Web Design: Are you cross-browser compatible?

Are you cross-browser compatible?

Written by Matt Benya

Continued from page 1

Another thing you should make a habit of is to validate your pages through repparttar World Wide Web Consortium (W3C for short). Founded in 1994 repparttar 132545 W3C has made it its obligation to guide repparttar 132546 development of repparttar 132547 Web and create a common basis to build upon. One of repparttar 132548 services that repparttar 132549 W3C offers is syntax validation. This is a useful tool when you are trying to ensure that your visitors will get roughly repparttar 132550 same experience when they visit your site. Validation is easy, select repparttar 132551 language your site was designed in and use their free validation tools to track down any errors that might occur. If there is an error in your source repparttar 132552 validation system will highlight it and provide you with possible solutions for correcting it.
Why should you conform your site to repparttar 132553 World Wide Web Consortium's guidelines? The answer is that it is these guidelines that browser developers use as a basis to display pages on repparttar 132554 Web. While browsers like Mozilla conform strictly to repparttar 132555 W3C's guidelines Internet Explorer is more relaxed. In fact Internet Explorer will render just about anything you throw at it. You can leave out repparttar 132556 <html> tags, <body> tags, or forget to close a tag all together and IE will 9 times out of 10 be able to work with what you give it.

Be weary of Microsoft's FrontPage. While Microsoft makes some of repparttar 132557 world's most powerful and end user friendly applications in my opinion, FrontPage has a tendency to do things IE's way. What I mean when I say this is that FrontPage will overload a web page with a lot of overhead that is either out of place or incorrect. If you plan on using an editor of this type consider Adobe's GoLive, this application at least has repparttar 132558 ability to built a page according to W3C standards and has a built in syntax checker that can help you ensure your site will meet their requirements.

The final word, most likely not…

Remember

saying "you can't please everyone"? The same holds true to repparttar 132560

world of Internet browsers, it will be pretty much impossible to make your site render repparttar 132561

same way on each and every browser available. This however is not repparttar 132562

goal;

goal is to make your site useable by repparttar 132564

most common browsers thus reaching repparttar 132565

largest audience possible. If something fails horribly under certain browsers then it is a good time to rethink your design and find another way to approach repparttar 132566

issue. If your site is known to only work under Internet Explorer and it is your desire to leave it this way then it is good practice to let your visitors know this in advance. They will be much likelier to switch browsers (if possible) and come back to your site if you let them know ahead of time rather than letting them walk into an unusable page or badly formatted site. Don't forget presentation is everything.

Matt Benya is a co-owner of Primate Studios (www.primatestudios.com) an independent development house focusing on CGI illustration, Web design and multimedia. With 20+ years of art experience and a degree in Network administration Matt is well suited to translate your needs to the Web.

Part II - Planning A Website

Written by Regina Stevens

Continued from page 1

1) website address on billboards, business cards, flyers, stationary, balloons, pens, pencils 2) advertise on radio and television (if you have repparttar budget) 3) write press releases 4) network with businesses, friends, and relatives 5) join a tradebank association in your area (bartering services)

Don't expect your web designer/developer to operate and/or market your product or service for you It is tempting to expect your web designer/developer to operate your business and send customers to you, but in reality you should not expect this at all unless they offer it to you. Most of repparttar 132542 time, repparttar 132543 designer is there to design and repparttar 132544 developer is there for repparttar 132545 functionality of your website. There are designers and developers who will help you out, but don't expect them to - you need someone who specializes in online marketing.

Think about who will do repparttar 132546 maintenance on your website and how often You must know who will manage your website after it's completed. If you won't be repparttar 132547 one to manage it, ask your designer/developer if they will do repparttar 132548 maintenance for you. Be sure to ask repparttar 132549 fee, how often you will have to pay repparttar 132550 fee, and what is included in repparttar 132551 fee. If you have a brochure-type website with just contact information, I don't suggest purchasing a maintenance contract. If you have something like a newsletter, or e-commerce site, then it would be worth it to purchase a maintenance contract.

In a nutshell, you need to plan ahead before you jump into an online venture. It can save a lot of frustration and worry if you do your homework first. #

Regina Stevens is the owner of Keep It Simple Websites (http://keepitsimplewebsites). She writes computer articles for new computer and internet users.

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