Web Design in a Nutshell

Knowing Your Audience

As with most design challenges, making appropriate decisions regarding which browsers to support and which new technologies to adopt largely depends on knowing your audience. Before designing a new site, be sure to spend plenty of time up front researching the likely platforms, browsers, technical savvy, and connection speeds of the users you are targeting. If you are redesigning an existing site, spend time with the server logs to analyze past site usage.

There are no browser-support guidelines that can anticipate every design situation; however, the following scenarios should start you thinking:

• If you are designing a scientific or academic site, you should probably pay extra attention to how your site functions in Lynx (or other graphics-free browsing environments).

• If your site is aimed at a consumer audience—for instance, a site that sells educational toys to a primarily “mom"-based audience—don’t ignore your site’s performance and presentation in the AOL browsers.

• If you are designing for a controlled environment, such as a corporate intranet, or even better, a web-based kiosk, you’ve got it made! Knowing exactly what browser and platform your viewers are using means you can take full advantage of the whistles and bells (and even proprietary features) appropriate to that browser. If you are designing a standalone kiosk, you may even have the luxury of loading the fonts you want to use. Just be sure your design won’t crash the browser since there’s no one there to restart it for you immediately.

  In these situations, the “current version design” strategy discussed earlier in this chapter is entirely appropriate (just don’t get spoiled)!

• If you are designing a computer game site aimed at young gaming geeks, you can probably assume they will have the latest browsers and plug-ins (or will get them if you say they need them).

For most multipurpose web sites, stick with the safer “Splitting the Difference” approach to design, or if you have the resources, create multiple versions and serve them appropriately.