Breakpoint: Responsive Design Breakpoints in 2023

Publish date: 2024-05-09

Users today are driven by experiences. Therefore your web design must be responsive across all devices. With the increasing number of mobile users, one cannot emphasize the importance of responsive design in customer experience. Today, websites are not just a source to communicate the value proposition but also serve as criteria based on which your prospects evaluate you.

Now that you understand what a responsive design is, let us dive deeper to understand the concept of breakpoints and the popular breakpoints in a responsive design.

Table of Contents

What is a Breakpoint?

CSS Breakpoint is a “defined width” that is used in the webpage style to make the content and design responsive. It helps enhance user experience by delivering consistent experience on different devices. Breakpoint solves the device fragmentation issue as it helps render the webpage uniformly across different screen sizes.

What is a Breakpoint in Responsive Design?

A breakpoint in a responsive design is the “point” at which a website’s content and design will adapt in a certain way to provide the best possible user experience. For example, when the website of The New Yorker is viewed on a regular desktop screen, the user sees the whole navigation menu on the sidebar. However, if viewed on a mobile device screen, the smaller screen size will cause the navigation bar to appear on the top left of the screen as a menu. Check this out on our Responsive Checker.

Essentially, breakpoints are pixel values that a developer/designer can define in CSS. When a responsive website reaches those pixel values, a transformation (such as the one detailed above) occurs so that the website offers an optimal user experience.

Choosing an approach to add a breakpoint can be quite tricky. There is no one rule or syntax that applies to all frameworks. However, you can use a media query to ensure responsiveness. A media query is a rule included in the CSS property and executed if a said condition is true. The common syntax for a CSS media query is

@media media type and (condition: breakpoint) { // CSS rules }

Let us see how to use this syntax in action. The below code would convert the background to light blue if the screen size is smaller than 500 pixels.

@media only screen and (max-width: 500px) { body { background-color: lightblue; } }

Different Types of Breakpoint

The common types of breakpoint:

Common Breakpoints For Responsive Design

With the growing number of mobile devices, creating mobile breakpoints for every device is impossible. Although this was the case earlier, the situation has changed quite a bit.

That said, you can always go ahead and create standard responsive breakpoints for screen sizes that are extensively used among your audiences. Listed below are the screen sizes that have been most used in 2023.

Common Breakpoints for Desktop and Mobile

Source

What is a Mobile Breakpoint?

A mobile breakpoint refers to the screen width at which a website or application should adapt its layout and design to ensure optimal user experience. Since mobile screens come in various sizes and resolutions, breakpoints define the points at which the content and layout should adjust to accommodate smaller screens.

Ultimately, the choice of a good mobile breakpoint depends on the target audience, the specific design goals, and the devices commonly used to access the website or application. It’s recommended to test and validate the layout across different devices and screen sizes to ensure a seamless user experience.

Breakpoints for Responsive Web Design in 2023

When should a Standard Responsive Breakpoint be Added?

A good rule is adding standard responsive breakpoints when the content looks misaligned.

Visualize a paragraph of text. As the screen gets smaller, it starts to become distorted, thus hindering readability. Adding a mobile breakpoint here would prevent this from happening. The point of adding any breakpoint is to make content easy to read. This applies to both increasing and decreasing screen width. Adding a standard responsive breakpoint is recommended whenever the content becomes harder to read because of changing screen size.

Best Practices for Adding Standard Responsive Breakpoints

How to run Responsive Tests on Real Browsers and Devices?

Test Responsive Breakpoints

Free Responsive Test on Commonly Used Resolutions

Try testing the responsiveness of your website on real devices.

On the other hand, you could sign up for free on BrowserStack’s real device cloud. Get instant, on-demand access to 3000+ real browsers and devices. Check how your site’s responsive design renders on the latest devices and browsers so that you leave nothing to chance. Minimize the chances of a visually distorted site by increasing device coverage with ease and efficiency.

BrowserStack Live to test break point website

Start Testing on Real Devices

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o77OsKqeqqOprqS3jZympmeXqralsY6rnKyon6PAqsLEZpueq5mcu26u0Z6YpKifnru1vw%3D%3D