Mark from SOZO Design talks about how new smaller tablets are changing how websites are viewed and why responsive web design is now crucial.

Now, the beauty of an iPad is that it has a large 10 inch display and this means that most well designed websites will work well on it.

This can often lead people to make the dangerous assumption that because their website looks good on an iPad, it will work well on all tablets.

And this often is not the case at all.

The reality is that the Apple iPad has been overtaken in sales by other larger Android devices. And although those with large screens including the Samsung Galaxy Tab still show websites very well, other non-Apple devices come in all shapes and sizes.

Just recently, we have seen newer, smaller, 7 inch devices coming on the market, which includes the Google Nexus 7, as well as the Apple iPad Mini.

One thing we are seeing with these new smaller devices is that websites – although they still display correctly – they display a lot smaller and are a lot harder to use.

Forms have become a chore, they are very fiddly. Some links have become so small, that they are impossible to use, they have become so small that you can't navigate around a site at all. And images, when zoomed in to be seen larger, tend to be blocky or distorted.

This kind of frustration can cause users to leave your website and never return.

That's why it is becoming crucial to your business to have a fully responsive website.

A responsive website is one which can detect the size of the screen that it is being viewed, and automatically adjust itself to best fit the device. But more crucially, it can also take the information for that website and reorganise it in such a way as to highlight the most pertinent information.

In short, it is making the user experience much better for your customer, which will dramtically increase the conversion rate of your website.