There are a lot of cases where responsive design just isn't a good fit, and something with complex user interactions (like a lot of web apps) is often one of them. Responsive design is great for things like content sites, galleries, informational sites... most forms of content publishing. Anything that requires the user to actually create and/or manage large amounts of data or has a lot of interactive media, however, would probably benefit more from a dedicated mobile site and/or app.
You are absolutely right about the complex user interactions. In that case the responsive design could just be informational only (hiding all the complex features that would otherwise be very hard to use on a mobile screen).
This is a terrible suggestion. The age of crippled, stripped down mobile sites is long gone, and smartphone users expect full functionality on their phones. If that functionality can be provided with a responsive design, that's great. If they have to use the regular website and do some zooming and panning, that's a nuisance, but one with which users are familiar. It's certainly better than not having the feature available at all, or having to hunt for a link to disable the mobile layout.
I'm really tired of everyone talking in absolutes (also the overuse of the word terrible). The right answer is (almost) always "it depends".
It depends how critical that functionality is to the core value the site provides. It depends how appropriate it is to a mobile platform experience.
As a contrived example I'd probably be perfectly happy if I could only browse, read, and maybe vote on HN if the mobile experience of reading was significantly improved. I never want to write a comment from my phone, I hate typing on it. Not a great example since a textarea isn't complex and it's easy to add to a mobile layout, I just want to get across the point that not all interaction is appropriate or important on every platform.
This is why responsive design is hard, because doing it well means far more than just changing the layout, size and visibility of elements. It is a different interaction paradigm and generally will need to be treated as such to maintain a quality experience.
>As a contrived example I'd probably be perfectly happy if I could only browse, read, and maybe vote on HN if the mobile experience of reading was significantly improved. I never want to write a comment from my phone, I hate typing on it. Not a great example since a textarea isn't complex and it's easy to add to a mobile layout, I just want to get across the point that not all interaction is appropriate or important on every platform.
But you didn't get across the point, because your example isn't true. I want to post on HN from my phone; heck, I've posted on HN from my kindle before. I wouldn't give that up for all the optimized mobile design in the world.
Grandparent is right, an absolute is appropriate here. Provide all the functionality of your desktop site, or I won't use your mobile site.
