Nowadays, the website interface has to be quick and reachable for users. Then the users will love to browse your website. Responsive breakpoints can be different in relation to the designer or web developer.
Whatever it is the breakpoints determine how your users can enjoy the content of your website. It avoids any sort of visual distortion of the content in relation to the user’s screen size. Not just the website, but different software, and applications can use the breakpoints for the visual ease of the users.
So, the breakpoints can be predefined by the pixel values or some relative units like EMs, and percentages to adapt to the different screen sizes easily. So, let’s not linger here anymore and jump into the breakpoint exploration.
What is a Breakpoint in Responsive Design?
Related to the user experience. The breakpoint is the point at which the website content and design will be arranged or adapted in a way that provides the best user experience. If you elaborate on the concept of the breakpoint then it is the easy, editable widths in web designing. Mainly the breakpoint is a way that decides how your responsive layout occurs on certain device sizes. Eventually promoting an easier user experience.
The breakpoints are considered to be the building blocks of the responsive design. However, it is important to know how your website layout comes out on different devices. Responsive design is different from adaptive design because the responsive design flows on one pattern in every device but the adaptive one flows on different patterns according to the device size.
Breakpoint in responsive design is essential because most of the traffic uses mobile devices nowadays and it is about 51%. To make a responsive website you might use the following:
- Media Queries
- CSS and HTML
- Fluid Layouts
- Flexbox layout
- Speed
- Responsive Images
Best Practices For Adding Standard Responsive Breakpoints
Responsive breakpoints are all oriented to maximize the comfortable user experience. When a visitor looks at your website, the first thing to attract him is the user experience. A fast and easy website will always triumph.
So, the website designer or creator needs to emphasize considerable things to offer the best possible user experience. Now the responsive breakpoints are arranged in a way that enables a better user experience.
The main reason to add the standard responsive breakpoints is to make sure that the content of the websites is in the same alignment and adapted quickly.
In this case, when you use the standard responsive breakpoint, you can make sure that the content will be perfect and smooth according to every screen size. Let’s see the best practices of the standard responsive breakpoints…
- Building mobile-friendly content: The first and best practice of the responsive breakpoint is to develop the content according to the mobile screen. The developers and designers first make the content for the mobiles and then adjust it according to the other devices or with the desktop views. Also, the content of the websites is made with CSS breakpoints so that the loading time of the pages is less.
- Omit the unnecessary elements: Here also, you need to prioritize the mobile devices and then walk through them. Try to keep the website content and screen simple and responsive all the time. Remove the small fields and extra visual effects. Just stick with the main menu options, Highlight the CTA options, and keep the main search bar and options. That will speed up your website.
- Survey of your site: Try to find out what types of devices are using your website. It can be mobile, or desktop. Firstly, try to implement the common breakpoints. Thus make your website faster. Add the major breakpoints according to the devices that use your website. The website designer and developer should focus on certain things and eliminate minor fields.
- Track the right breakpoint: For standard responsive breakpoint implementation, you should hide or switch to the right content. In this way, your breakpoints will be on track.
- Ignore Unnecessary breakpoints: As a designer and developer, you should not add breakpoints without any reason. Try to add when the content needs it.
Common Breakpoints For Responsive Design
Let’s look at the common breakpoints and how the designer and developers are implementing these breakpoints…
- 1280×720
- 1366×768
- 1440×900
- 1536×864
- 1600×900
- 1920×1080
How to Run Responsive Tests on Real Browsers and Devices?
Once you have come up with all the breakpoints and added them to your website, you should test these on real browsers. It is necessary to see if your website is running well with those breakpoints. Consequently, you will get an actual user condition.
Going online is the best option. You can provide your URL to the online responsive checker and readily get the results of your website on different devices. It saves you time and money. Rather than buying different types of devices, you can easily get the responsiveness of your website on every other device.
With the help of online checking, you can find out the device coverage of your website and find out if there are any visual distortions. Rather than this, there is scope for manual testing of the website content as well. One can see how responsive the content is if they want, But it takes time.
So, the responsive tests are easy to drop down. You can go for manual, automated, or cloud-based tests to check your websites from the user’s point of view and increase user-friendliness.
How do You Choose Breakpoints?
One of the easiest ways is to consider the devices. You can go for a survey that determines what are the common devices used and screen sizes. Based on what types of content you have, you should go for several breakpoints in your website.
Using at least three breakpoints in your website is good to cover all the mostly used devices. First, the designer should see how the website content is running on different devices without any modification. Then he should look for the natural breakpoints.
In this case, the online tools/emulators help you to figure out how your website looks on different devices. The common device sizes are the- 320px for mobile, 768 px for tablet, and 1024 px for desktop devices.
Basically to choose the breakpoints you might pick the relative units over the absolute ones. The relative units are the ems or rems. Points and pixels are absolute units and do not change with the screen size. So, working with the relative units first assists you later and they can adapt to the user’s preferences and settings.
In this way, you can avoid unnecessary breakpoints as well. You might go for responsive designs or layouts that are easier to fit on every screen size and resolution. Such as the CSS grid, Media query, fluid grids, flexible images, etc. So, these layouts can fix your problem and you don’t have to handle so many breakpoints.
Organizing the content, testing with the different devices, and using relative units will ultimately help you to choose the breakpoints on a flexible note detouring the wasteful breakpoints.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a CSS breakpoint?
AKA media query breakpoints. These are the breakpoints where the website content or layout responds according to the device width. It allows the user to have the best possible experience with the website content. CSS breakpoints can be set based on two approaches. One is breakpoints based on device and another is based on content.
How to set CSS breakpoints?
Set the CSS breakpoints according to your content rather than popular device sizes. Configuring your natural content flow is much needed. You can set the CSS breakpoints according to max-width and min-width. Using the default CSS breakpoints will let your website content adjust on different devices accordingly.
What is Media Query Breakpoint?
When a designer or developer defines the pixel values in CSS, then it is known as the media query breakpoints. These breakpoints are features of the CSS and allow developers to create breakpoints according to the set of browsers and OS scales. Moreover, the media queries are popular for mobile flexible layout. The media query breakpoints are made with the minimum viewport width and adapts if the viewport changes.
Do you really need breakpoint?
For a responsive website the breakpoints are needed. In most cases, it is better to concentrate on the content rather than predefined breakpoints. Use the flex and grids for breakpoints. It is needed to ensure the best possible user outcome.
What breakpoints do popular CSS framework use?
Popular CSS breakpoints are the following:
| X-small | <576px |
| small | ≳576px |
| Medium | ≳768px |
| Large | ≳992px |
| Extra Large | ≳1200px |
| Extra Extra large | ≳1400px |
Should You Use Pixels, Ems, Or Percentages In Breakpoints?
Yes, you should use the pixel, ems or percentages in breakpoints. The ems and percentages are the relative units and these trigger well when it is about the larger device screen. And the pixels work well for the consistent result. But the ems and % helps to scale the element size based on it’s parent size.