In my years of experience designing and building responsive websites, I've found that in order to have a better view of the content and the messages, it's easier to visualize things with a desktop-first approach during the wireframe and design phases.
As we are able to see more content in a given layout with a desktop-first approach, it allows us to translate the hierarchy of the content that was provided to us into a layout that represents said hierarchy. Doing this in a small canvas of 320 pixel width is more difficult than it needs to be.
When you accomplish that hierarchy, it will remain the same on small-screen devices, and the only thing that changes is the layout.
Best practices recommend building mobile-first, but many web professionals don't really know why we build mobile-first in the first place. Pun intended.
So, let's clear it up. The reason we build mobile-first is because of three principles mentioned by Luke Wroblewski, the author who...