Web Design Problems

Before you start with your web building project, there are two common problems you should know about, or at least have a basic idea of:

1. Browser Problems
2. Display Problems

Browser problems

Believe it or not, our browsers have a mind of their own. Or rather, the mind of their developer.

Although most basic HTML tags can be understood by most browsers, there are some tags that are understood differently by different browsers. In fact, there are even tags that can be understood by only one type of browser.

This difference is not just between each type of browser (e.g. Explorer vs Navigator) but also between different versions of each browser (e.g. Explorer 3.0 vs Explorer 6.0) AND also between platform versions (e.g. Windows vs MacOS).

Since there is absolutely no way that your visitors are using the same version of the same type of browser on the same platform, you will have to be careful when designing your website.

To make your web site viewable by as many prospects as possible, here are some steps you can take:

• design your web site using HTML tags that are common between all browsers.
• design using code that is standard compliant.
• design for the lower version browser since later browsers are able to read earlier versions of HTML code. This does not mean, however, that you will have to design a web page that can be read by the very first internet browser ever. This will greatly limit your design flexibility.

The best practice would be to check your website analytics and see what browsers your visitors are using and what the most common version is being used.

Display problems

The browser is not the only problem you have to consider. There is also the display problem. More specifically, the resolution and color capabilities of your audience's computer monitor.

Monitor Resolution

The more common monitor resolutions for a PC, at the time writing, are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x870, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200.

And for a Macintosh: 512x384, 640x480, 800x600, 832x624, 1024x768, 1152x870, 1280x960, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200.

That's quite a lot of numbers. Your visitor can be on any one of these resolutions.

One solution to this problem is to design for the most common monitor resolution. Again check your website analytics because what is common for others, may not be so common for your site.

Color Capabilities

Although not a major problem anymore, due to the release of better computer systems over time, you should still pay attention to this if your audience consist of people who are not really tech savy and who would probably own an older computer with a limited 256 color screen.

The more common number of colors displayed by a computer monitor are: 17 million colors, 65 000 colors or 256 colors.

And the colors between a Macintosh and a PC differ a bit.

A solution to this is to design using the Web Palette. The Web Palette contains 216 colors that are made up from the cross-section of the Mac and Windows system color palettes.

There are many more problems you'll face when designing for the web but having some knowledge of the above is a good start for now.

Conclusion

But what does all this techno mambo jumbo mean? Well, put simply, your website could look terrific on one computer and at the same time look horrible on another.

And what does this mean?

Because there is just no way of telling if your design will look perfect on ALL computers, don't spend a lot of time tweaking your design to perfection. Just aim at making your website look reasonably good on as many systems as possible.