Responsive design has been a catch phrase for quite some years now. Recently, in the era of phones and tablets and small screens, it more and more seems it means a web site's design is adjusted for small screens, where you are supposed to scroll down. Like, well, an scroll of yore. On big screens it looks shite. The font size is enormous, images that need not be big are huge, and there are often big white spaces. It feels like having a smartphone shoved in your face. My desktop computer has 22" screen which is not small, but not huge either. Most traditional web sites look ok on it, and there is usually a lot of information, including links to further material, without having to scroll.

Websites with this "modern" "responsive" design actually often look better and make more sense on my 12" laptop. Because I don't feel like I have to back away 3 yards. It is not very responsive. It is great if you like to tile windows on a large screen. But it is right out silly to make a web browser window smaller just to make a site more sensible. Is it the user that should be more responsive? We are supposed to adjust to the machines? "Response to the screen, stupid human!" Of course some sites are not very info heavy and works fine in smaller window. But, e.g. on news sites, where it is great to have as much information (incl menus and links) as possible at first glance, this sucks. Just to have to scroll to see e.g. the ten (or even less!) top news on a 22" inch screen sucks major league. That computer screens got bigger and people bought them when they became affordable was not just to enjoy games, it was to make it more enjoyable and practical to surf the web, read, write etc.

The theme I have for this site, Emphanio, is responsive. The downside to it is that it seems to have a max width. Most WP themes have that, which i am not particularily fond of. I do like the look and feel of Emphanio, and it gives a nice overview. I do not write very much here, so I think it fits my needs. If I would write say several posts a day, it would not work. Still, I think Emphanio much more well designed than all of these #%!&#?#! compulsory scrolling sites.

Maybe in the future, people will abandon scrolling again?