C.1 Browser and Platform Support
Deciding which
features, browsers, and platforms to support is an iterative process.
While trying to cast as wide a net as possible, you might find
yourself limited by browser incompatibilities with necessary
features. On the other hand, you might design a less ambitious site
for greater compatibility or provide alternate versions of the site
for different browsers. Take inventory of both the site's goals
and likely user base to make an initial decision on platform and
browser support. Test a prototype as early as possible to decide if
you must change your initial design decision.
Here are the broad strokes:
Define your target audience, which dictates the browsers and
platforms you'll support and which plugins you can use (or
avoid). Corporate clients tend to use Internet Explorer on Windows
and also tend to be resistant to requiring their users to download
plugins. On the other hand, some corporate intranets support Netscape
exclusively. You should support IE for the Mac and Netscape on both
platforms if at all possible, because Dreamweaver makes it easy to do
so. Sites targeting schools and Macintosh users should support
Macintosh browsers more aggressively. Most clients don't
understand browser compatibility issues so they'll need your
guidance.
Settle on the browsers you intend to support. For a general interest
site, remember that most people use Windows and the majority of those
users have Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. It is probably unnecessary
to support 3.0 browsers. Requiring a 4.0+ browser allows you to use
CSS, as discussed in Chapter 10, and layers, as
discussed in Chapter 4, Chapter 14, and Chapter 17. Macintosh
users account for less than 10 percent of the total market, but may
make up a larger percentage of your target audience. Netscape
browsers have less than 20 percent market share according to most web
surveys (some list Netscape with less than 10 percent). AOL customers
can use any browser, but the default AOL browser is a derivative of
Internet Explorer. Opera is the most prevalent minor browser on
Windows and iCab is the most prevalent minor browser on the
Macintosh. Test on Linux and Unix browsers, especially if catering to
developers; although the Linux market share is small, the user base
is growing and extremely vocal. The marginal cost of supporting these
browsers is usually negligible.
Determine which plugins are required, if
any. Flash 4 support is ubiquitous (over 95 percent of the installed
base) and Flash 5 support is over 70 percent. For example, in a
recent online financial calculator, we needed to print the results
for the user. Flash 4 didn't offer adequate printing support,
so we decided to require Flash 5 rather than eliminate this crucial
feature (or have it perform unreliably). According to the Media
Metrix survey at http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/tech_breakdown.html,
about 98 percent of users have the Flash plugin, 69 percent have the
Acrobat Reader plugin, 69 percent have the QuickTime plugin, and 44
percent have the RealPlayer plugin (not all users have the latest
version of the plugin). See Chapter 5 for
important information regarding plugins and see Chapter 12 for details on the Check Plugin behavior.
Determine whether you will use
frames and
layers. Almost all browsers support tables
and frames (and you can provide a no-frames alternative) and the
basic features of layers are supported in all 4.0+ browsers. More
esoteric features of layers aren't supported as consistently,
but that isn't a reason to avoid layers altogether. Refer to Section P.4 in the the preface for
more details. Also see Chapter 3 and
Chapter 4.
Pick a minimum connection speed. It is usually
unnecessary to design for less than a 56 Kbps connection unless
targeting rural and international customers. On the other hand,
expecting users to have connections faster than 56K is unrealistic.
Unless targeting users whom you know to have ISDN, satellite, cable,
DSL, or faster connections, gear your site towards 56 Kbps modem
users. The status bar shows the estimated downloaded time for the
connection speed set under Edit Preferences Status Bar.
Use the 28 Kbps setting to approximate the download time on 56 Kbps
modems, because actual connection speeds are about half the ideal
speed.
Pick a minimum browser window size and test your pages at
that resolution using the Window Size Selector pop-up menu in the
status bar. Designing for 800 x 600 pixels (the most common
monitor resolution) leaves a working area of 760 x 420 pixels
after subtracting for the browser's borders and toolbars. Also
test on monitors with a larger resolution to ensure that titles are
centered on a wide screen, for example.
Test your
graphics
on different platforms and at different color depths. You can safely
assume that most users have 16-bit monitors (thousands of colors) but
not necessarily millions of colors. Older computers may support only
8-bit graphics (256 colors). Graphics tend to appear darker under
Windows than on the Mac, so test your graphics for sufficient
contrast and brightness. On the Macintosh, use Fireworks' View
Windows Gamma option to approximate a graphic's
appearance under Windows. Under Windows, use Fireworks' View
Macintosh Gamma to approximate a graphic's appearance on
the Mac.
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