Responsive design is a front-end development process intended for molding website design and user experience to the user’s device, whether desktop, tablet, or mobile.

 

In responsive, a cascading style sheet (CSS)—essentially what defines the format and layout of a web page, is leveraged to permit a website to scale to the width of a browser, independent of device type. Javascript and js libraries such as JQuery and Modernizr are also used to accompany this behavior for resizing more dynamic objects like masonry galleries as well as converting mouse activities to touch activities.

 

Unlike adaptive design or mobile detection, responsive design does not leverage device detection, so rather than querying the device with backend logic, CSS media queries are used to determine things like the width and orientation of the device screen—your browser.