For optimal user experience, consumers want responsive websites that are easy to use, multi-device friendly, and functional. Statistically, 93% of users leave a website that has a non-responsive design. Accordingly, the demand for creating a dynamic website is high to meet consumer expectations.

In this context, brands are utilizing Drupal CMS for website development due to its dynamic features, scalable structure, and flexible tools. Developers can create customized blogs, websites, and portals via Drupal CMS that are responsive and user-friendly. Furthermore, the CMS platform promises industry-grade security, high performance, and simple content authoring features.

Statistically, 75% of users focus on the web design alone to make their decision about a website. 

Thus, if you are to hire a Drupal developer, tell them to integrate appealing UI elements and improve the UX design with features like multi-device support and optimized page-load speed.

To build a dynamic and responsive website, you can take the help of one of the top Drupal development companies. However, there are particular points to keep in mind to improve the website’s quality. These tips are mentioned below. 

1. Improve Programming knowledge

Drupal CMS utilizes JavaScript and CSS capabilities to create a responsive web design that fits multiple devices. There are multiple usable modules available on Drupal that support the website development process. For programming, you can use the Modernizr module to detect CSS, HTML, and JavaScript browser features and easily compile the codes.

Developers can utilize this module to quickly prepare a Drupal website. But, they need to have basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript beforehand. Developers use these programming languages for customized coding of websites for multi-platform use. Therefore, learning the necessary programming languages beforehand would allow you to catch coding errors quickly.

2. Choose A Dependable Web Hosting Service

Before building a dynamic Drupal website, brands need to choose a reliable web hosting service. Here, focus on four specific factors to centre on.

  • Page Load Speed: The web hosting service should have a higher page load speed than 850 ms.
  • Uptime: This determines the amount of time a site would stay online and continue running. For the best outcome, choose a dependable host that promises a 99.9% uptime.
  • Price: Select a hosting service that falls within your budget and fulfils the requirements mentioned here.
  • Customer Support: Responsive support is important for consumers to trust a website and continue using it. Thus, choose a host that includes many high-quality customer service features.

3. Use Browser Caching

The feature of browser caching ensures that the user’s website data gets stored in the system automatically. Therefore, the brand owners do not have to reload one file multiple times and can access the pre-saved data. With caching, browsers save particular data that is used when the person comes back on the site.

Without browser caching, the multiple re-loads of images (big size) would lower page load speed. Statistically, 47% of website users expect a maximum of 2 seconds for a page to load. Thus, a longer loading time would reduce customer satisfaction and user experience with the brand.

You can access the built-in Browser Caching tool of Drupal from the control panel to enable this feature. First, you need to learn the caching settings and setup procedure to properly improve website performance. 

4. Add Video Media

Brands use video media in their Drupal websites to make them more responsive and attract visitors. Here, you can use the module of FitVids to embed the video media and resize it. 

To note, the module increases or decreases the size of the media depending on its ‘div’ container type. With this module, you can add videos from multiple platforms like Kickstarter, Vimeo, YouTube, Viddler, and Facebook. 

5. Minify The Codes

Consumers utilize smartphone devices more frequently than desktop devices. Statistically, 74% of users prefer a website if it has a mobile-friendly design. So, brands focus on such development to fulfill consumer satisfaction and gain more users.

Here, you must take measures to decrease the loading time of mobile sites. The CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files of bigger websites are heavier to handle for mobile devices. So, Drupal developers take out unnecessary elements from the coding to allow quick response time. This process is known as minification.

Therefore, use the Minify module to decrease the size of your site’s code. The tar.gz file is available on the module page; download and unarchive it in your system. Then, transfer the folder to the Drupal modules/ section of your site and enable it from the dashboard via the Administration>Modules route. Lastly, activate the Minify module from the ‘Enable Newly Added Modules’ for automatic minification to begin.

6. Better Navigation

Users prefer websites that they can navigate easily to save time and effort. Thus, brands focus on adding an easy-to-use menu for multiple devices. In this context, the available Drupal-oriented Responsive Menus module is valuable for brands. The standard CSS-enabled menu layout is effective but this module improves the responsive quality of the website.

Drupal offers multiple versions of menus that have a responsive structure that you can customize into your branded website. With this module, you can disable potential mouse events and also configure the menu for multiple website sizes. 

7. Add Breakpoint-related Modules

For creating a responsive web design for Drupal websites, most developers rely on the available Breakpoint module. To note, a breakpoint is an intentional pause put in place during a program’s execution. Developers mainly use the breakpoint to learn information about a program and to debug issues.

Indeed, you can use it to build your website that automatically fits different device sizes. First, brand owners need to create a theme for the breakpoint; the developer stores this in the theme.info file. After you add the file into the system, the database reads its data automatically. 

Also, you can utilize full media queries to define any custom breakpoints you wish to add to your Drupal website. Besides this module, another related module option to use is the Context Breakpoint module.

This allows the developer to define their breakpoint-related context and detect the screen and browser size. For example, one can utilize a narrow template to work for screen sizes lower than 800px after this module detects the size.

Conclusion

All in all, using particular available modules, brands can optimize their websites to give a responsive and dynamic performance. This is effective for keeping the attention of users and improving their experience with the site. As a result, your brand value and customer reach would grow.