I recently had the opportunity to work with a company that is moving to a responsive design and has over 800,000 images on their site. These images come from all over the world. I learned a lot about what it means to tackle images in a responsive design on a large scale.
One of the big lessons is that we spend a lot of time discussing what the frontend solutions for responsive images should be—the new picture element or srcset or a magical new image format—and little time discussing how backend systems and human processes might need to change.
The company I consulted has procedures in place for images. These processes include having the images enhanced if necessary, cropped to fit, resized, and then saved in a web optimized format to fit exactly how the image is used on the page. That process makes a lot of sense for the current fixed width site, but will break down when the site becomes responsive.
These conversations led me to document my ideal scenario. If I could wave a magic wand for organizations, what would I put in place for their responsive images processes and tools?
One of the big lessons is that we spend a lot of time discussing what the frontend solutions for responsive images should be—the new picture element or srcset or a magical new image format—and little time discussing how backend systems and human processes might need to change.
The company I consulted has procedures in place for images. These processes include having the images enhanced if necessary, cropped to fit, resized, and then saved in a web optimized format to fit exactly how the image is used on the page. That process makes a lot of sense for the current fixed width site, but will break down when the site becomes responsive.
These conversations led me to document my ideal scenario. If I could wave a magic wand for organizations, what would I put in place for their responsive images processes and tools?
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