So, adaptive design technically is about kind of making sure that things fit nicely, for example, on an iPad and on a phone – for example, the latest phone, a large phone versus maybe an older, smaller phone, and works nicely in that viewport or that buttons are in the place they should be instead of just being pushed by
the fluid layout of responsive design. But let me just say that probably in reality there's like a hybrid really because if you work with your developers and you tell them 'Hey, those icons that are big on the desktop, I want them to stack,' for example, is common responsive. So, you've got like a bunch of icons and then on mobile you want them to stack. But maybe they aren't showing up right; maybe they're too small, so you need to tell your developers, 'Hey can you make them larger and fill the space, and then make them stack?'
So, that's the role of a UX designer or a UX person is to help with – you know – it's kind of getting things right, so there is a little touch of adaptiveness there. But what adaptive design does is a little different. And adaptive design is illustrated by the following story. I remember getting off a plane, going to the bag check to get my bag,
and the first thing I wanted to do is get on Wi-Fi. I think I was working on a document and I had to upload it immediately, like right there; somebody was waiting for it. So, I flipped open my laptop, kind of set it on one of my bags, waiting for the other bag, whatever, and tried to go on the Wi-Fi. What was funny was that when I first tried on my phone, the link was, the thing that said connect – you know – it's like 'Do you agree that this is free Wi-Fi?' and then 'connect' – it was a tiny little link on the mobile phone.
And on the desktop it was a huge button. So, desktop – huge button that said, 'I agree. Connect.' On the mobile phone – a tiny little link. And what that really should have been is the opposite. It should have been a huge button on the mobile phone, and it could have been – I don't know – just a reasonable size button on the desktop. But it sort of always reminds me of the adaptive approach, which is to, say, if you know I'm on mobile and you know that there's this text,
instead of making me read all the text, you might say 'shorten the text on mobile' and put like an 'open, view more', especially because we UX people – well, I guess everybody knows that people don't read terms and conditions and a bunch of blah-blah text; they go straight to the call to action. Adaptive design is going to say, 'I know you're probably not going to read this. You're on mobile. So, I'm just going to make it really short and put a "read more" and then have a big old button the first thing that you see; so, a little bit of text and a big old button for the call to action.'
So, adaptive design to me is the right thing to do.