Re: Cost of responsive design

[Senff]

> Anyone else work in an agency have a view? Whats your usual when the client says “make it, like, responsive ‘n’ stuff”? :)

If the client actually says that (which is actually quite often — usually they don’t even know what it really means), my first response is that they should give us additional designs. Something like: “The design you gave us is how it will look on desktop, so if you want it to look different on phones, please provice a separate design for that. If you want it to look different on tablets, provide us a design for that too.“

That’s when most clients get a better idea what responsive really means. And usually, they realize it requires THEM to do extra work first by coming up with additional designs…. and then all of a sudden their requirements become a lot more flexible: “Oh, just make sure it looks good on phones and tablets.“

And, while working at a pretty big agency, I’ve NEVER had a client come up with separate designs for desktop, mobile, tablet. The “best” I’ve seen from any client, is them saying “OK on phones the menu should be a dropdown and the sidebar should go to the bottom” or something as generic as that.

In short: a lot of clients just throw the word “responsive” out there without knowing what it entails because that makes their site “buzzword-compatible”. Same with “HTML5”. Clients need to be instructed what it really means — boosting up the price a lot usually opens their eyes a bit more. :)