Submitted by Stephanie Rieger on Tue, 12/06/2011 - 5:11am

@Vikky There is no practical (and certainly no consistent across all devices way) to enable a user with a device of a specific size to see the 'version' intended for another.

Media queries operate in a boolean manner. Either the screen size matches the media query or it doesn't, and screen sizes will only change on re-orientation (and that's not even guaranteed as many browsers now compensate and auto-zoom the viewport).

Most Android devices however do enable users to switch their viewport size...which can have the same effect as changing the screen size. This is accomplished using the Zoom Levels setting in (the browser) Settings. For example, setting the zoom level to 'Close' resets the viewport to 240px, even if the devices is 800px wide. So if you have a major media query breakpoint at that level, those changes will be reflected as if the user had chosen a new version of the site.

This is both a blessing and a curse however. It does enable users to control their experience to a certain extent however often causes loading of additional images and scripts, and causes page reflows (though not always page refreshes, which is a big problem as the old layout/styles/scritps can class with the new ones that are being loaded). All of these affect performance and overall user experience.

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