By Mat Marquis CHAPTER 5

Chapter Five · by mat marQUis

RobuST, ReSPonSible,

ReSPonSive web DeSign

esponsive web design is starting to get a reputation —

and not the kind of reputation that it rightfully deserves. When I

say that I’m here to show you some of the ways we can go about

building a lean, feature-rich and highly accessible responsive website that

looks and works great for any user of any browsing context, I’m certain

I’ve earned myself a few eye-rolls right out of the gate — and I understand

that. Since Ethan Marcotte coined the term a few years ago, we’ve all been

bombarded by sensational blog posts about the past, present or future

failure of responsive Web design as a methodology: it can’t do this and

it doesn’t do enough about that; it’s useless without a certain script or

server-side component. Responsive Web design has needed saving more

times than Christmas, if both blogs and television holiday specials are to

be believed.

The most common death knell we’ve heard ringing out — lately,

anyway — is that every page of a responsive site is fated to weigh in at

a couple dozen megabytes and there isn’t a single thing that any of us

can do about it. There seems to be plenty of evidence to back this up, too.

R