Responsive design according to one theme buyer

Hi guys,

Just wanted to share this to other ThemeForest authors. I have a responsive WordPress theme here on sale on ThemeForest and one buyer after buying my theme says these:

“I expected to see the site in the mobile exactly the same but with a smaller size.”

“Yes, I want to see exactly the same on the desktop to the smartphone, as in many other templates.”

My mind is boggled about how the buyer is expecting to see a responsive designed theme.

How do you respond to a query like this?

Regards, Jan Intia

I would simply tell him to remove all media queries. (point him to the lines of CSS that need to be removed, as well as the meta tag).

I wouldn’t bother explaining what responsive design is and why ‘many other themes’ behave different – just give him a quick solution and be done with it

Ha ha – we had something similar with a client recently.

We found the best way to deal with it was to reply by explaining the difference between a site which “shrinks” to fit and a “responsive” design.
You need to highlight why responsive was developed – focus on the differences and why they occur e.g. the browsing benefits of using responsive design, the simplified user journey and experience, optimized loading speeds etc etc.

All this should hopefully make them realize why it is better and the benefits they are receiving. good luck

It’s interesting – I’m only buying responsive themes now, it’s the way forward.

Thanks for the input guys. Although I would love to discuss/inform the buyer about RWD , i just found out that he does not really like the idea of a site “changing layouts” on different devices.

As digitalimpact have said, I should better off telling the buyer to just remove the media queries and meta tag.

AMcDermott said
It’s interesting – I’m only buying responsive themes now, it’s the way forward.

Well, it’s cheap way forward. For those who want to provide more convenience to their “mobile visitors” and cannot maintain couple of site versions (desktop, mobile, smartphone, tablet, etc.)

AMcDermott said
It’s interesting – I’m only buying responsive themes now, it’s the way forward.

adaptive is the way forward, browsers don’t need to “respond” when users move their browsers, simple fix use device-width in media queries rather than min/max-width

OrganicBeeMedia said
adaptive is the way forward, browsers don’t need to “respond” when users move their browsers, simple fix use device-width in media queries rather than min/max-width

Totally agree.

However, most of the buyers are used to test responsiveness by resizing their browser – I see this translating into a huge educational effort…

This is a pretty good breakdown:

-Jack

digitalimpact said

OrganicBeeMedia said
adaptive is the way forward, browsers don’t need to “respond” when users move their browsers, simple fix use device-width in media queries rather than min/max-width

Totally agree.

However, most of the buyers are used to test responsiveness by resizing their browser – I see this translating into a huge educational effort…

haha yup, most won’t get it at first, but then again a lot of authors don’t either….