Responsive web design is an approach to web design that allows a website to be accessed in different platforms. Almost every business nowadays wants a mobile version of the website that is compatible with iPhones, Android phones, Blackberries and tablet computers.
As the user switches from the laptop to the iPhone, the website should automatically switch to a resolution, image size and scripting abilities. Responsive web design eliminates the need to have different versions of the website that will actually respond to the user’s preferences.
However, if responsive web design can be adopted to work with different languages, the number of users that can access content will definitely increase. An example is BBC news responsive codebase that is responsible for rendering 28 news websites in different languages. A few of the websites that have been rendered include BBC Mundo, BBC Russia, BBC Arabic and BBC Bengali. Codebase used by BBC serves about 250 million users a month. That amounts to a lot of div elements.
When writing for a responsive feature, BBC ensures that the news is multi-lingual to work on all devices and accessible through the 28 new sites. If the feature has consistent design and branding across all websites and devices, there are fewer efforts involved in design and development. However, it requires a lot of planning to create a balance on the uniformity of the sites and the appropriate amount of customization.
Languages and scripts should not be confused with countries because there are countries with bilingual populations. When localizing content it is important to think about markets instead of languages. For example, a Spanish market certainly requires a different website from a South American market even if they share large Spanish-speaking populations. If the intended audience is global, content translation should not be associated with a market. If the English translation is for the benefit of English speakers, it should also allow other English-speaking users from other countries.
On the other hand, if you have an online store, it is also important to consider packaging materials. Paper Mart shipping supplies is your option for quality boxes and cartons for your products.