Yep, that's pretty much right as far as I understand it. Although adaptive design can be for a limited specific set of features, such as screen sizes or a range of sensor sets. Responsive design is primarily about screen size.

Each theory has somewhat fuzzy and potentially overlapping boundaries with the other.

In Adapt we use a mixture of both for best effect. Adapt has three snap points which are used to distinguish between both adaptive and responsive areas, responsiveness is preferred as it is very simple to implement.

Components are responsive inside their blocks, i.e. they flow horizontally or vertically depending on the available screen area and the content of each element is responsive in that it must always resize into the device's width. Components such as the narrative or hotgraphic are adaptive in the sense that two separate designs are available, one for mobile and one for tablet & desktop. Using the two principles together it allows us to cover a huge variety of screen sizes with three distinct points available for adaptive changes.

Ollie.

Hi Peggy,

thanks for your question!

In addition to Ollie's response, I thought I'd add some more high level thoughts:

For the less technical audience, I have often found the terms 'adaptive' and 'responsive' to be used interchangeably. This can lead to a good deal of confusion in terms of really understanding the capabilities of tools / solutions - so I thought it might be worth highlighting the different principles (without necessarily giving them a name).

Adapt implements a 'responsive' approach.

As per Ollie's post, this is mainly done by responding to the screen size of the device you are using to look at the content. This is fixed on smartphones and tablets and variable on a desktop / laptop. Adapt is truly responsive, which means it changes as and when the size of the browser window screen real estate changes. This means that by reducing the width of the browser window on a desktop / laptop, you can see how it would look and behave like on a smartphone and tablet. (There is some additional checking on device capabilities going on, too, btw - this is also a factor in determining behaviour).

• The overall objective of this approach is to have an end result (e.g. an eLearning course/resource), which - in a single version - can be used on the widest variety of devices. This goal is often referred to as 'single-source'.

As mentioned, I have seen both terms (responsive, adaptive) used to describe this behaviour and approach.

The alternative to this approach is to have multiple versions of the course, which are optimised for a single or small range of devices. This could include publishing native apps for the various key OSs (e.g. iOS, Android etc.)

The principle of 'adaptive learning':

This is a fundamentally different thing as it applies to the learning content, rather than the technology. Briefly summarised, this means that the learning content presented to the learner varies according to their interaction with the content. In other words, the course tries to serve up the content, which is most suited to the learner's ability and the gaps in their knowledge.

A simple example of this would be as follows:

• Let's say we have an English language course, which has three levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
• This course initially serves up the questions for beginners, which the learner answers them competently
• Rather than continuing to serve basic questions, the course automatically switches to the intermediate 'track' etc.

So, in summary, the course analyses and adapts to the the learner.

At this point, this functionality does not exist within Adapt - however, we know that this is a key trend in the industry and would be keen to engage with anyone who is interested in helping develop out this type of functionality. In the meantime, there are a few work-arounds (e.g. developing branching scenarios etc.), which go some way towards this.

Hopefully, this helpful and does not add to the confusion :-)

Sven