# Adaptive and responsive design in Flutter > It's important to create an app, whether for mobile or web, that responds to size and orientation changes and maximizes the use of each platform. ![List of supported platforms](/assets/images/docs/ui/adaptive-responsive/platforms.png) One of Flutter's primary goals is to create a framework that allows you to develop apps from a single codebase that look and feel great on any platform. This means that your app might appear on screens of many different sizes, from a watch, to a foldable phone with two screens, to a high definition monitor. And your input device might be a physical or virtual keyboard, a mouse, a touchscreen, or any number of other devices. Two terms that describe these design concepts are _adaptive_ and _responsive_. Ideally, you'd want your app to be _both_ but what, exactly, does this mean? ## What is responsive vs adaptive? An easy way to think about it is that responsive design is about fitting the UI _into_ the space and adaptive design is about the UI being _usable_ in the space. So, a responsive app adjusts the placement of design elements to _fit_ the available space. And an adaptive app selects the appropriate layout and input devices to be usable _in_ the available space. For example, should a tablet UI use bottom navigation or side-panel navigation? :::note Often adaptive and responsive concepts are collapsed into a single term. Most often, _adaptive design_ is used to refer to both adaptive and responsive. ::: This section covers various aspects of adaptive and responsive design: * [General approach][] * [SafeArea & MediaQuery][] * [Large screens & foldables][] * [User input & accessibility][] * [Capabilities & policies][] * [Best practices for adaptive apps][] * [Additional resources][] [Additional resources]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/more-info [Best practices for adaptive apps]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/best-practices [Capabilities & policies]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/capabilities [General approach]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/general [Large screens & foldables]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/large-screens [SafeArea & MediaQuery]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/safearea-mediaquery [User input & accessibility]: /ui/adaptive-responsive/input :::note You might also check out the Google I/O 2024 talk about this subject. :::