Ok. So back in the day when I first learned me some HTML/CSS chops, the biggest concern was if your tables and frames would translate over between Netscape and IE. Now? Well, you don't even know if someone's going to be looking at what you're building on a computer... or if instead they'll be trundling down a street, mobile phone in their hand [the most dangerous creature in the world is not a lion or a tiger...].
So, here's the thing. Responsive design? Only half of it is about the size and shape of what you're delivering. The other half is WHAT you put on the page. Do they need it? Does the content remain pertinent regardless of point of consumption?
Ok. Well, let's figure you got that handled. Media queries hop on in here. Not to be set as per "Here's the dimensions of your iPhone, then here's one for the tablet..." How many folks got caught with their pants down when the new iPad-Mini came out? How's a site supposed to handle the proliferation of device dimensions?
Well, these breaks you create with your media queries? It's about when your site starts looking bad... DESIGN your content. Don't let the portal design you.
Final word here: BIG shout out to Derek Eder, co-founder of Open City, co-creator of ChicagoLobbyists, and ClearStreets plow tracker [yeah, he's rad] for taking the time to give me the lo-down on what's going on under the hood with media queries!
EVEN IF YOU DO ALL THIS RESPONSIVE STUFF YOU'RE STILL JUST HIDING CONTENT. It's all still there, you're just letting each 'media' know what it should go and load in full. So think carefully about what you need. Avoid the extra code.
