When I first looked at responsive web design (RWD) back in June 2012, only early adopters (mostly startups, agencies and media firms) had taken the plunge.

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Unfortunately, many organizations may make RWD decisions based on advice from agency partners and/or mobile application development vendors (or some combination of both) that have a vested interest in the technology choice. eBusiness professionals should avoid drinking the RWD “Kool-Aid” or going responsive because “everyone else is doing it.” RWD was never framed as a silver bullet for your mobile needs, and you shouldn’t treat it as such. To help our clients determine if RWD is right for them, we devised a simple seven-step decision tool that we hope will help you determine if RWD is a fit for your organization's mobile web needs.

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It’s pretty straightforward to make a business case for mobile-friendly design if you have a transactional but non-responsive website: simply look at your conversion rates by device. They’ll probably be fairly woeful for tablets, and even worse for mobiles (certainly if ours are anything to go by). Add a dollop of simple maths and you’ll have some idea of the opportunity cost of not making the customer experience better for mobile and tablet users. 

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When designing content for a responsive site, it’s important to bear in mind the kinds of devices that your users will be browsing on. Make copy functional and to the point, yet engaging. Few people will be willing to read long essays on a mobile device.

In addition, it’s best to avoid writing content that requires the user to click through several pages. Photo-gallery style content, such as “The 10 Best Hats at Ascot”, with one photo per page, are OK for PC users, but someone on a mobile may not want to have to keep reloading pages to read the entire article.

Ideally, posts should be reasonably short, but informative. A few hundred words should do the job. If you cannot convey your message fully in such a short post, it’s a good idea to write a series of posts and upload a new one each day. This gives visitors a reason to return to a site each day, keeping its brand in their mind. So, in theory, it should be easier to sell to them.

We've scooped a fair number of articles on responsive web design, all pointing to the positives.  However, here's a word of caution...

Here are six potential problems that site owners should be aware of before they decide to embrace responsive design...

1. Slow loading time

Responsive design uses a single set of code so mobile users have to download the same amount of content as a desktop user. However, a lot of the content that would load on desktop is set to “display: none” through the mobile media query, so the user is downloading a lot of unnecessary content that they won’t even see.

2. Development time and resources

It’s a fairly obvious one, but will still be one of the key considerations for businesses toying with the idea of building a responsive site.

3. Catering for different user behaviours

Smartphones, tablets and desktops are different devices that encourage very different visitor behaviour. Catering to different expectations is difficult when using one set of code, and could possibly result in a compromised user experience on all devices.

4. Advertising

Rescaling desktop images for a mobile screen is a tricky challenge that is made more important when you consider the impact on third-party adverts.

5. Keep on scrolling

This may be an issue with poor design rather than responsive design, but rescaling desktop pages for mobile screens often results in very long pages that require a lot of scrolling.

6. More coding and testing

Though having a single set of code is supposed to make things simpler, it will have an impact on how quickly you can roll out updates and redesigns.

7. Images

This is one of the main problems that mobile developers are battling with at the moment. The basic issue is that an image that suits a 27” desktop screen probably isn’t what you’d choose for a 3.5" smartphone screen.

Here's a topline summary of a very valuable article to save for future reference...

A) Responsive Email Layout Patterns

1) Shrink wrap: This is the pattern immediately adopted by letter format messages and many newsletters. Basically, the message container becomes skinnier (shrinks!), and the content within reflows (wraps!).

2) Column drop:  In multi-column layouts, one or more of the columns drop down to sit beneath other columns. Depending on the number of columns, a little additional manipulation may be required, as individual columns in an email design are often well suited for viewing on a mobile screen.

2.5) Grandfathered column drop: A small subset of the column drop, this pattern appears with senders who pursue a column drop layout in the interest of a quick win for mobile readability.

3) Layout shifter:  This pattern is the one least frequently seen in email. It features the most dramatic layout changes, so it’s to be expected that fewer senders would be making the largely aesthetic investment.

The Question Of Nav

I see two common and two uncommon nav options that most responsive email designers will end up employing to avoid the inefficient nav “net” of 5-10 categories.

Common:

• Hide – hide the nav entirely in the mobile view
• Reduce – hide all except the top 2 highest performing nav links; this approach achieves a balance of offering the highest proven click opportunities with minimal layout needs

Uncommon:

• Move it – nav jumps below primary content or to the bottom of the message
• Roll it up – use a rollout menu (that expands when tapped) to preserve real estate but offer immediate access

Senders are trending toward hiding the entirety of the preheader, and I have yet to see an email that wouldn’t benefit from following suit to give faster access to hero content.

Getting Started: Responsive Reference Material

There are 3 particular resources I reference when researching and planning responsive messages.

http://mediaqueri.es/ – The quintessential catalog of responsive sites.

http://pttrns.com/ – This site catalogs screens from iOS apps and it’s a great place for exploring UI and organizational patterns in apps.

http://onepagelove.com/ – My single favorite site for email inspiration also provides a great starting point for responsive messages.