Drupal has helped a number of sites and companies increase their online traffic through its great inbuilt modules and SEO techniques and all this has made it one of the most successful Content Management Systems present on the internet today. With features which provide you complete control over your site’s coding and configuration and the ability of this system to handle large amounts of complex data, more and more organizations and individual companies are choosing Drupal for their website. Though it’s an undoubted fact that creating a website on Drupal will take you places, there are a few risks and uncertainties that come with it and trying to understand, embrace and solve them is the best we can do.
One of the biggest challenges that we face right now is the increase in the connected devices and ensuring that your website works for each of them without any glitches is something you must look into. The easiest option that you have to make your site capable of taking what may come and future-friendly is by opting for responsive design. Responsive design is something you must have considered earlier, but if you did not dig into it further, then it could be the biggest mistake of your life for your company or business. If you want your first impression through your website to be good, then you definitely need to make it compatible with all the connected devices present and the experience should also be the same. It’s a fact that if you’re if the website you are creating is responsive, then Drupal tends to be an even better bet for you as you can change and manage the way how your site looks and feels.
Mobile First Approach- The Right Way
When opting for responsive web design, it is always better to start from small and then go on to large. This basically means when you are designing website for different devices, always follow the Mobile First Approach as it makes things much easier for you. This is because when you aim to create a website following this approach, the actual constraints are spelled out for you, which would not have been possible if you were creating one for a desktop and you can reach out to many more people and make your website accessible to them. Also, by making a site compatible with mobile devices, we are indirectly aiming to create cross device platforms which will easily be able to work on other devices in the future as well. The focus should be on user experience and nothing else and using this as a way will ensure the best one possible. If you have chosen Drupal as your CMS, then things just got better for you as there are a number of themes which you can choose to make your site responsive and here are three of the best ones that will do the work for your content and website.
Adaptive Theme Framework
With an all easy point-and-click configuration and absolutely zero coding for different devices, Adaptive Theme makes it very easy for you to make your site responsive. With over 30,000 downloads from when it was first released, this theme has made a mark in making things better with each new release. AT is compatible with HTML5, easy to manage, and completely free of cost. This theme comes with a number of layouts by default and is entirely pluggable, which enables you to add various other layouts in your sub-theme. Its other features like Mobile Regions can easily be integrated with features like Browscap module wherein you can move blocks to other regions in various mobile devices. Apart from the features like Sass integration, polyfills for backward compatibility, and good SEO settings, Adaptive theme also provides you with a good support base where the queries are answered and the response is fast. All in all, adaptive theme has got better with time and promises its users responsive design technology and many other features which come with the package.
Mojo
This is a theme which is a starter theme and goes on to become a part of the advanced themers. This theme solves the problem of websites not being future friendly and provides a framework that will help in making most devices compatible with your Drupal website. Apart from this, it makes your content widely and much more easily accessible to people and also seeks to enhance the mobile experience of the users by providing them a site that is great to look at and use. This theme has various other features which include print friendly layout, mobile-first media queries, RTL support, theme setting and others. Adding to the above benefits, now you do not have to worry about excessive markup Drupal spits as this theme manages it for you. Also, with front end performance and modern codes, Mojo is another theme which you can choose to work with for great results.
Zen
This is another theme which will not disappoint you when looking for integrating responsive web design in your Drupal site. The best part about this theme is- it has been around from a long time and now it has just got better. With real responsive features like HTML5 support, and browser detection, this theme is great for starters. Another great feature about Zen is that it is much easier to understand and people find it easy to work with. It is integrated with Sass and Compass and Zen Grids which allows the users to work with complex grid layouts in a very easy manner. It has an option of CSS files as well, in case the user is not familiar with new technologies like Sass and also lets the user swap layouts in CSS as well as Sass. With accolades and great user reviews, this theme helps you and your site grow in a positive manner.
These are few themes you can choose to go for, while considering responsive web design. However, it is better if you test and try all the themes yourself so that you know what works best for you. By choosing one of the above themes, you do not have to worry about a lot of things as Drupal will take it forward itself and make your site future friendly as well easily accessible, and compatible with most devices.
