HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
The Web is in a period of transition, from the almost universal adoption of XHTML 1.0
toward the new HTML standard: HTML5. In this lesson, I discussed how you can take a
progressive approach, moving toward HTML5 without leaving people using current
browsers behind.
I hope you now realize that the needs of your visitors should affect the approach you use
in your website design. The key is to anticipate those needs and try to address them as
broadly as possible. Not every site has to be filled with multimedia that implements the
latest and greatest web technologies. On the other hand, certain topics almost demand
higher levels of page design. Listen to the needs of your visitors when you design your
pages, and you'll keep them coming back.
Even though accessibility issues ostensibly affect only a small percentage of web users,
they should not be ignored. Many accessibility-related improvements actually improve
the web experience for most users. Leaving out disabled users by not accounting for
them in your designs is inconsiderate and can often be a poor business decision, too.
Adding accessibility features to an existing site can be challenging, but when you build
new sites from scratch, making them accessible can often be done with little additional
effort. If I've convinced you of the importance of accessibility in this lesson, you'll prob-
ably want to dig into the resources listed previously for more information.
As if you haven't had enough already, here's a refresher course. As always, there are
questions, quizzes, and exercises that will help you remember some of the most impor-
tant points in this lesson.
Q&A
Q Feedback from visitors to my site varies a lot. Some want my pages to use less
multimedia, whereas others want more. Is there an easy way to satisfy both of
them?
A
You've already learned that you can provide links to external multimedia files. This
is the best approach for visitors who want less multimedia because they won't see
it unless they click the link.
You can also simply ask them which version of your site they want to see. I gener-
ally recommend building a site that works well for users regardless of their connec-
tion speed or browser capabilities, but in some cases it makes sense to create
alternative versions of your site. You can start out with an entry page that allows
