We all know why and how responsive web design is important & why we must be asking our clients to go for a responsive design instead of sticking to legacy designs that have been around for a while. However, there are still a large number of clients who do not want to upgrade their existing websites or they do not understand the importance of mobile devices and fluidity of screens.
While they might have genuine reasons to feel skeptical about changing their existing websites, you have a genuine reason to convince them; and that is not to bag yet another project to design responsive websites. In business, those who succeed in the long term tend to be altruistic in nature, helping their clients as much as they can. If altruism was somehow connected to web design projects, we strongly suggest web designers recommend and try to convince their clients to go for responsive web design. In this article, we shall discuss why you must convince a client to go for responsive web design and how you must go ahead about recommending a responsive web design.
5 Reasons why you must convince your client to go for responsive web design
• Responsive Web Design is the present and will continue to be the future
Let us face it. We have been toting our iPhones and iPads for a long time. No one really uses features anymore and it is true of most developed countries. This means, more and more people are accessing the Internet using smartphones, tablets & certain hybrid devices that are a cross between laptops and tablets. iOS and Android devices along with Windows devices have continued to hold a grip on people’s buying options & thus, most people tend to have varying screen sizes. There will never be standard screen sizes and people will continue to buy different devices according to their own needs. Responsive web design ensures that a website looks great, no matter how big or small the device’s screen size is. Certainly, responsive web design is future-proof.
• Responsive web design can easily be updated
Your client might not be ready for responsive web design but he also might not realize that old websites are slower, do not get indexed properly and suffer downtime often because of bad coding. When pages do not load fast enough, the websites suffer in the short and long term. When your client realizes this, he will want to get his site updated to something contemporary like responsive web page. Instead of letting them have old websites which eventually have to be updated after suffering losses, it is better to help the client understand the importance of responsive web design.
• Responsive web design is not all about mobile devices
People have a wrong idea that responsive web design is important only because people have begun to access the Internet using their mobile phones or tablets. Instead, responsive web design is important because a website looks great on any screen whether it is mobile or conventional. For this reason alone, it is important to help the client understand the importance of responsive web design. Whether a person uses a 21 inches iMac or a regular laptop of 14 inches, whatever the pixel size maybe, a website shall look great, if responsive design techniques are employed.
• Responsive web design is social-ready
Most responsive web design techniques ensure that content is shared easily on social media websites. Social media is extremely crucial in driving new prospects to your clients. If you wish for your clients’ success, you will need to help them understand the importance of social media and sharing content on social media. For this reason alone, one will need to go ahead and ask them to get responsive web design. It does not take a lot of effort to build a responsive website but when a website is not responsive, it will cause a lot of business damage to your clients.
• Responsive web design solves problems
It is very easy to see why people have begun to adopt responsive web design. It solves a number of technical, interface related and financial problems for both users and clients. Responsive web design is future-proof and is thus, technically sound. It ensures that no matter what sort of devices come into the market in near future, the website will be ready to be displayed in the best possible manner. On the other hand, not using responsive web design techniques can cause a lot of problems. This includes not being able to view websites easily on all platforms, not being able to load the pages fast, not being able to share pages on social media and a host of other problems. All these problems should convince you, as a web designer that your client needs the best that you can offer, which is to design a responsive website.
Now that you have understood why it is important to convince your client about responsive web design, let us take a look at how best you can do it, without sounding like someone who is desperately selling something that comes with frills. The problem with selling and convincing people about better technology is that we risk sounding like desperate salesmen. On the flipside, being the people who will forge ahead with newer technologies, we have a duty to ensure that Internet and its users have access to the best websites that will be designed in the near and long term.
5 ways to convince clients about responsive web design
• ‘View full site’ is an old-fashioned way to build websites
When you need to present your case to your client, tell them that ‘View full site’ was something that we used to do many years ago. It is no longer used and is an old-fashioned way to build websites. Responsive websites automatically realize what the screen size is and present content in a way that is best viewed on that screen size. Your client can even be given a demo using any of the previous websites you have already designed.
• More people have begun to use mobile devices to access the Internet
In countries where computers are still expensive, people access the Internet using mobile devices. In Africa, India and other poor regions, people have access to smartphones but not computers. This leads to a situation where more traffic is being driven to your website with the help of mobile devices. Convey this reality to your client in a non-offending manner.
• A website might look fine on mobile devices without responsive design but is still not OK
In this scenario, you need to tell your client that it is not about how a website looks but how it works. The design is more important than the appearance. A website might look great on a mobile device but might not work well at all. There are a lot of things that go into this. One of the ways you can help a client understand this is by demonstrating all the flaws that their website might have when viewed on a mobile device.
• Many businesses are not aware of responsive websites
This is quite true and might even encourage your client to take a lax attitude when it comes to responsive web design. They might feel that their clients are not using responsive websites and there is no reason why they should. This is the same thing that many brick and mortar companies once said that their clients do not have a website and there is no reason to build one anyway. There is probably no one who is worth his salt that doesn’t know the importance of Internet now.
• Responsive websites are expensive but worth it
Of course, one needs to charge more for responsive websites. They take up a designer’s time more than regular websites do. It is like asking for a cavity being filled and a root canal surgery being done. Filling a cavity does not take too long and is, thus, cheap. However, when a tooth is decaying, filling it up will not help. The pulp of the tooth needs to be removed surgically and a crown needs to be placed on top of it; and that costs more money.
We have touched upon why you should convince your client about responsive web design and how you should convince your client. What you finally need to understand is that responsive websites will soon become the norm and if you do not build your clients’ responsive websites now, they will come back to you later asking for the same; and that is just a waste of resources.
