What Do We Mean When We Say "responsive"

First of all, I hate the abstract. Why be abstract and vague, when you can be straightforward? Abstract - as the writer mentioned in reading - was the impression I got after reading this article on What We Mean When We Say ‘Responsive’. No single or correct definition of what it means to be “responsive”.

When I first encountered the term “responsive” to me the definition of it was closer to “Responsive Web Design” - fluid layouts, flexible images, and media queries. Straightforward and clear! I think I knew it like this because, the first time I heard about the word "responsive" in the context of web/mobile, it was at my Creative Computing class. I remember my professor saying that to make a website responsive you use media queries and override CSS based on your needs. He taught us the technical ways of creating a responsive website, and somehow, whenever I think of "responsive" the “@media” just pops up in my head. However thinking about it now, though I did not know the correct term for it, I must have vaguely known without even realizing that a lot of the websites are “responsive” as they display differently depending on one’s browser.

So what does it mean to be "responsive"? Simply put, being responsive is adapting fluidly to the environment one is placed in. That could be the font-size or image size changing, or even the altering of the layout itself - it is ever-changing. While this seems like simple magic, but from my perspective, who has to code, it is too much and hard. One thing I have recently learned from doing a project on a responsive website is that when you set the "min-height" or "max-height", you should not set it to the phone screen size but the browser screen size (excluding the top and bottom bar). Okay as I was writing, I realized that it is something obvious, however, it was so frustrating for me because when you go into the developer’s mode and click responsive view, it shows without the top and bottom bars - the phone screen size! And even in your mobile browser depending on whether you are in Safari or Chrome everything changes… So that was a struggle I had creating a "responsive" design.

Although “responsive” can be somewhat frustrating, it is something without limits that can expand beyond any borders. It will like its name “responsive”, will constantly evolve and respond to its environment.