Website Balance...
 

At what balance do you try to design your websites at. And by balance I mean such as balancing high/low bandwidth sites, flash/html/frames sites, lots of JS or little JS, one that only looks correct in certain browsers, etc.

Personally our site is written with only HTML and CSS (and a little JavaScript on certain pages), not too many images (though the next version will have more for the layout). No Flash since believe it or not...not everyone has it yet (and also that I don't like the way it looks).

Almost all "dynamic" content is done server side (i.e. PHP) - I try to use as little JavaScript as possible since many security programs seem to think its a problem.

I know theres a lot of sites that use seperate layouts for high bandwidth users and low bandwidth - but I never really came up with an efficient way to do this without rebuilding certain pages.

What do you do to try to "please everyone"?

Re: Website Balance...
 

When designing this years site, I tried hard to make a site viewable to absolutely everyone and anyone while still making it look decent. Our site uses HTML and CSS and thats it. Similar to Patrick, all our scripting is done server-side (PHP).

Thanks to CSS, you can do a lot of things to improve your site that don't prevent people from viewing it. Flash takes longer to load, is a pain to update, and you'll lose part of your audience, JavaScript loses a big audience, especially with a disabled browser.

Next year I plan to start processing headers and then depending on browser/what they can accept, I'll show different things.

Long Story Short: I felt the priority should be conveying a lot of information to anyone who wants it, in a media that I can easily update (I use VI to edit it, Lynx to preview it :) ).

Re: Website Balance...
 

I stick to HTML, php, and css (much like you). I only use Flash in small quantities, and hate a page designed completely in Flash. I keep mine looking clean, so coding is the important part. The fewer images used for navigation, the better.

I hate automatic pop-up windows and most of the things that commonly utilize java scrips, but i have found a useful one here and there. Just make sure the page is functional, not cluttered, and loads fast.

my $.02

-axe

Re: Website Balance...
 

I stick with XHTML and CSS. Dynamic stuff is done on the server side by PHP. If I do use Javascript, it is always in ways that only add functionality, but nothing is really affected if JS is disabled for some reason.

I tend to go the high compatibility route on website design. For instance, the fixed position property is great, but doesn't work on IE. If I do want to use that, I generally have it as an additional style sheet to the normal one. That way, I can give the user a link which, when clicked, tells the PHP to add that style sheet to the user's list (stored in a session) and add links in the header for future page requests.

Gosh... I'm tired. Hope that made sense. :)

Re: Website Balance...
 

Me too. :D

But seriously, keep it as simple as you can, and so that if I turn off style sheets and disable javascript, I still can use your page. Keep images to a minimum and use as much CSS to replace effects (like mouseovers) as you can to keep things looking pretty.

I'm working on this little portfolio page for myself, and while Javascript is used, everything works perfectly if you turn off Javascript. Don't let no javascript mean that things don't work!

Re: Website Balance...
 

I'm impressed that so many others have good design philosophy. Last year I think answers would have been very different, judging by the discussions I've had here. I use valid, semantically-sound XHTML, valid CSS, and script almost exclusively in PHP. Navigation is never reliant on images or some silly plugin, and I keep flash to a minimum, because bad things happen when you don't. Also, Javascript is avoided like the plague.

Re: Website Balance...
 

I would normally agree with you, but I have seen too much cool stuff done with Javascript lately. Have you seen Google Maps, or Google News, or GMail, or Google anything? They have some Javascript Wizards over there, and it's kind of a testament to the power of the language.

As long as you don't disable people without Javascript, and use it sparingly and for good effect, I say it's good.

Re: Website Balance...
 

I just realized how stupid that sounds... of course the JavaScript adds functionallity... :D

What I meant by that is that it does things like check if a form has been modified and warn the user if they try to leave. If the JS doesn't work, oh well, the user just has to be more responsible.

Re: Website Balance...
 

I check my forms with PHP. :D The user can't get around me now. hah! :ahh:

Just out of curiosity...why do you guys choose XHTML over HTML? I know it's supposed to be neater and a lot of codes don't work, etc. But what are the actual benefits? Or do you just like saying you use XHTML ;) ?

Right now the only use of JavaScript I'm using is popup windows in our picture gallery, and to resize the main table (though this'll be changed to CSS very shortly once I finish our new layout). :)

Something else I forgot to ask about...what resolution do you design for? I design for 1024 x 768 (and it'll always look good in 1280 x 1024 too since thats my default). But i tend to not give much thought to 800 x 600. A fault I know, I'm trying to solve this by using CSS layouts now instead of tables, etc. But, anyway, what do you do?

Re: Website Balance...
 

Xhmtl is same as HTML with more strict syntax. This basically means that you are following the W3C standards and your code is strict to that standard. Nowdays, browsers are more forgiving so you dont necessarily need to use XHTML style.

Re: Website Balance...
 

We made my team's site in HTML, CSS, and PHP. I love the way PHP can be used to cinlude different pages, allowing me to make a template. I like HTML more then XHTML.

This summer, I was planning to redesign our site again. I thought about making two skins, one with lots of nice graphics and the other with no graphics. The problem is, which version should load by default, the one that may not load fast enough or correctly, or the one that doesn't look as nice?

Re: Website Balance...
 

Any thing which actually matters is done through PHP, but the Javascript is just there as a convience to users so that they get quick feedback.

I use it because it's the standard and helps to ensure greater compatibility. And yes, saying XHTML is more fun. :)

I design for "any" resolution through CSS, but generally it has to look good on 800x600 for me to be happy. As with my use of XHTML over normal HTML, I aim for as high a level of compatibility as possible. I'm pround to say that every website I design can bear the W3C CSS and HTML (usually XHTML, but sometimes...) logos... :)

And as a side note, I find the HTML Tidy Firefox extension an invaluable tool for creating perfect code.

Re: Website Balance...
 

I should clarify my position on Javascript. I agree with you about Google's use of Javascript, but "wizard" is an understatement. Not only can I not do anything close to that, but Javascript, like you pointed out, has evolved (or more accurately, devolved) into a presentational language because there is no standards body for it -- it is after all a programming language, not a markup language. I have made exceptions to my "plague rule," but only for purely functional purposes; javascript as a script to process something is perfectly legitimate, but as a replacement for CSS is the plague. I really hate cursors that have stars following them and popup windows and snow in my browser window and links that sparkle and Brenteck. If a website is nothing more than a document, then why is it violating my browser? Anyway, you get the picture.

To be honest, most people just think it's cool. XHTML 1.0 Transitional is almost comepletely useless. I have yet to see a FIRST site that makes use of XHTML in a way HTML 4.01 can't acheive.

However, in theory, XHTML is an XML-based reformation of HTML, which means you can stick XML into it in an interoperable way. Writing in XHTML now is also future-friendly, because it's well-formed XML and thus it is eXtensible; for example, elements can be added just by changing the DTD and namespace. In a broad sense, this, and the more strict nature of XHTML forces standardization across websites and by browser engineers. Non-transitional XHTML encourages cleaner, more semantically-friendly code because it not only explicitly defines elements (you must close all your tags or the browser will not display anything, IE excepted of course, because it's stupid), but it makes your markup structural in nature, leaving presentation to CSS and other things such as (god, no) Javascript. I should note that the XML DOM is different, so much of your HTML Javascript, especially the presentational stuff, won't work with XHTML.

I usually design for all resolutions; a website is a document, why make it hard to read for anyone? But I have, and still do, make fixed-width sites. My advice: never disregard people with low resolutions, because horizontal scrollbars are the Devil. Do you want to be in league with the Devil? Since we're trying to maximize the amount of people that can comfortably read what we have to say, a fixed-width website should not by wider than about 770 pixels (because monitors with 640 x 480 or some other unwise resolution are an endangered species). This will ensure the vast majority or your readers aren't in sidescrolling hell.

Re: Website Balance...
 

No one has addressed frames yet. I like to keep the balance at no frames. Frames are horrible. Google doesn't like them either. Flash is okay but only in small quantities. It should not be used for navigation.

Re: Website Balance...
 

I was curious more of why you use it over HTML - I know what it is.

Thanks, I've been trying to write correct HTML 4.01 Transitional before moving onto XHTML (since I don't know any XML it wouldn't help me much). Unfortunatly...it seems every tutorial teaches you the wrong way to write HTML and every browsers parses the wrong way! Its a conspiracy against the W3C! :)

Very good point! While you're all there saying JS is the devil...I feel frames are the devil! They look bad, scrolling gets weird in them, you can't truly add to your favorites with them, some browsers show them differently, etc. Theres nothing good about them (except for showing nav...but its better to use the require_once() PHP function to include navigation).

Now what about iframes? I think they're just as bad - usually. Occasionally I see a site that just looks amazing with them, but besides that they usually look horrible!