The Difference Between Responsive and Adaptive Design
This is a question that comes up more regularly than you might expect. The concept of a responsive website is one of the greatest CSS "tricks" in the books and important enough to step back from in order to both remind ourselves what makes a "responsive" website and how it's different from an "adaptive" one. So, with that, let's look at the difference. The Short Explanation Responsive sites and adaptive sites are the same in that they both change appearance based on the browser environment they are being viewed on (the most common thing: the browser's width). Responsive websites respond to the size of the browser at any given point. No matter what the browser width may be, the site adjusts its layout (and perhaps functionality) in a way that is optimized to the screen. Is the browser 300px wide or 30000px wide? It doesn't matter because the layout will respond accordingly. Well, at least if it's done correctly! Adaptive