Gosh im about to give up...

Whats wrong with designers now a days thought i finally found one that could produce a decent site and after working with him for a week (after i spent months trying to find someone decent), and hes awestruck that i would expect it too look right in at least 800x600 and 1280x1024 and it netscape and IE as well as any sized monitor? Is this too much too ask? Are customers using older monitors and 800x600 resolution supposed to look at websites that are screwed up? Isnt it a normal practice to design a website that looks the same across the board. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I always design my sites to be viewed nicely on 800x600, also I make it so that if its viewed by a larger size it conforms to that larger size. Designers are supposed to know this stuff, I personally don't design pages for anyone but myself but when I do I do it right.

I can understand your frustration, but most are up to date on means and methods to auto-resize if they have any trouble designing a site that is viewable correctly using other means.

Sorry to hear about that one.

You are perfectly correct. Any professional designer should design a site for a minimum of 800x600 with ALL web browsers right the way down to Netscape 4.... ok nothing to stop you adding nice extras for DHTML browsers but you should still have a working site at Netscape 4.

It is VERY common to fix the width of a website but ONLY for a resolution of 800x600 (so that it works on that and anything higher). E.g. take BBC.co.uk fixed for 800x600 and BBC News is fixed for 640x480 (although slowly moving towards 800x600)

I always make my sites for smaller size (800x600). It can be viewed easily by bigger size resolutions. But sometimes I need to reshape my sites for two or more resolutions because of I have to use whole browser area. If I have to do that, I used to put javascript on my index :)

There is the method of using tables and having them set to % instead of set pixel size, thats what I personally always do.

If you use text more than graphics in your site, using tables with % is a good method. But if you plan to make a site with lots of graphics, that doesn't work.

If you care about deisgn This article is a good place to start. ( http://www.webmasterbase.com/article.php/951) There are literally dozens (if not hundreds) of articles on this subject out there.

Design should work cleanly, no matter what the browser, no matter what the resolution.

You shouldn't have to worry about everything looking identical on every browser - either your design is very simple, or that will never happen. What you should be concerned with is making it look good on everything.... and this isn't rocket science.

Make your wepages like an escalator, not an elevator. If an elevator stops working, it's useless. If an escalator stops working, it's still a set of stairs... functional, just degraded slightly.

If your page doesn't work with images off, no javascript and no CSS support, then your page should be considered non functional.

For values of "work" that allow people to get at your information, and navigate around the site.

[edit - typo fixed]

Originally posted by Lippy
There is the method of using tables and having them set to % instead of set pixel size, thats what I personally always do.

Yes but % table layouts can be very buggy in Netscape 4.x

If your page doesn't work with images off, no javascript and no CSS support, then your page should be considered non functional.


Ignoring the JavaScript bit for a minute have you seen the % that don't have images or CSS! It's tiny! (Not that I'm advocating designing non accessable websites)

However consider the audience. Do you design your website for PDAs or Webbrowsers. If you make the concious decision to ONLY support web browsers why would you care what it looks like on a PDA.... of course not a good business decision if you did make it!

You're right. Or you're wrong.

It depends what your design brief is. Personally, for my personal sites, I'm not too worried. If, however, I'm designing for a client that has a potential of a million users (of the site), and .5% of that user group don't use images (use text browsers, or browse with images off, or use website readers, or whatever), I don't want to make the call to tell 5000 of my clients potential customers that they're not worth the effort.

If a site is designed "right" (by my standards), it will work everywhere that I expect it to be used. If I'm briefing a designer, it's my job to make those expectations clear.

On the other hand, a good designer will make sure that I make those expectations clear from the start, prompting, asking the questions, to get the right details in the brief.

I haven't yet had the "pleasure" of working on a site designed to be used on PDAs... I've had my days of WAP, that was bad enough. However, if I design something to work on PDA browsers, it will work, and work as cleanly there as I can manage... without relying on technologies that I can't guarantee.

All my opinion, of course...

Of course what you should have with any designer is a contract and specification which actually details the requirements that you want the final site to adhere to.

I often put in specs that it will be coded in XHTML Transitional with CSS. It will work in All versions of netscape from version 4.x up and all versions of Internet Explorer 4 up.

The site will be tested using a PC, MAC and Linux and additionally with the web browsers Opera and Konquerer.

The site will be designed for a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 pixels and 256 colours.

Of course it's not worded exactly like that and it changes depending on the site they are after.

No, it's not too much but very reasonable to ask for a perfect looking design. I always take care of my designs so that it's viewable across the popular browsers such as IE & Netscape (I even test 'em on Opera!).

I think a professional designer always takes care of these points.

Pradeep

There should be NO reason why it won't work in ALL the modern browsers... netscape, konquerer and opera included. Very sloppy design if it doesn't.

And seeing as 50% of the users have 800x600 it would be absurd not to have a site that works in 800x600!