Adaptive Design

[bangalorewebgur]

Adaptive design enhances function-ability of experience based on devices capabilities. Include click-to-call, swipe-able sliders and use location features by detecting the devices accessing the website and delivers the best version of the website.

[Olin Lamanna]

Adaptive web design involves making decisions on the server that determine what should and shouldn’t be sent to the user, so that nothing is sent that will not be used.

[daviddakarai]

Because of the nature of adaptive layouts, they give much more control over the design of the website. You only have to design for specific viewports, and browsers only display the highest one that will fit in it's width. These layouts are the ones that “snap” when adjusting as you resize your browser window.

[Bluesky94]

Adaptive Web Design is another term for progressive enhancement of a web site.
Adaptive Web Design also encompasses a range of other strategies which can be combined with responsive web design.
The term was first coined by Aaron Gustafson in his book "Adaptive Web Design: Crafting Rich Experiences with Progressive Enhancement" in May 2011. It is a high level design philosophy that can be achieved through a variety of execution tactics including server side user agent detection, or client side responsive web design.