With all due respect, perhaps you should re-consider. With fixed-width sites, you wind up having buttons cut-off, and whole portions of the page missing - you have to rely on the user being familiar enough with how the variable-resolution web works that they know to scroll laterally for additional content. Missing content means missing conversions.

Also, nobody is advocating a broken responsive web design. And to be honest, depending on the way it's broken, it may still be much better than a fixed-width design that hangs 80% off your screen. Missing content means missing conversions.

What broken mobile web browser are you using that can't scale and zoom a fixed-width page properly?

I was referring to desktop monitors, which don't scale pages down to fit within the viewport.

Often times mobile devices crush the page down into its device dimensions, resulting in a thumbnail-looking preview of the entire site. Again, not very helpful to many users on mobile devices.

You're asking that they either 1) have high-density displays 2) superb eye-sight, or 3) familiarity with the site to know what is where so they can immediately zoom into their areas of interest.

How wide is the fixed-width website that a desktop monitor cannot display it?

I'm far more likely to go find my laptop than I am to tolerate a different, and so far in 100% of cases inferior, experience on my phone or tablet.

Nothing about RWD necessitates the end-product to be inferior to the fixed-width alternative.

Out of curiosity, I just pulled up AListApart on my laptop, and Lumia 920. I browsed both, side-by-side, and found equality in the experience on both devices - can you tell me what is inferior about ALA's RWD?

It's probably time in this discussion to expression appreciation for your time, and that of others, and to assure everybody that I mean no disrespect to any of you.

ALA is not representative. That's a site run by people whose entire reputations and fortunes are built on evangelizing web technologies.

Here's a more neutral example - http://readwrite.com/ - the entire right column ends up removed.

Modern mobile and tablet browsers don't really need much if any special consideration beyond 'no flash'.

Please point to examples of sites you've implemented to back up your claims?

RWD does set a higher bar for implementation, but isn't that the point? That we challenge ourselves to be better?

The goal of the article was to help the guy at the top, the CEO, to understand that the investment into better implementation is worth it.

Um you're the CEO of Appendto.com right?

I'm assuming your site is working for you (or you'd change it?) because that site isn't responsive.

You're correct. The RWD version is launching soon ;)

You don't need any examples from me. Just take Apple's homepage. It isn't responsive yet, so, if it is still a usability nightmare, would you still be buying their products?

I agree with the challenging part. I will tell you a specific example:

There are monitors with SO MUCH variation in resolutions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions

And the ratio of the time invested in beautifying your website, to the quality of usability that improves is almost negligible.

When the majority of the internet has progressed to better resolutions, please write the article again and I will gladly agree with you.

> And the ratio of the time invested in beautifying your website, to the quality of usability improves is almost negligible.

Having had many companies hire me and my company to "beautify" their site for the sake of usability and performance, and subsequently measuring the improvement, my response would be that you just haven't run into the situation yet.

Additionally, history on the web tells us that hardware likely won't standardize on any resolutions in the near future, which is the problem that RWD is intended to solve. The problem exists now and the solution exists now. All that's standing in your way is learning how to implement RWD correctly and efficiently.

Here's a few links to get you started: http://www.jannahagan.com/2012/05/responsive-web-design-reso...

You lost me at:

>>You don't need any examples from me. Just take Apple's homepage. It isn't responsive yet, so, if it is still a usability nightmare, would you still be buying their products?

WORST ANALOGY EVER.

I just love it when people invoke the, "Well, if Apple doesn't do it, then no one else should." As if Apple has some divine knowledge on web design and user experience.

Given their market capitalization and their trophy cases full of design awards, I'd think otherwise. It may not be concrete logic working here, but I think using Apple is a rough rule of thumb is probably not the worst thing.