width: 80%;
height: 23px;
}
#navbar ul {
}
#navbar li {
float: left;
}
When the code is processed, we get this, which is no longer nested, and is what the
browser will get. It doesn’t seem all that impressive in this example, but once you
have multiple layers of nesting, it can make your job a lot easier.

.fakeshadow {
border: {
style: solid;
left: {
width: 4px;
color: #888;
}
right: {
width: 2px;
color: #ccc;
}
}
}
You can also nest styles.

.fakeshadow {
border-style: solid;
border-left-width: 4px;
border-left-color: #888;
border-right-width: 2px;
border-right-color: #ccc;
}

This is what the preceding code will turn into when it’s processed.

Variables

Variables are super-handy. If you have something like a color that is repeated
throughout your styles, you can declare it once and then refer to the variable. If
you need to change it later, there is only one place to change it instead of many.

$main-color: #ce4dd6;
$style: solid;

#navbar {
border-bottom: {
color: $main-color;
style: $style;
}
}

Variables start with a dollar sign and are declared like properties.

$main-color: #ce4dd6;
$style: solid;

#navbar {
border-bottom: {
color: $main-color;
style: $style;
}
}

So then our styles can simply refer to the variable.

#navbar {
border-bottom-color: #ce4dd6;
border-bottom-style: solid;
}

When it’s processed, we get this.

Mixins

Mixins are awesome. They allow you to reuse complicated styles without
having to copy and paste. Kind of like variables, except for entire styles.

#navbar li {
-moz-border-radius-top: 10px;
-webkit-border-top-radius: 10px;
border-top-radius: 10px;
}

#footer {
}
For example, if we were using this border radius for multiple elements on
the site. We don’t want to copy and paste it multiple times, and we also
might want it in one place, in case we need to change part of it.

@mixin rounded-top {
}

#navbar li { @include rounded-top; }
#footer { @include rounded-top; }
The part at the top is where we declare the mixin, “rounded-
top.” The part at the bottom is where we are using the mixin,
applying that set of styles to both #navbar li and #footer.

#navbar li {
}
#footer {
}

When the code is processed, this is what we end up with.

Math

When you’re doing responsive design, math is one
of the most useful functions of a preprocessor.

.sidebar {
width: percentage(360px / 960px);
}

Instead of getting out our calculator to ﬁgure out percentages for
widths, we can just write the original numbers into our code.

.sidebar {
width: 37.5%;
}

When it’s processed, the preprocessor ﬁgures out the
percentage for us and puts it in the CSS.

@media Bubbling

@media bubbling is like nesting, but for media queries. So this is handy for
responsive design. It can keep your stylesheets easier to understand.

.profile-pic {
float: left;
width: 250px;
@media screen and (max-width: 320px) {
width: 100px;
}
float: none;
}
}

In this example, we’re applying different CSS to proﬁle-pic,
depending on the viewport width. Everything is inside proﬁle-pic.

.profile-pic {
float: left;
width: 250px;
width: 100px;
}
float: none;
}
}

These styles apply to proﬁle-pic.

.profile-pic {
float: left;
width: 250px;
width: 100px;
}
float: none;
}
}

Then here are our media queries, inside! We don’t
need to repeat proﬁle-pic, we just need the style.

.profile-pic {
float: left; width: 250px;
}
.profile-pic {
width: 100px;
}
}
.profile-pic {
float: none;
}
}
So when it’s processed, this is what we get: our media queries “bubble” out of the
nest (yes, that’s why it’s called @media bubbling) onto separate lines.

$break-small: 320px;
$break-large: 1200px;

.profile-pic {
float: left;
width: 250px;
@media screen and (max-width: $break-small) {
width: 100px;
}
@media screen and (min-width: $break-large) {
float: none;
}
}
We can also use variables as well, like if we have
breakpoints that are used for various site elements.

Resources: Preprocessors

Sass And LESS: An Introduction To CSS Preprocessors (Steven Bradley) - April 2012
http://www.vanseodesign.com/css/css-preprocessors/

An Introduction To LESS, And Comparison To Sass (Jeremy Hixon) - September
2011
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/09/09/an-introduction-to-less-and-
comparison-to-sass/

Responsive Web Design in Sass: Using Media Queries in Sass 3.2 (Mason Wendell)
- April 2012
http://thesassway.com/intermediate/responsive-web-design-in-sass-using-media-
queries-in-sass-32

Create faster ﬂuid layouts with LESS (Paul Mist) - August 2012
http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/create-faster-ﬂuid-layouts-less

Responsive Images

Responsive images are quite a hot topic lately.

img, object, video {
max-width: 100%
}

We all know that we use max-width: 100% so that our images/media
can change size but will always ﬁt within their containing element. The
problem is that this means the image we upload to the site has to be
the largest size that it will ever display as on the site. We can’t scale
up images, they’ll get blurry. We can only scale them down.

Performance

So then we’re wasting a lot of bandwidth, forcing users to download images that
are much larger than what they might need for a particular device/screen size.
And also, how do we serve up the appropriate images for retina screens without
wasting all that bandwidth on devices that don’t need HD images?

<picture>

The <picture> element has been proposed, but they’re still hammering
out the details, so you can’t use it yet. But I’m going to tell you how it
will likely work, and then tell you what you can do in the meantime.
http://www.w3.org/community/respimg/

<picture>
<source srcset="small-1.jpg 1x,
small-2.jpg 2x">
<source media="(min-width: 18em)"
srcset="med-1.jpg 1x, med-2.jpg 2x">
srcset="large-1.jpg 1x, large-2.jpg 2x">
<img src="small-1.jpg">
</picture>

This is what the code will look like, when we want to display an image on our site.

<picture>
small-2.jpg 2x">
</picture>

This part of the code pretty much works the same as a media query, telling the
browser to display a different image based on the viewport width.

<picture>
small-2.jpg 2x">
</picture>

So not only are there different images for each width (small, med,
large), there are also versions for regular (1x) and HD (2x).

<picture>
small-2.jpg 2x">
</picture>

Then, for older browsers that won’t support the new <picture> element,
there’s a fallback, using <img>, which the older browsers do support.

Different Images

But it’s not just different sizes of the same image: you
may actually want to display different images.

For example, the image on the wide version of this site wouldn’t look nearly as
good at a smaller size. So instead, they choose to use a different crop of the same
image. Sometimes, you may want to display a different image entirely.
http://www.ottersurfboards.co.uk/

Pictureﬁll

Pictureﬁll is a way for you to have all that functionality now.

What’s a Polyfill?
Picturefill is a “polyfill.” That’s a piece of code that fills in to do something in
older browsers that is only natively possible in newer browsers. For
example, a polyfilll can make older versions of IE do all the things we wish
they could do. But there is a downside: using a polyfill adds extra code to
your site, so there’s more to download and more to process. Think about
whether you really need to do the cool new functionality in every browser.

Pictureﬁll is available on Github.

https://github.com/scottjehl/pictureﬁll

<div data-picture data-alt="Your alt text.">
<div data-src="/img/small.jpg"></div>
<div data-src="/img/medium.jpg" data-media="(min-width:
500px)"></div>
<div data-src="/img/large.jpg" data-media="(min-width:
1000px)"></div>


<noscript>
<img src="/img/small.jpg" alt="Your alt text.">
</noscript>
</div>

We’ll need to upload some JavaScript to our site. Then
this is the code we use to add an image to our site.

500px)"></div>
1000px)"></div>

<noscript>
</noscript>
</div>

Similar to what I showed you previously, we’re linking to
multiple versions of the image (or different images).

500px)"></div>
1000px)"></div>

<noscript>
</noscript>
</div>

Then we tell the browser which ones should be
displayed at different viewport widths.

500px)"></div>
1000px)"></div>

<noscript>
</noscript>
</div>

If the browser doesn’t support JavaScript, Pictureﬁll won’t
work. So you use <noscript> to serve a fallback image.

500px)"></div>
1000px)"></div>




<noscript>
</noscript>
</div>

Then there’s older IE, which won’t do the media query part of the code. So
we’ll use conditional comments to give it the appropriate image.

HD/Retina

HD/retina screens have twice as many pixels in each direction
(horizontal, vertical) so you actually need an image that uses 4 times as
many pixels, in order to take full advantage of the HD screen.

<div data-src="medium.jpg" data-media="(min-width:
400px)"></div>

<div data-src="medium_x2.jpg" data-media="(min-
width: 400px) and (min-device-pixel-ratio:
2.0)"></div>

Pictureﬁll supports image replacement for
retina. We have two versions of the image.

400px)"></div>

2.0)"></div>

They both have the same minimum width query.

400px)"></div>

2.0)"></div>

But this one has an additional query of minimum device pixel
ratio. So the second image will be served if it’s a HD display.

Adaptive Images

Adaptive Images is a totally different way to approach
the issue of serving multiple sizes of an image.

Implement this code, and it will detect the screen size, and then create and
serve the appropriate re-scaled version of the image. We only need to upload
the largest version of the image. The server does the rest of the work.
http://adaptive-images.com/

Apache & PHP

One caveat: it only works on sites running Apache and PHP. However, if that
is your site, you can use this solution without changing the actual HTML
you use for images (unlike with Pictureﬁll). So it’s very easy to implement.
Plus, you can use it on top of any CMS, since it doesn’t change your HTML.

<?php

$resolutions = array(1382, 992, 768,
480); // the resolution break-points to
use (screen widths, in pixels)

...

To set it up, we’ll need to edit the .htaccess file for our site.
We’ll then upload a PHP file, changing a few numbers in the file
to match the actual breakpoints we’re using on our site.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  Options +FollowSymlinks
  RewriteEngine On

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !assets

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !ai-cache

  RewriteRule .(?:jpe?g|gif|png)$
adaptive-images.php

</IfModule>

Before sending the image back to the browser, the server looks
at the .htaccess ﬁle to see if there are any special instructions.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  Options +FollowSymlinks
  RewriteEngine On

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !assets

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !ai-cache

  RewriteRule .(?:jpe?g|gif|png)$
adaptive-images.php

</IfModule>
In this case, we added special instructions in .htaccess, telling it
that if the server is being asked for an image ﬁle, it should go
to adaptive-images.php instead of just serving the image.

$resolutions = array(1382, 992, 768,
480); // the resolution break-points to
use (screen widths, in pixels)

The adaptive-images.php ﬁle looks at the cookie (remember, it stored the user’s
screen size), and ﬁgures out which size image it should serve, based on the
breakpoints we set earlier. It serves the original image if appropriate, or else creates
a scaled-down copy of the image. The scaled-down image will be cached for later
use, so the server won’t need to make the same image size over and over again.

This is an example from the Adaptive Images website. The various
versions of the image range from 14 KB to 82 KB. So you’re saving a lot
of bandwidth by serving smaller images where you can. Adaptive Images
can also handle HD images, you just need to adjust the JavaScript a bit.
http://adaptive-images.com/

Other Image Solutions

Responsive Images
https://github.com/ﬁlamentgroup/Responsive-Images

Retina.js
http://retinajs.com/

FitVids.js (video)
http://ﬁtvidsjs.com/

Resources: Responsive Images

W3C Responsive Images Community Group
http://www.w3.org/community/respimg/

Which responsive images solution should you use? - May 2012
http://css-tricks.com/which-responsive-images-solution-should-you-use/

Responsive Images and Web Standards at the Turning Point (Mat Marquis) - May
2012
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-images-and-web-standards-at-the-
turning-point/

Compressive Images (Scott Jehl) - October 2012
http://ﬁlamentgroup.com/lab/rwd_img_compression/

Responsive Data Tables

Data tables can be kind of tricky. If there’s a lot of data, how
do you ﬁt it on a small screen? There are many ways you can
do this; I’m going to show you two different options.

Responsive Tables uses CSS/JavaScript to change the display of the
table. This is what your table will look like on a wide screen.

http://www.zurb.com/playground/responsive-tables

At a narrow width, it pins the ﬁrst column (which is likely
headings/labels), and puts a scrollbar on the rest of it.

http://www.zurb.com/playground/responsive-tables

<table class="responsive">
<tr> …

And then add the “responsive” class to any
table we want to make responsive. That’s it.

Here’s a totally different approach, from CSS-Tricks. This is a table at full width.

http://css-tricks.com/examples/ResponsiveTables/responsive.php

When we make the screen narrow, what happens is that the
data is displayed one row at a time, with the labels showing
up over and over, so we know what the data refers to.

It’s hard to explain, so look at the screenshot. This is
what you see when you scroll further down the page.

@media only screen and (max-width: 760px), (min-device-width: 768px) and (max-
device-width: 1024px) {
! /* Force table to not be like tables anymore */
! table, thead, tbody, th, td, tr {
! ! display: block;
! }
! /* Hide table headers (but not display: none;, for accessibility) */
! thead tr {
! ! top: -9999px;
! ! left: -9999px;
! }
! td {
! ! /* Behave like a "row" */
! ! border: none;
! ! border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;
! ! position: relative;
! ! padding-left: 50%;
! }

The implementation is quite a bit more complicated than the previous
example. In the CSS, we’re basically making each table cell into a row.

! td:before {
! ! /* Now like a table header */
! ! /* Top/left values mimic padding */
! ! top: 6px;
! ! left: 6px;
! ! width: 45%;
! ! padding-right: 10px;
! ! white-space: nowrap;
! }
! /* Label the data */
! td:nth-of-type(1):before { content: "First Name"; }
! td:nth-of-type(2):before { content: "Last Name"; }
! td:nth-of-type(3):before { content: "Job Title"; }
! td:nth-of-type(4):before { content: "Favorite Color"; }
! td:nth-of-type(5):before { content: "Wars of Trek?"; }
! td:nth-of-type(6):before { content: "Porn Name"; }
! td:nth-of-type(7):before { content: "Date of Birth"; }
! td:nth-of-type(8):before { content: "Dream Vacation City"; }
! td:nth-of-type(9):before { content: "GPA"; }
! td:nth-of-type(10):before { content: "Arbitrary Data"; }
}

And then we use :before to make the labels show up adjacent to the
data for every item. We have to manually enter the labels into the
stylesheet for each table, so this can end up being a lot of work.

Resources: Responsive Tables

A Responsive Design Approach for Complex, Multicolumn Data Tables
http://ﬁlamentgroup.com/lab/
responsive_design_approach_for_complex_multicolumn_data_tables/

Responsive Data Tables with jQuery
http://mobifreaks.com/coding/responsive-data-tables-jquery/

Responsive Patterns: Table Patterns
http://bradfrost.github.com/this-is-responsive/patterns.html#tables

Responsive Data Tables and Screen Reader Accessibility (Jason Kiss) - August 2011
http://www.accessibleculture.org/articles/2011/08/responsive-data-tables-and-
screen-reader-accessibility/

Polyfills
I mentioned polyfills earlier.You can make older browsers do what newer
browsers do. That being said, responsive design is about being responsive to the
device and the browser, not about having your site look exactly the same on
every device. So if you start out building your site with the basics first and doing
progressive enhancement, rather than starting out with the most complicated
version of the site and doing graceful degradation, you’ll find that you don’t
always need to make the older browsers act like the newer browsers.

Modernizr is a JavaScript library that detects whether a user’s browser can
take advantage of particular features in HTML5 and CSS3.You just need to
upload a JavaScript ﬁle, and then call it from the <head> of the page.
http://modernizr.com/

<html class=" js canvas canvastext
geolocation crosswindowmessaging no-
websqldatabase indexeddb hashchange
historymanagement draganddrop websockets
rgba hsla multiplebgs backgroundsize
borderimage borderradius boxshadow opacity
cssanimations csscolumns cssgradients no-
cssreflections csstransforms no-
csstransforms3d csstransitions video
audio localstorage sessionstorage
webworkers applicationcache svg smil
svgclippaths fontface">
When the page renders, the JavaScript adds classes to the <html> tag to show
which HTML5/CSS3 features are supported. So you’ll get something different here
based on the browser, and then you can use it to pick what CSS is applied.

<html class=" js canvas canvastext
geolocation crosswindowmessaging no-
websqldatabase indexeddb hashchange
historymanagement draganddrop websockets
rgba hsla multiplebgs backgroundsize
borderimage borderradius boxshadow opacity
cssanimations csscolumns cssgradients no-
cssreflections csstransforms no-
csstransforms3d csstransitions video
audio localstorage sessionstorage
webworkers applicationcache svg smil
svgclippaths fontface">
For example, in the latest version of Firefox, there are only a few
that are not supported. They have “no-” before the feature. Keep
in mind these are all now CSS classes on your page.

<HTML class=" js no-canvas no-canvastext
no-geolocation no-crosswindowmessaging no-
websqldatabase no-indexeddb no-hashchange
no-historymanagement draganddrop no-
websockets no-rgba no-hsla no-multiplebgs
no-backgroundsize no-borderimage no-
borderradius no-boxshadow no-opacity no-
cssanimations no-csscolumns no-
cssgradients no-cssreflections no-
csstransforms no-csstransforms3d no-
csstransitions fontface no-video no-audio
no-localstorage no-sessionstorage no-
webworkers no-applicationcache no-svg no-
smil no-svgclippaths">
This is what I get in IE7.

<HTML class=" js no-canvas no-canvastext
no-geolocation no-crosswindowmessaging no-
websqldatabase no-indexeddb no-hashchange
no-historymanagement draganddrop no-
websockets no-rgba no-hsla no-multiplebgs
no-backgroundsize no-borderimage no-
borderradius no-boxshadow no-opacity no-
cssanimations no-csscolumns no-
cssgradients no-cssreflections no-
csstransforms no-csstransforms3d no-
csstransitions fontface no-video no-audio
no-localstorage no-sessionstorage no-
webworkers no-applicationcache no-svg no-
smil no-svgclippaths">
Yep, a whole lotta NOs.

.no-boxshadow {
...
}

So let’s say we happen to be using boxshadow in our site design. We can
add CSS to do something different only for browsers that don’t support
boxshadow. We might want to use a polyﬁll to replicate behavior, or if that
part of the style isn’t essential to the design, we might just need some
simple CSS to accommodate the difference in the design.

This is a great site: they’ve collected links to all the different polyﬁlls you
can use to replicate various HTML5 functionality in older browsers.

https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross-browser-Polyﬁlls

Respond is one particular polyﬁll I want to point out. It enables
max-width and min-width media queries in browsers that don’t
support them. (IE8 and older, particularly)
https://github.com/scottjehl/Respond

You just need to upload the JavaScript ﬁle, and then link to it
from your <head> using a conditional comment.

Prototyping & Design Process

Dive into Responsive Prototyping with Foundation (Jonathan Smiley) - April 2012
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dive-into-responsive-prototyping-with-
foundation/

Design Process In The Responsive Age (Drew Clemons) - May 2012
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/05/30/design-process-responsive-
age/

Responsive Web Design Sketch Sheets
http://jeremypalford.com/arch-journal/responsive-web-design-sketch-sheets

Style Tiles
http://styletil.es/

Books to Read

Ethan Marcotte (2011)
http://www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design/

Mobile First
Luke Wroblewski (2011)
http://www.abookapart.com/products/mobile-ﬁrst

Adaptive Web Design: Crafting Rich Experiences with Progressive Enhancement
Aaron Gustafson (2011)
http://easy-readers.net/books/adaptive-web-design/

Implementing Responsive Design: Building sites for an anywhere, everywhere web
Tim Kadlec (2012)
http://www.implementingresponsivedesign.com/

Other Websites & Misc.

@RWD
links about responsive design (Ethan Marcotte)
https://twitter.com/RWD

Future Friendly
making things that are future-friendly
http://futurefriend.ly/

Brad Frost
blog that covers responsive design
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/

Mediaqueri.es
inspirational websites using media queries and responsive web design
http://mediaqueri.es/

If you were actually at the CWSA event (Oct. 30, 2012), you’ll
recognize “Flo” from the Progressive lobby. And that’s me on the
left. It’s been my lifelong dream to pose for a picture next to a
cardboard cutout of “Flo.” I can now cross it off my bucket list.

*Also if you were at the CWSA event, and arrived in time
for the warm-up act, you will appreciate this resource:
My Hermit Crab is Not Moving - Is He Molting or Is He Dead?
http://exoticpets.about.com/od/hermitcrabs/f/hcmoltordead.htm

Photo credit: Jessica Diamond via Creative Commons http://ﬂic.kr/p/4T5miW

Thanks!

Clarissa Peterson
@clarissa
clarissapeterson.com
mail@clarissapeterson.com

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