Taculia Designs

What Are the Three Basic Requirements for Responsive Web Design?

The three core requirements every responsive website must have are:

1. A Flexible Layout (Fluid Grids)
2. Flexible Images & Media (Media That Adjusts Automatically)
3. CSS Media Queries (Rules That Adapt Design to Screen Sizes)

These three are the foundation of responsive design. Without them, your website will never behave correctly across devices, no matter which builder, CMS, or design tool you use.

Now let’s break them down in a practical, real-life way, using my personal journey and the lessons that helped me build responsive websites confidently.

Flexible Layout — The Foundation of Every Responsive Website

When I first started designing in 2019, I used to place elements in fixed widths — 300px, 500px, 900px. And guess what happened? On mobile, everything exploded.

That day, a mentor looked at my work and said, “Websites are not walls. They must flow.” This is where flexible layouts come in.

What Is a Flexible Layout?

A flexible layout is one that adjusts proportionally instead of staying at fixed pixel widths.

You achieve this using:

• Percentages (%)
• Viewport units (vw, vh)
• Flexible containers (Flexbox)
• CSS Grid

Real-Life Example

I once designed a header that was exactly 1200px wide. It worked beautifully on desktop, but on phones users had to scroll sideways. I replaced the fixed width with width: 100%; and the problem disappeared. One small change made the site usable across devices.

Whether you’re using WordPress, Wix, Webflow, Canva, or hand-coding, flexible layouts are the backbone of responsiveness. Without this, the rest of the design simply cannot adapt.

Flexible Images & Media — Because Media Breaks Websites More than Text Ever Will

After mastering flexible layouts, I still had one big problem: my images wouldn’t resize. They either stretched, overflowed, or became too tiny.

One client once messaged me: “Why is my product image covering the whole screen on iPhone?” That embarrassing moment taught me a powerful rule: images must be able to shrink based on screen size.

Simple Fix

img {
  max-width: 100%;
  height: auto;
}

Real-Life Case Study (My Canva Mistake)

Back then, I designed images in Canva, exported them, and placed them inside websites without optimizing the width. I uploaded large, high-resolution images (over 1MB) and the site became slow and unresponsive. Since then, I export images at reasonable sizes, compress them, and use responsive image techniques.

Here’s what I do now:

• Export images at 1200px maximum width for most hero/inline images
• Use compressed JPEG or WebP formats
• Apply max-width: 100% in CSS
• Avoid fixed-height images
• Use object-fit when cropping visually

Flexible media is critical because it prevents images from breaking layouts and slows pages. Especially for e-commerce owners, this is where many mobile problems originate.

Media Queries — The Rules That Make Your Website Truly Responsive

Flexible layouts and images help your site adapt naturally, but media queries turn it into a fully optimized multi-device experience. This is where responsiveness becomes intentional.

What Are Media Queries?

Media queries tell the browser what CSS to apply at certain screen sizes or conditions. For example:

@media (max-width: 768px) {
  .menu {
    display: none;
  }
}

This hides a desktop menu on smaller screens and lets you replace it with a mobile-friendly alternative. On one client site the menu overlapped the logo on small screens — adding a simple breakpoint and a collapsible mobile menu fixed it immediately.

Why Media Queries Are Non-Negotiable

Without media queries, your text can be too large or too small, buttons get cropped, columns become unreadable, and interactions fail. Media queries allow you to fine-tune the experience device-by-device, and they are essential for control.

How These Three Requirements Work Together

Think of your website like a human body:

• Flexible layout = bones — structure and support
• Flexible images/media = muscles — move and adjust
• Media queries = brain — decisions and coordination

Without harmony among these three parts, the site cannot be truly responsive.

Why Most Designers Still Fail at Responsive Web Design (And How You Can Avoid It)

Even today, some designers:

• Depend entirely on page builders without customizing mobile views
• Skip mobile design completely
• Use large Canva images without optimization
• Ignore breakpoints and use fixed pixel units
• Design only for desktop first

Whenever someone asks me why their website looks scattered on Android but fine on a laptop, my answer is simple: responsiveness is built — not copied. Follow the three basics and everything falls into place.

Bonus: Tools I Personally Use for Responsive Testing

• Chrome DevTools — daily testing and viewport previews
• Responsively App — simultaneous multi-device previews
• Canva — for image and quick mockup work (with optimized exports)
• Real phones — low-end Android, mid-range Android, iPhone, tablet

Nothing beats real-device testing for catching odd rendering issues and touch-related quirks.

Quick Implementation Checklist

• Use percentage-based widths and relative units (%, rem, em)
• Ensure images have max-width: 100% and are compressed
• Add media queries at logical breakpoints where content breaks
• Test on at least three real devices before launch
• Minimize heavy scripts and optimize performance

Final Thoughts

Back in 2019 I struggled with responsiveness more than anything else. But the day I understood these three simple principles, web design became easier and even enjoyable. If you can master:

• Flexible layouts
• Flexible images/media
• Media queries

…you can build professional-level responsive websites. Responsive design is a skill anyone can learn with consistency and real-world practice. If you want, I can convert this into a ready-to-publish blog HTML with your site’s header and featured image placeholder.