First Responsive Website: How 'Responsive Web Design' Started the Revolution

If you’re browsing on your phone right now, thank the folks who kicked off responsive web design. Before that, websites were basically locked into clunky desktop layouts. Resize your browser or switch devices and bam: text overflow, awkward navigation, and pinch-zoom madness. Not fun.

Things really changed in 2011. That’s when the Boston Globe’s site flipped the switch—it was one of the very first fully responsive news sites. This wasn’t just a minor redesign. The team ditched the old playbook, using flexible grids, images that didn’t explode off the page, and new CSS rules like media queries. Suddenly, you could go from laptop to tablet to phone, and the website just seemed to get what you needed, reshaping itself on the fly.

• How Responsive Web Design Began
• The Birth of the First Responsive Website
• What Made the Boston Globe Site So Special?
• Mistakes and Lessons from the Early Days
• Why It Still Matters Now

How Responsive Web Design Began

Back in the early 2000s, web designers mostly built websites just for desktop computers. Phones that could go online were slow, tiny, and honestly, barely usable for anything beyond basic news headlines. Most sites back then ignored those screens completely. People got stuck zooming and scrolling sideways just to read a sentence. Not exactly user-friendly.

The real shift happened in 2010. Ethan Marcotte wrote a groundbreaking article for A List Apart, coining the term responsive web design. He showed how sites could use flexible layouts, images that resized, and CSS media queries to adjust to any device size. Suddenly, designers had a playbook for making one site look good on every screen—from giant monitors to pocket-sized phones.

The reason this idea took off? By 2011, smartphone sales were exploding. More than 100 million people in the US alone had a mobile browser. Businesses realized if their site was painful to use on a phone, people would bounce—and probably not come back.

Here’s a quick look at how web usage shifted:

So, responsive web design landed right when people needed it the most. Instead of cooking up a different website for every phone and computer, developers could finally build one version that adapted on its own. That shift made the web way more usable and opened up possibilities for both users and businesses.

The Birth of the First Responsive Website

Back in 2010, web designer Ethan Marcotte wrote an article for A List Apart that kicked off the whole idea of responsive web design. He showed how flexible grids, images, and media queries could make sites adapt to different screens. But even with the article out, hardly anyone was doing it at scale. That’s where the first responsive website that really mattered comes in.

The Boston Globe’s redesign, which rolled out in September 2011, is famous for being the first high-profile example of responsive web design in action. This wasn’t some tiny experiment or personal blog. The Boston Globe was a major news outlet with millions of readers and tons of content—so making its site work well everywhere was a true test. The team at Filament Group, Upstatement, and Ethan Marcotte himself worked together to reimagine the entire site.

They didn’t just guess what might work. They had to sort out how images would load fast on slow phones, how ads would scale, and how whole page layouts would shift between a desktop, a tablet, and a tiny mobile screen—all without breaking things for readers or frustrating editors. It was a big leap for the web.

People in the web community stood up and took notice. Developers saw that a single codebase could deliver a great experience on almost any device out there. That new Boston Globe site turned out to be a blueprint for thousands of projects that followed. Even today, you’ll find teams studying how they solved things like navigation, text size, and image handling. It didn’t just change the site; it changed web design for everyone.

What Made the Boston Globe Site So Special?

The Boston Globe's 2011 redesign didn't just shift columns and images around. It was an industry first because it tackled real-world problems web users were facing—mainly, how do you make a huge, content-heavy site look great across all devices? We're talking about a site that handled over 25,000 articles and a reach of millions. Most companies back then just made a separate mobile site, which was clunky and often outdated.

The Globe's team—headed by Ethan Marcotte, coiner of the term "responsive web design"—built everything on a smart, fluid grid system. Media queries were the secret weapon. These CSS3 rules let the site react to whatever screen you had, shifting layouts in a snap. Developers also used scalable images that wouldn’t break the design on a tiny phone.

• One codebase, every device: developers no longer juggled separate sites for mobile and desktop.
• Flexible navigation: menus morphed into tap-friendly buttons or full nav bars depending on your screen.
• Consistent brand: the look and feel stayed the same, so readers always knew they were on the real Boston Globe, not some stripped-down mobile page.
• Stress-tested under real traffic: The Globe’s responsive site held up under launch day traffic spikes—and the media paid attention.

Here's a quick peek at how their innovative layout adapted based on screen size:

The launch of the Globe's site was the first time a major responsive web design was proven to work for everyone—not just for techies or small blogs. It set off a new standard across the industry. Even big companies like Microsoft and Disney took notes from what the Globe's team pulled off. If you care about making websites usable (and who doesn’t?), this move changed everything.

Mistakes and Lessons from the Early Days

When the Boston Globe team rolled out their new site, they didn’t just get cheers. A lot of trial-and-error went down. Back then, nobody had a checklist for building the first responsive website. Some of the biggest headaches came from images and loading speeds. On slow mobile connections, huge header photos made pages crawl. Turns out, just shrinking images visually with CSS didn’t shrink the actual file size. People started using special scripts and new HTML elements like picture and srcset later, but early on, images were a real pain.

Navigation also tripped up designers a lot. Menus that worked fine with a mouse suddenly became tricky on touch screens. And the first attempts at ‘hamburger’ menus? Not everyone loved them. Users got lost or just missed the menu entirely, and bounce rates jumped on news sites that hid too many options.

Another big lesson: testing. In 2011, device testing wasn’t really a thing. The team worked with what they had—a few iPhones lying around the office. This meant that edge cases on Android, Windows Phone, and early tablets sometimes slipped through the cracks, leading to weird bugs and broken layouts.

Here are a few early mistakes and what they teach us now:

• Giant images: Always optimize images for both size and screen.
• Hidden navigation: Menus should be obvious and easy to find, even on the smallest phones.
• Forget-the-test syndrome: Check your site on as many devices and browsers as you can. Don’t assume it “just works.”
• Overcomplicated layouts: Simplify, don’t squeeze in every desktop feature. Users want to scroll, not hunt for stuff.

It didn’t take long for developers to catch on. By 2012, more tools appeared, like responsive frameworks and better browser support for CSS3. Things got easier, but the early pain gave us a set of best practices. The table below gives a quick look at what changed after these lessons sank in:

The big win? Responsive sites started to load faster and work more intuitively for everyone. Not perfect, but a huge step in the right direction.

Why It Still Matters Now

Responsive web design isn’t just some old trick from 2011—it’s still the backbone of every solid website out there. These days, people hop from phones to tablets to laptops without even thinking about it, and if your website can’t keep up, you’re toast. Just to put it in perspective, in 2024, a whopping 60% of all web traffic globally came from mobile devices. So if you’re building for desktop only, you’re ignoring most of your visitors.

Remember the first responsive website? It changed more than looks—it changed how businesses connect with people. If your site looks broken on a phone, folks leave in seconds. Google picked up on this too. Since 2015, their search algorithm started boosting mobile-friendly pages, making responsive design basically a must if you want any chance at ranking.

Let’s talk loading times: responsive sites use one codebase instead of separate mobile and desktop sites, which makes updates way less painful. Plus, media queries help images load only what’s needed, saving both bandwidth and patience.

• Faster site updates with a single source of code
• Better user experience leads to longer site visits
• Improved SEO as Google favors responsive sites
• Stats tracking—analytics don’t get split between different URLs

Here’s a quick look at mobile usage trends. The numbers don’t lie:

If you’re tweaking your site or building from scratch today, there’s no real alternative. Responsive web design isn’t just good practice. It’s survival. And that’s why what started back in the Boston Globe days is still super relevant now.