What you see may not be what others see

75
4.9K followers
Updated

Lately, I have been evaluating some websites for others, and too often I have come across some major flaws in the website design of these sites.

These flaws are all connected to how the site shows on other screen sizes than your own.

Today most themes are responsive. That means that they should render and adapt your site perfectly on every screen. Sadly, that is far from the truth.

Yesterday I came across a site that most likely looked good on the 1024 screen width on the computer that it was constructed on, but on 1920 resolution, the header image was way too small and adjusted to the left and filling half the screen, while the text was centered.

I have seen pages that have built a post layout with images that looked good on 1280+ resolution but made no sense on mobile and tablet view.

Checking out your how website design looks on various screens should be a part of the QA done on every website in the constructing process.

Trusting that the theme, that claims to be responsive, handles this is not enough. You need to actually check it out.

Luckily there is help available to perform such checks.

To check a site on various screen resolutions and mobile views, I use: http://responsivedesignchecker...

If you want only mobile view you can use: http://www.responsinator.com

One thing you should look for in addition to the general appearance of your theme is how your menu works on mobile devices. Some themes render the menu in ways that make it appear very little user-friendly to your visitors.

Never trust that a responsive theme actually presents your website in the best possible way.

For further reading, you can check out this blog post of mine from earlier this year:
How I choose themes for my websites...

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training

Recent Comments

88

Super important reminder. Thanks for sharing info and support tools.

Thanks

Great to know, Jorn. Excellent information to help me tailor my website!

Jim

Thank you

Thank you for informing us. It can be a great help for those who are having no traffic at all.

It is important. Shortly Google will look at the mobile version of the site first when indexing.

Great advice. Something that I have not done and probably many others as well.

That is true. Many people forget about this. Thanks for reading

I don't have my website yet, just saying thank you for the insight you are bringing to the community.You are awesome.

Thanks

This is true, my website which looks good on my laptop doesn't look good on a smartphone. So I have to find another theme that really responds and adapt to both.

Thanks for reading. Hope I didn't cause you too much work :)

No, it just affirmed what I did.

Hello, Jorn,
I appreciate your posting this article to expose the reality of web functionality.

Besides, I reviewed your bio again so to make sure I am talking with the right person, who is so kind and generous in sharing the ideas for mutual success.

In the past, I have interacted with you, and do you mind taking the trouble to go in the further discussion for mutual support, which I dearly need now? I would surely appreciate.

Best to health and success,


Chin-Ti

You have a pm :)

Thanks.

Chin

Thanks for this info; I never thought of that. Must takes note of this and check out my wee site.
Cheers, Jae

Happy to be of assistance :) Hope you don't get any surprises when checking the sites.

Wow, this is a great tool, thank you, Jorn, I have just checked up some sites, amazing!

Glad I could help :)

Added it to my amazing free website tools list already:) Thank you

You should write a post and share that list. There may be hidden gems for everybody :)

I am not allowed to share my website here, it would be considered as self promotion, but anybody can easily find it on my website

Very useful. Great links for checking visuals

Mobile and tablets are the future.
Working with non responsive themes is playing hara kiri

Thanks

See more comments

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training