Why US law effectively mandates all software design be responsive
Your employer/client can spend a lot of time and money on lawsuits and rework if you don’t follow this one simple rule.
Smashing Magazine defines “responsive design” as an approach where design responds to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform, and orientation. In responsive design, a breakpoint is the “point” at which a website’s content and design will adapt to provide the best possible user experience. Essentially, breakpoints are pixel values that a developer/designer can define in CSS. I can count on one hand the number of web pages I have bookmarked. Apple’s list of responsive breakpoints for iOS devices is one of them.
In a mobile-first world, you always do responsive breakpoints. Because, yeah, it’s mobile. But let’s say hypothetically your organization doesn’t live in a mobile-first world, and your officially supported environments are laptops and tower systems only. Your software is ridiculously complicated. Your organization is allergic to mobile; small form factors will never EVER work. “Why would you spend time designing and implementing responsive breakpoints for something that never will appear on a supported mobile device,” you may be asking yourself.
Simple. The Americans with Disabilities Act. If you are based in the US or selling something in the US, the ADA applies to you. Being headquartered outside the US does not exempt you from following the ADA.