Web strategy : Increase your website ROI

Are you a website owner? Do you use a web designer to build your site? Would you like to save money and increase the number of people who can access your site? Let me tell you how.

The estimated time to read this article is less than a minute

Posted on: Thursday, February 12, 2009

The secret is to stop insisting that your website looks identical in all browsers. There is a better way…

The better way

Discover more about how this works in practice…

Read Effective Browser Support

Read A Demonstration of Graded Browser Support

In the trade these are known as calls to action. Feel free to take your pick!

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http://mackeywebdesign.com/ Miami web design

We do have to test in many browsers to assure our clients websites look good no matter what. But you’re right, they do display slightly differently from browser to browser. No much you can do about that.
Jeri A Hastava

Thanks for the video! What you have to say really resonates for me. Not to mention the entertainment value. :-) You may be interested in this related post by Andy Clark?
Five CSS design browser differences I can live with
http://forabeautifulweb.com/blog/about/five_css_design_browser_differences_i_can_live_with/
Oliver Lorton

I’ve been thinking about this sort of stuff for a while. It’s nice to know that other (more respectable) people are going down the same route. I can now start saving cash on my designs!
BTW I like to video. Who did the graphics for you, they are pretty swish and deserve a good pimping!
http://www.selldownloadsguide.com Sell Downloads Guide

I totally agree with you. Even though clients do insist that their site should look exactly the same, no matter what browser they use, but it’s not easy. Even one of my own sites looks much more slick in firefox than explorer. So, just make a site and ignore all the minor differences that appear in different browsers.
http://www.selldownloadsguide.com Sell Downloads Guide

I totally agree with you. Even though clients do insist that their site should look exactly the same, no matter what browser they use, but it’s not easy. Even one of my own sites looks much more slick in firefox than explorer. So, just make a site and ignore all the minor differences that appear in different browsers.
http://www.aaronwitherow.co.uk Aaron

I agree with the whole idea with progressive enhancement but I do have one problem with it.
Design is about many things, usability, accessibility, branding and plain old making it look nice. All of these matter and if someone is using an older browser the image of your company can be affected.
If first impressions make a difference and someone comes upon your site with an older browser your brand is affected or the perception that you are trying to achieve with your site is affected.
Admittedly this will be non existent if everyone takes the approach of creating websites this way but until it is mainstream people will just think your website is not up to scratch.
Personally I think progressive enhancement is the way to build sites and is a good compromise to reward the good browsers but make things available for other users. I would also like to see IE6 burn for its crimes but unfortunately I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.
http://www.paulgeorge.me Paul George

I really liked the video and agree with all you have said.
My concern is about validation. Surely these drop shadow effects, rounded corners and others are CSS 3 selectors? These don’t actually validate yet do they? I want to use them, I hate rounded corners with images!
I have had it drilled into me to try and get everything to validate when supplying sites for business or corporate clients. Am I being over zealous with this do you think?
http://www.cicconedesign.com/ Paul

Love the new intro! Great Job.

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Web strategy : Increase your website ROI

The better way