[thelist] Award Winning Site???

[Andrew Chadwick]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 02:13:29PM +0100, Paul Backhouse wrote:
> its a never ending circle of browser compatibilty.
> lets face it - if we programmed a site to work in every browser available to
> users you'd be looking at a white page with some basic text links - not very
> exciting and not the most exciting of websites your likely to ever want to
> look at again.

I disagree.

If testing starts turning turning into a never-ending cycle of changes
trying to 'support' every browser on your list, with one change for
one browser screwing the design for the next in the circle, then
perhaps you should pick a smaller value for 'support'. Especially if
your initial value for 'support' is 'looks the same on everything'.

First relax your conditions on the design slightly. Admit the
possibility of *some* users seeing basic text, another set getting
colours but no fancy CSS layout, and the rest getting the works.

If that doesn't work, swallow your pride and consider what complexity
to drop next; test again, lather, repeat, rinse.


You might want to drop some of the complexity anyway as part of Your
Design, particularly if the resticted amount of information you'd be
bombarding the user with would make the site more easily graspable
(works for Google still, just; used to work for Yahoo. You don't have
to copy them though. Compare and contrast with what Altavista's turned
into).


I like simple sites. I'm biased towards ones that work. The two tend
to correlate in my experience.


> as painful as it is for me to say, its microsoft IE thats leading the way
> (forgive me father i have sinned) - it lets you program lazily, agreed - but
> its the most used  browser around and with netscape on the verge of dropping
> out of the browser market what else will dare challenge???

(And here's why we should code more simply and make more use of
portable design and CSS cascading, and here's why CSS might not be
enough): Embedded browsers. Web-to-WAP gateways for mobile
phones. Information appliances. I-mode. 3G services. Whatever other
Next Big Things the dinky gadget manufacturers are planning on
throwing together. Increasing numbers of users of desktop platforms
that don't and can't run IE. Hell, even web boxes on top of the telly.

CSS (specifically the Cascading part) is a good thing to adopt, and is
one way towards satisfying all these users. But is it enough? At some
point the content itself needs simplifying - simpler writing, smaller
and clearer pictures - for smaller devices. Hmm.


-- 
Andrew Chadwick, UNIX/Internet Programmer, PR Newswire Europe, Oxford
--
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