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Let’s Make Sure This Doesn’t Become A Thing: Responsive Text

27 Feb, 2012

With the ever-increasing number of devices (big & small) capable of browsing the web, adapting a user’s experience to best suit the type of device they’re using is a natural progression in user interface design. Unfortunately, some designers are applying the responsive design approach to content.

Cliffs Notes

The idea behind Responsive Text is to limit the volume of copy that a user would encounter on their mobile device. Because mobile users don’t actually want to read all that content, right? Wrong. Sure, the majority of users who hit your website via a smartphone may have different goals which should be understood and prioritized accordingly. But assuming that someone browsing via an iPhone means they want less content is short-sighted.

Time to adopt a new mentality (hello content strategy & mobile first advocates)

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

If the content on your website may be deemed superfluous by someone viewing it on a phone, chances are it’s superfluous to anyone reading it under any circumstances. Rather than hiding copy from mobile users (don’t even get me started on the difficulty of scaling this endeavor for content rich websites), read Orwell’s 6 Questions/Rules on Writing and then revisit & edit the content for everyone. Your users will thank you for it.

Posted in Design, Mobile, User Experience | 1 Comment »