There are days when webmasters would advertise the appropriate browsers for their sites on their web pages. Advertisements such as “Best viewed with Explorer” which would appear on websites have now become a thing of the past. With webmasters spending a lot of money and valuable time on search engine optimization and site advertisements, it would not be appropriate to discourage a customer just because they use a different browser. The webmasters are thus taking the initiative of designing their pages in such a way that they are compatible with most browsers, hardware and operating systems. Here are four ways in which you can design your website to enhance its compatibility with browsers and other platforms.
The first thing you need to take into consideration is screen resolution. 800×600 and 1024×768 screen resolutions are the most common screen resolutions. If you are web designer, you need to consider the above resolutions from the bulk of your visitors. Designing your website with fixed widths of one of the above resolutions will force most of your customers to have to scroll horizontally in order to read your full sentences. This becomes very annoying and may make some visitors navigate out of your page. Instead of using fixed widths, you can try the fluid design which allows your site to adjust according to the visitor’s screen resolution. If you have to use fixed widths, try to keep your site’s resolution requirements at 800×600. If you need to exceed this resolution, put optional material on a right most column; where the customer can have the option of reading them or not.
When using frames, there are also several things you need to consider. Frame designs become important in screen resolutions and also when a visitor is using speech software. Framed sites reduce the area of viewing content on the screen. When someone is using lower screen resolution than what you designed the site with, they have to keep scrolling vertically and horizontally. This may make your visitors impatient. Also, for people using speech software, they may not be able to match contents on the different frames because they cannot see the layout. If you are suing frames, test them on different resolutions to prove that they are functioning correctly.
Even though it is sometimes ignored, different color codes look different on different color systems. A color that looks stunning on the 24-bit color system may be an awful combination on a 256 color scheme. The 256 color scheme may not be widely used anymore but it would be more helpful to use a lower color scheme. Also, check your chosen color scheme with another palette to ensure it is blending well.
Another important consideration is whether or not to use JavaScript on your page. While there are very few people using browsers without JavaScript, you still do not want to miss out on this group of people. Instead of relying on JavaScript entirely on your page, try to make sure that your page can still be viewed correctly without the JavaScript. This may also be important for people using hand held devices.
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