Questions & Answers
Riches Computer Help & Support

No, we use a template. This keeps production costs down by significantly reducing website development time.

But why don't we start with a blank page and a blinking cursor?

Perhaps an analogy might be shopping for a new car. If you wanted a brand-new car designed from scratch, the cost would be astronomic. Instead, car manufacturers offer you models to choose from, after which you may select the colour of the bodywork, the interior, the engine specification, equipment options, accessories, and so on.

So using that as an example, a template is our, “model” or website framework to work with, if you like. 

You get to choose the website colours, theme, page structure, and so on. When your site is finished, it'll have the website framework (the template) underneath all the features that you've added on top; features that you've chosen to add to make it look and feel the way you want. 

Of course, there is a mind-boggling number of templates or, “models” to choose from in a huge variety of themes. But when all said and done, and in our opinion, having a website template that will look good on a tablet or a smartphone, as well as on a desktop screen is an important feature of website development.

A professionally-authored website template is usually purchased with a one-off payment, and it may or may not have attribution to the template designer(s) as a condition of the sale. We consider designing and producing a modern responsive template as a specialist task and is not something we would attempt to do in-house. Modify and tweak it – Yes! Add features and functions to it – Yes!  But build it from scratch – No.
 

“Responsive”, means that the website can adapt dynamically to the size of the view-screen of the device that it's being viewed with, and automatically – if you will – without any user intervention. So if you were to see that same website on three different devices; let's say... a desktop screen, tablet, or mobile, it would show much the same website information but organized in such a way as to be compatible with the screen size of the device that is being used to view it.

If you're a small business with a website and need to reach out to potential customers on their portable internet devices, “responsiveness” is all important, in our opinion.

There is much, much more to building a website than simply choosing a responsive website template, and we talk more about website development in other questions and answers.
 

If you're reading this page on your desktop computer and need an example of a responsive website, try us out using your tablet or smartphone ?