Why Web Designers do NOT have it easy...
As web designers our job is not only to create kick-ass web sites, but also to educate our clients in the ways of the internet and to explain to them the limitations we all have to abide by.
In this article I will outline some of the biggest issues that face web designers and developers across the world and help you realise why we do certain things the way we do.
1)Â Â Â Â Â Cross Browser Support
Whatâs a browser? Why is it angry? Let me explain..
A browser is the program your computer uses to view web sites and there are a number of different browsers you can choose from, the main contenders are Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome etc. They all render websites in their own special way, which can alter how they appear to you.
In order to be provide you with a valid website we have to test each site in over 5 browsers and make sure it is not only looking right but also functioning correctly in each of them.
Add to this the fact that the companies who make these browsers will keep on updating them, putting multiple versions of multiple browsers into the mix. This makes the job of the web designer tricky to say the least!
One browser in particular has made our job more difficult over the past 9 years and that browser is little olâ Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. Many of the biggest web sites in the world have now dropped support for this browser, as have many design agencies, so if you are using the dreaded Internet Explorer 6, itâs really time you upgraded.
2)Â Â Â Â Â Resolution Issues
Iâm not about to confuse you with inane computer jargon so donât worry, but I do have to mention the Resolution Issue which is cropping up more and more.
Have you ever thought âI want my home page not to scrollâ
or âI want my web site to fill up the screenâ?
When you say âscreenâ, web designers think âOK, is it a 17â, 19â, 21â screen or bigger?
When you say âscrollâ, we think âNot scrolling on your resolution? Or all resolutions and screen sizes?â
You see, its not just as easy as coding in HeightOfSite=100% its far more complicated than that.
What we have to do as web designers is come up with a happy medium whereby the site vertically scrolls as little as possible in as many resolutions and monitor sizes as possible. Getting it right for all screen resolutions and monitor sizes is a bit of a juggling act. The end result looks easy, but thereâs a lot going on behind the scenes!
As a side note, vertical scrolling is now second nature to internet users so it really has no bearing on the success of your new web site.
I hope you have found this article interesting and informative.
So remember, even if something seems easy to you, its probably not the case. You have hired the web designer so trust him or her to do their job properly.
Talking of which, my next post will feature handy tips on how to choose the right Web Design Agency for your next project.
Design-by-Committee is web site suicide.
Perhaps a bit harsh but this is something that has been plaguing Web Design Agencies for years, let me explain.
What is âDesign-by-Committeeâ?
When a single goal or aim takes a back seat to âletting everyone have their sayâ.
When a group of two or more business owners have a vision to hire a design agency to build their new website, or redesign their old site, they all have their own ideas and thoughts on how it should look and work. They all put their ideas forward and come to a happy medium whereby all of their ideas are appeased and added to the initial brief.
The Designer in question has to take their brief and do all he/she can to please the members of the committee. This is nigh on impossible.
What we often end up with is a middle ground, whereby all members have had some of their input included but the site completely misses the initial goal or aim. This is where the original vision and purpose of the new web site has completely lost out to âpleasing the committeeâ.
This is a sure fire way to have a mish-mash of a design with flawed functionality.
Stick to the Plan
Whether the new site is to attract interest, sell products or even a first port of call for any new customer, make sure you stick to the plan!
The end-users are the most important thing to your site so think about what they would want, what would they want to see? It easy to say âWell that site has got that element, so I want itâ but look beyond the obvious and think âWhy have they got that?â and âIs it appropriate to my customers or potential customersâ
Donât ignore the ideas and skills of the designers/developers that YOU have hired.
Although they donât know your business or industry they can often steer you in the right direction on how to communicate directly to you customers and potential customers. Listen to them.
Here is some further reading on Design-by-Committee and how to approach having a new web site or redesigning your existing site.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/29/why-design-by-commitee-should-die/
http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/hire-now
HTML5 Client Side storage. In every browser. Right now.
Somewhere along the road to cloud based storage accessed through web applications a weary programmer sighed and pointed out that you would not have access to your data if you have no internet connection. The response was to add local client side storage as part of the HTML5 spec. Hence-forth you could keep a copy of all your data on your local machine for your web apps to access. Possibly the same programmer pointed out that while this was indeed a solution wouldn't it require everyone to have fully HTML5 compliant browsers ? I imagine there was a lot of frowning from various people at this point. Never fear though because more clever programming chaps have come up with ways to have client side storage on all browsers. Yes, even those produced by Microsoft, which incidentally have had this ability since IE5.5.
Store.js - http://github.com/marcuswestin/store.js
Lawnchair - http://brianleroux.github.com/lawnchair/
PersistJS - http://pablotron.org/?cid=1557
MilkCrate - http://github.com/garrow/milkcratejs
Google's Sniffing Around
Googleâs all seeing eye just keeps on getting worse! As if the whole streetcar invasion wasnât enough bad press they just had to go one step furtherâŠ
Taking unauthorised pictures of people and property left a bad taste in the publicâs mouth, but Googleâs most recent scandal takes the biscuit! Incase you hadnât heard, Google's latest potential law suit involves the monitoring of data sent over unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 30 countries.
Only after the German authorities requested to view Googleâs logs did Google admit to having gathered `pay load` data as well as SSIDâs and MAC addresses by sniffing packets on open networks and loging what was been sent and received. Google amassed a total of 600Gb of data via their already controversial street view cars.
Just another story indicating the importance of encrypting your Wi-Fi network.
CSS Media Queries
Nary a month on from the UK launch of the iPad it's iPhone 4 day. Beyond the sight of people getting giddy over expensive consumer electronics the proliferation of mobile devices with all sorts of different resolutions and orientations raises the question of how best to serve web content that can be viewed as nature intended on all these devices. We're not even past clients asking for pages that "fit on one screen" to which we invariably point to articles such as this - http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/the_myth_of_the_page_fold_evidence_from_user_testing.htm - Â so how do we build for everyone ?
One answer are CSS media queries. Simply put these allow you to supply different CSS depending upon queries about the devices resolution and orientation. For more information see http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/04/using-css-media-queries-ipad.html and http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/
Microsoft move into top gear with IE9 Beta
Microsoft have announced that the third platform preview of IE9 is available to download and it's a doozy. On top of their previously announced support for the Video tag we're now getting a full Canvas implementation. Not only that but it's fully hardware accelerated too meaning that rendering speeds for complex animations are now faster than competitors browsers. The icing on the cake ? That'll be the support for ECMAScript 5.
