My company is currently looking at revamping a complex back-end financial operations application that is delivered through a browser. The user base is restricted to employees who are business experts. Expectations are that it is not mobile compatible but possibly used on a tablet, sparingly. The vast majority of users will be desktop.
A couple of page proto-type ended up getting built from 1200px mockups.
The development team ended up using new technology that used responsive layout.
During QA / Review, I noticed that when the screen was resized, the labels started wrapping, fields started moving around, etc. and the end result (at lower screen width) just didn't look good.
I asked the developers about it and basically they said that static design was old-fashioned. It just seemed like they didn't think this was a problem. I subsequently requested that if the px goes below what we are designing to, which was 1200px, that a horizontal scroll bar should appear. They did it reluctantly.
We have yet to move on from the proto-type but this experience has led me to believe that responsive design requires actual more work than just using a new technology. It may actually require some thought on what happens when the horizontal width shrinks.
Frankly, at this point, I am not sure what advantage we are getting with responsive design.
My specific question is, does developing responsive layouts require more work than static? And if so, how much effort does it usually take?