This is where responsive web design steps in as the holy grail of solutions, suggesting that design and development should respond to a users behaviour and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. So rather than designing/developing for every single device, it’s far simpler to create a few broader & more flexible interfaces that respond to certain criteria.

The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and intelligent use of CSS media queries. As a user switches from one device to another, the website should have the technology to respond to this and automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. Essentially this is the perfect solution, eliminating the need for a different design and development phase for each platform on the market.

It may seem like a difficult discipline to master but if you way up the amount of time and money you can save in the long run, its value simply cannot be ignored.

I’ve put together a couple of my favourite resources on Responsive Web Design to help you along your way:

• - Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte on A List Apart (A pioneer of the movement)
• - Responsive Web Design Examples & Best practices
• - mBricks report on different mobile resolutions
• - Responsive Web Design Techniques, tools and design strategies
• - Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How To Use It

We used to play god.

In the early stages of the web, the users & web professional's roles were clearly defined. Websites and apps were considerably simpler and the competition much less intense. So if you made something it was most likely that people would come and use it, regardless of how easy it was to actually use and how comfortable they felt while using it. This way, the power of users was restricted and they had little to zero influence on how things developed. Experts believed that they knew best and could afford to almost completely ignore their users.

The dictatorship is over.

The days of us giving users our version of how things should work and expecting it to be sufficient are gone.

It has now become critical for us to re evaluate how we have defined the roles of the web professional and user in the past, giving a new-found focus on user experience and the tools available to us to engage our visitors and become attached with them in the evolution of our services. If you want to build successful high traffic websites and applications there is really nothing more important than listening and understanding your users on a continuous basis.

So how do we ride this new wave of user centric design?

If anything, this has made our jobs a lot easier and the answer is quite simple. Just shut up and listen to your users. At the end of the day they are the ones who are using the platform and it only makes sense to use them for direction and purpose.

Some nifty tools to add to your arsenal.

Here are a few examples of simple applications that allow you to make users a part of the sites evolution:

• http://uservoice.com/
• http://getsatisfaction.com/
• http://www.feedbackify.com/
• http://www.suggestionbox.com/
• http://www.kampyle.com/
• http://www.opinionlab.com
• http://ideascale.com/
• http://userecho.com/

Here is an interesting video from Bob Garfield which is based around a user centric approach to business

The Chaos Scenario from Greg Stielstra on Vimeo.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

So please if you have something to add to the conversation just drop a comment below.