Planning a website that will respond to the future is a must for the online marketers. It is time that they let go of the old excuses and take into account the latest trends in the ecommerce realm. Accessing websites on other devices besides laptops or desktops is a trend that is surging. As a result, organizations are seeking new approaches to ensure that their websites are easily available on the latest gizmos. Bettering user interaction is another important aspect that they just cannot ignore. There are two web design methods that are employed to deliver mobile friendly websites – adaptive and responsive. Essentially both Adaptive Web Design (AWD) and Responsive Web Design (RWD) are applied to render a website suitable for mobile use. Then why does it matter if we choose anyone of these? A study of their fundamental differences will prove helpful.

The W3C guidelines for Mobile Web Best Practices discuss the ‘One Web’ approach. This refers to providing “the same information and services available to users irrespective of the device they are using. However, it does not mean that exactly the same information is available in exactly the same representation across all devices. The context of mobile use, device capability variations, bandwidth issues and mobile network capabilities all affect the representation.” In order to adapt this approach the organization should choose between responsive or adaptive web designs. But before listing the differences, let’s define these web design techniques for you.

What is Responsive Web Design?

In case, you are unfamiliar with this term, responsive web design is a type of design that will adjust perfectly to the device you are using, for instance, tablet, desktop or smartphones. While the content will remain the same, the design is made in such a way that it will easily fit the interface. This is not a technology. Rather it is a design based approach that can solve all the problems related to the varying screen sizes. Thus, the websites can perform irrespective of device or resolution issues. The responsive design is significant for the mobile users for providing a complete experience. In the recent years mobile has become one of the key devices for accessing internet.

The term was coined by Ethan Marcotte. It is one of the most common ways to make your website mobile friendly where CSS3 is incorporated along with media queries and fluid grids that utilizes percentages to develop a flexible base. In addition to these, flexible images and videos are also used so that the website layout can adapt itself to any of the viewing devices or environments.

What is Adaptive Web Design?

For both Adaptive and Responsive the basic notion is the same. The main aim is to create a website that will work on multiple screens. However, Adaptive Web Design uses a detection script on the web server. It can automatically identify the device that the user utilizes to visit the website. Accordingly, it delivers a suitable version for that site owing to the capabilities and the size of the device.

Adaptive Web Design uses the various components of PE (progressive enhancement) in the design process so that they can identify the user instread of the brwoser. Predefined layout sizes are used depending on the size of the screen. JavaScript and CSS are used in the layouts. AWD is the predeccessor of RWD. It has coined at a time when Media Queries (CSS3) were not known to the web world. The key difference between these two design processes is that one uses Media Queries and the other does not.

If you are looking for an alternative to Responsive, then it has to be the Adaptive way. The most important difference is that the server that hosts the website will detect the device. This information is then delivered to various branches of CSS and HTML codes depending on the features of the detected device. What it significantly delivers is an experience that is built specifically for the mobile customers.

Differences Between Adaptive Web Design and Responsive Web Design
The primary difference between the two is that Adaptive adapts the device and screen dimensions while Responsive changes fluidly and responds to fit screen sizes. But there are other differences between them as well –

Separate websites have to be developed and maintained for AWD either with the help of separate CSS/HTML codes or by separate URL. For Responsive Web Design HTML or CSS3 and JavaScript is used. Thus, there is no need to maintain separate URLS or CSS/HTMLs.

Secondly, if your website is adaptive then every time you make a change, you will have reqork on SEO, linking and content. In comparison, the HTML/CSS3 and Javascript in responsive allows you to easily make the changes that will be carried over.

Adapative Websites depend on the predefined screen sizes. RWD relies on fluid and flexible grids. The latter needs more numbers of coding and plans to implement them so that the webpages fit the varying screen sizes.

Fourthly, the adaptive web designs are applied on a website that already exists. However, in case of responsive web designs the website should be built from scratch.

Inspite of the advantages, RWD is applied more than AWD. There are primarily 3 reasons for this –

1. Since the customers can browse through the information of their choice easily, the retention of the brand increases. Responsive web design successfully captures the attention of the users owing to its convenience.

2. Responsive websites are easy to surf from a mobile device. As a result, one can work faster on it than a conventional desktop. Hence, the turnaround is faster.

3. Every business desires a global approach. With its customers spread across the world, it is vital for the company to be available for its customers round clock. A mobile web app increases accessibility.

Finally, it is upto the business to decide which one will be right one. Both the website designs have their own merits. The only way to find out which is more applicable is by putting the need of the customers first as well as the business goals.