About my approach to web design

The web design process is a reasonably complex one given the, often varying, demands of clients, users and technologies. There is usually at least some compromise to be made between a client's initial wishes, the technological constraints of the web environment and human issues such as usability and accessibility. My aim as a web developer is essentially to minimise the need for compromise by producing good-looking sites that perform well across different systems and can be used by the widest possible range of users.

All my web sites are designed and built using web standards and following accessibility guidelines. All are tested using all major browsers and browser versions and are adjusted to perform well across a broad range of monitor sizes.

Web Technology

Web technologies consist of a number of standard protocols and languages that allow communication between networked computers across the world. The technologies I use routinely to create web sites include:

XHTML: for structure
CSS: for presentation
JavaScript: for client-side behaviour
PHP and ASP.NET: for server-side scripting
MySQL and MSSQL: for database management

In addition to these basic technologies, I also work with open source technologies such as Drupal, Joomla (both content management systems) and phpBB (a bulletin board system) to add functionality quickly and simply if they match the client's requirements.

User Statistics

A web site is available to a broad audience. That audience varies in the software it uses to view the site (the browser), the hardware they are viewing on, the size and colour capabilities of the screen or monitor they are using and the operating system they are working under (e.g. Windows PC, Mac, Linux). In addition, users may have turned off or not installed (or systems administrators may have turned off) the ability to use certain technologies such as JavaScript, cookies or various plugins such as Flash.

Statistics produced by the Worldwide Web Consortium (click here to view full statistics) estimate the pattern of technology usage. Recent statistics (from March 2007) are shown in the tables below.

Browsers
Browser (version)	Percentage of users
Internet Explorer (7)	18.0%
Internet Explorer (6)	38.7%
Internet Explorer (5)	2.0%
Firefox	31.8%
Mozilla	1.3%
Safari	1.7%
Opera	1.6%

Operating System
OS	Percentage of users
Windows XP	76.7%
Windows 2000	7.2%
Windows 98	0.8%
Windows Vista	1.9%
Windows 2003	1.9%
Linux	3.4%
Mac	3.6%

Monitor Size
Dimensions (pixels)	Percentage of users
Higher	26.0%
1024x768	54.0%
800x600	14.0%
640x480	0.0%
Unknown	6.0%

Colour Depth
Colour Depth	Percentage of users
16,777,216	86.0%
65,536	11.0%
256	2.0%

JavaScript
Javascript Enabled?	Percentage of users
Yes	94.0%
No	6.0%

As with all statistics, these need to be treated carefully. They represent the pattern of users visiting the W3C web site. They do not include, for example, users visiting the web site from mobile phones or similar devices. They represent a fairly global audience. As a web developer, or a prospective web site owner, it is important to be aware of your audience. A web site aimed at the technologically-aware can afford to use the latest technologies assuming that users will have, or know how to obtain and install, the latest plugins etc. A web site aimed at a broader audience may not be able to make such assumptions.

One could imagine the impact of creating a web site that, for example, relied heavily on Javascript to the extent that the site was rendered unusable if JavaScript was disabled (there are plenty out there believe me). Even though JavaScript is more widely enabled now than it has ever been, the web site would still be unavailable to 6% of a global audience according to the above statistics. If this is important to you or your business, your web site must respond appropriately to an environment in whic JavaScript is disabled. The same is true for all different software and hardware contstraints mentioned above.

Web Standards

Standards for the World Wide Web are created and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These standards describe many of the building blocks of the web such as HTML and CSS. Web sites that are built following web standards conform to rules that are laid down for everyone to see. This means that they are more easily referenced by search engines, that they work in a broader cross-section of browsers and hardware devices and will continue to work as browsers and hardwares change in the future. Development time is shorter and maintenance is both simpler and quicker for standards-based web sites.

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Accessibility

Millions of users accessing the internet every day have disabilities which affect the way they view web sites. Many more users have older browsers or otherwise difficult user environments which constrain the way a web site is viewed. Sites designed with all of these users in mind are said to be accessible. The W3C produced a set of accessibility guidelines in 1997 called the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) that help designers and developers to produce accessible sites.

All of my sites are designed following these guidelines. For example, resizable fonts allow visitors who have difficulty reading small fonts can access the site. Images with proper text descriptions allow those users who cannot view images to experience all aspects of the site.