A Responsive Web Design Podcast

The interwoven historical perspectives shown in Lapham’s Quarterly are perfect for the web. Michelle Legro and Rebecca Smith explain how a new CMS and editorial workflow support a responsive design.

Sixty percent of traffic to AIDS.gov comes from mobile devices. Users need critical and intimate information—quickly. Miguel Gomez and Jeremy Vanderlan explain why responsive was the right solution.

Some large companies go responsive at scale—what about sites built by one person? At the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard, Josh Benton wears many hats: editor, writer, designer, developer, even QA.

After some awkward finger-pointing over who forgot to book this week’s guest, we discuss what we learned this year, hosting corporate workshops and running this podcast on responsive web design.

More than five million DJs discover new music using Beatport Pro. Robert Petro and Nikki Lee explain why a responsive solution that works across platforms was a no-brainer for their relaunch.

How do you improve on a news site that’s already successful and already minimalist? Zach Seward and Daniel Lee explain that a mobile first mindset helped refine and enhance the redesign of qz.com—for both users and advertisers.

Do people really look at their retirement plan website on their phone? Kevin Ackley and Brian Greene from Nationwide explain that responsive design provided support for the significant population of customers coming from mobile devices, improved collaboration between UX, IT, & business stakeholders, and led a major industry research group to give them top rankings.

For some organizations, “mobile” means a website that works on tablets and smartphones. For Alex Breuer of The Guardian, mobile means challenging editorial conventions and rethinking the fundamental form of a 200-year-old publication.

To reduce management costs and maintain a more consistent presence across platforms, Tina Alexander rolled out a responsive web redesign for Celebrity Cruises that works together with their app strategy to take advantage of a 3× increase in traffic from mobile devices.

You’d learn a lot if your first responsive project was for SB Nation, one of the most popular sports sites on the web with more than 70 million unique users. For Trei Brundrett, Chief Product Officer for Vox Media, going responsive means iteratively improving an entire network of media brands.

Starbucks considers mobile to be the first customer touchpoint. Lincoln Mongillo tells us why managing for “one web” forces them to focus on what’s important, and puts performance, accessibility, and security at the center of their design process.

Sure, the page is dead, but now what? If you’re Code for America, you work with Clearleft to develop a pattern library and a component-based CMS built in Jekyll to deliver a new responsive website. Cyd Harrell and Jeremy Keith tell us about their fast-paced, iterative process.

One of the questions we’re often asked is “Responsive is great for consumer sites, but is it really necessary for B2B brands?” Chris Collette explains that “lawyers are people too” when he talks about implementing a mobile first, responsive redesign for one of New York’s largest law firms.

Publishers must take advantage of increased traffic on mobile. But how? Scher Foord of Condé Nast explains how rolling out responsive redesigns across all their magazine brands helps them adapt to changing consumer behavior and meet advertiser demand.

When you step onto the grounds of Harvard University, you expect well-kept lawns and good signage. The same is true when you visit any of Harvard’s digital properties. Chief Digital Officer Perry Hewitt tells us how they focus on strategy and a collaborative process.