With a huge percentage of internet users accessing the internet through mobile and tablet devices, it has become important for individuals and businesses to make a website responsive during the web application development process itself. A responsive site not only ensures a great user experience for a range of non-desktop users but also assures quality search engine rankings on mobile. Moreover, a responsive design ensures that an individual or business does not have to create different websites for different devices, saving time and efforts. While the advantages of employing responsive website design are many, it carries a slight disadvantage: that of reducing site performance. That is because all the content and scripts of a responsive site are delivered at the same instance in a device where the site is being viewed.
Fortunately, the disadvantage can be tackled by adopting a few key measures which are as follows:
Image Optimization
Images take up the biggest sizes of a website. Sending these big files on non-desktop devices automatically decreases site performance. Therefore, to ensure a mobile site runs optimally, it is ideal to use compressed images which adapt to different screen sizes. I other words, reduce the size of the images sent to mobile devices by compressing them and making them responsive. One way to make images responsive is deploying the CSS image resizing method wherein the height of an image remains constant and the width is made to vary according to different devices.
Minimize The Number Of Functionalities
Keeping the number of functionalities in a mobile site equal to those of the original desktop site can lead to an overcrowded and slow user experience. So, try to get rid of excessive functionalities. It is highly advisable to sit with your Responsive Website Design Service provider and devise ways to keep the number of functionalities of mobile and tablet devices to a minimum.
Keep The Number Of HTTP Requests Minimum
The old and tested way to optimize the performance of any website is to keep the number of HTTP requests of a site minimum. To minimize the number of HTTP requests, you can minimize the number of site components and bundle images into a single file through the use of CSS sprites.
Minimize The Content
Another way to optimize the performance of a responsive site is by having less content on the site. Try to remove content which seems unnecessary. Additionally, shift scripts to the end of the HTML template, so as to avoid blocking. This speeds up the loading rate of primary content.
A slow-loading website can lead to a decreased bounce rate, further adversely affecting a business. This makes it necessary to ensure an optimum site performance.
A poor user experience on mobile combined with poor site performance are the recipe for a decreased bounce rate. While the user experience can be optimized by implementing responsive site design, it does not ensure an optimum site performance on mobile. However, by implementing the above-mentioned measures, we can ensure that a site not only adapts to different screen sizes optimally but also performs effectively.
