Responsive web design is a little different from fluid design. Fluid design is about adjusting the website's structure and dimensions automatically (by using relative units for widths, such as em or percentage) but does not offer a varied approach to the user to see the content layout.
Also, it would be fair to say that responsive web design is not a unique solution for all mobile device challenges. As we saw before, responsive web design is an idea, and can give the user a better experience when implemented correctly, but it may not work for everyone or every device. This is the reason we should improve our knowledge of new technologies.
There is a quote that I like very much, written by Aaron Gustafson, the author of the Adaptive Web Design book:
"Adaptive Web Design is about creating interfaces that adapt to the user's capabilities (in terms of both form and function)."
Note
Adaptive web design implements new HTML5 functionalities only for newer devices, say to provide an enhanced experience. It misses out these functionalities on older devices, thus ensuring that the basic setup still works on them.
There are many ways to implement adaptive features. The following are the most common practices to achieve them:
Using jQuery plugins to enable the touch event interactions in mobile devices (more in Chapter 6, Building Responsive Image Sliders)
Transforming common table structures into responsive tables (more in Chapter 7, Designing Responsive Tables)
Visual customization of form elements only for desktop (more in Chapter 8, Implementing Responsive Forms)
Using geolocation functionality to bring more relevant content to the user
Changing information hierarchy where the correct priority of content is set
Diego Eis, a Brazilian known to disseminate some best practices and the creator of the Tableless.com.br website, drew up an excellent comparison between responsive web design and non-responsive web design in one of his articles. Imagine if we were planning to travel to two or more destinations, you would certainly organize many clothing combinations such as jackets, pants, shorts, and shirts which would result in one big heavy bag. This is because you never know what the climate will be like in each place. In the same way, to be prepared for all events, sometimes it can slightly reduce the performance of the website..