New manufacturer website shows why major players like Google, eBay, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix use device-aware server-side device detection rather than device-agnostic client-side media queries to deliver RWD.
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According to Miami web developer Bruce Arnold, “Responsive Web Design” is not achieved by ignoring web client device capabilities but by detecting them and tailoring your presentation accordingly. He cites the recently launched HTML5/CSS3/jQuery website PetersonIndustries.com as a prime example of how “RWD” should perform.
“Peterson Industries asked for a simple website to showcase the shower and closet doors they manufacture and share their product specifications with the architects, contractors and distributors who comprise their market.” Bruce Arnold explained. “The device-aware responsive web design we developed filled that bill by making those specs easily accessible via desktop, notebook, tablet or mobile browser.”
PetersonIndustries.com was designed by WebReDesignMiami.com, developed by Web3.0DesignMiami.com and optimized by PervasivePersuasion.com to provide high visibility coupled with broad accessibility and assure what Wikipedia calls an “optimal viewing experience – easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling – across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).” Every semantically rich and search friendly web page consists of custom handcoded PHP-scripted HTML5 and CSS3 that is validated W3C standards compliant, I18n issue-free and passes seven tests of Semantic Web (Web 3.0) Readiness. This assures not only maximum visibility in search engines but almost universal accessibility across a broad range of PC, Mac, desktop, laptop, notebook, tablet and smartphone browsers – including FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera.
An integrated and highly accurate device description repository (DDR) – which unlike CSS media queries places no extra load on mobile phone CPUs – is used to detect devices and tailor the presentation of a common content base for the specific dimensions and capabilities of standard web browsers as well as Android, Apple iOS and other smartphone user agents like Opera Mobile. For not-so-smart phones – or roughly 75% of the Mobile Web marketplace – the website sports a W3C mobileOK MiniPage accessible directly via “m.petersonindustries.com” using microbrowsers like Openwave or Obigo.
“Responsiveness like that is not possible relying solely on device-agnostic RWD tools such as media queries, fluid grids and flexible images,” Bruce Arnold advises. “There are a lot more issues to consider and address than all those iframe-based responsive web design checkers check and RWD testers test. That’s why Twitter abandoned their client-side device-agnostic initiative in favor of a server-side device-aware RWD approach. As we said before… iFrames are not iPhones.”
