Responsive Web Design (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia’s article on responsive web design. Covers the definition, three technical pillars (fluid grids, flexible images, CSS media queries), historical timeline (2001–2015), mobile-first design as a complementary approach, RESS as a server-side hybrid, testing approaches, and user interface plasticity as the governing principle.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Key points
- Definition: “content is like water” — it should flow and adapt to fit any container, i.e. any device.
- Three UX-level pillars: fluid proportion-based grids, flexible images, and breakpoint-driven layout shifts.
- User-interface plasticity as the governing design principle.
- Device-diversity rationale: mobile became the majority of web traffic around 2013.
- Mobile-First Design as a complementary approach: design for the smallest, most constrained device first, then progressively enhance for larger screens.
- Relates to Expanding and Fixed Screen Width as the broader framework subsuming that fixed-vs.-expanding binary.