Section 6.2 Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design

While we still use laptops, computers, and keyboards for a fair amount of our communication, we all communicate on mobile devices. This means that any content we create as technical communicators needs to have responsive web design, which simply means that the online content on a webpage can be viewed on a variety of mobile devices.

Frontend and backend coders will work to ensure a webpage is responsive, but there are also things that you as a technical communicator need to keep in mind. Many of these concepts relate back to writing online, such as the importance of being concise and chunking information when writing web content. Along with this, you will also want to keep in mind at how aspects of the online design look to the user. For example, if a banner image is too big, it may hide information from a user or make it so a user has to scroll more than desirable to find necessary content. Because of this, it is important to work alongside the frontend and backend web developers to ensure content is user-friendly.

Figure 6.1: Responsive and Non-Responsive Web Design (Source: Jeff Lenney, 2025)

Above you see an image of web design that is not responsive and an example of web design that is responsive. It is immediately easy for a user to see the difference. The non-responsive design is difficult to read, whereas the responsive design is larger and easier to read on the mobile device. As a technical communicator, it is important to share information clearly and accurately and this includes having good web design practices.