PSA: Stop calling everything "responsive" if you only tested it on your phone

I keep seeing beginners post their first site and say "it's fully responsive" but then I open it on my 13 inch laptop and the nav bar is completely broken. I tested this myself last week with a friend's project, their "responsive" layout actually overflowed the screen at 1024px because they only used one media query at 600px. Why does this matter? Because clients and employers actually check on multiple screen sizes, not just your phone. Has anyone else noticed this trend of beginners claiming "responsive" when they really mean "it works on my iPhone 12"?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura2111mo ago

Tbh that's not really responsive then, just phone-friendly.

eva_garcia561mo ago

The last time I heard someone say "responsive" like that was my cousin Mike, he used to run a web design business out of his garage back in 2015. He'd always argue with clients about what responsive meant, like they thought it just meant fitting on a phone screen not actually adjusting layout and stuff. @laura211 I totally get what you're saying though, making something "phone-friendly" is just a tiny piece of the whole puzzle but people slap that label on everything now. It's like when they call a site "mobile optimized" but really it's just a regular desktop page with tiny text that you have to zoom into like crazy.