In modern age where internet is not limited to only desktops/laptops, more and more users/visitors are moving towards smart phones, tabs and gadgets for retrieval of the information from web. Most of the researches show that mobile based responsive/adaptive web sites will get more traffic in coming years.
For web designers, its not important to move towards creating responsive/adaptive layouts which they been avoiding since long time. Before we move further, we need to understand the difference between responsive and adaptive web design.
Responsive web design (RWD) is called the web designs which respond as per demand of the device size or browser and adjust themselves as per that. Its like filling the empty glass with the water where no size of glass is mentioned.
Adaptive Web Design (AWD) is what which have set of predefined layouts and rendered as when the size matches with these already defined sizes. Web Designers creates predefined layouts for the different sizes in advance with help of CSS and Java Scripts. This can be defined that filling the predefined glass size with water.
So which design is best Responsive Or Adaptive, each has its own value and features, while one takes less time and resources and other is more beneficial for end users. The main goal of web design agency should be creating fluid layout, with % percentage size, rending as per visitor needs and delivering contents In best possible manner. We will see increasing demand in coming times from clients itself for creating responsive web design layouts as they becomes more aware with search share of devices being used by users to browse their web sites.