As I became hip to why I should be building responsive down to mobile websites, I decided to go and revisit some designs for my clients whose users tend to favor long viewing sessions on tablets.  MIT’s Newman Lab is one such client, whose catalog of PDFs is often viewed on tablets.  The design that I developed leaves the navigation fixed in a left column, while sliding the rest of the website on the right, with a plain white backdrop that facilitates reading off of a screen and enhances legibility.  This means that every paragraph of text displays within the visual frame of the logo, links, and footer, similar to a text book.

When viewed on a tablet, the design elegantly adjusts to maximize space for reading in portrait orientation, and adjusts to facilitate navigation in landscape orientation. Gestural navigation on the homepage content slider ensures that vistors can quickly and easily find the latest articles on the website, and then read them with ease.