Have you ever been to a website of a person or company that says they develop websites and yet there is something off with their site?
I’m thinking of those sites that you have to scroll down past a big gaping space because they couldn’t take the time to get their spacing right. They want you to buy their services and yet they can’t make their own site look right. I’ve seen it in a couple of places recently. It really bugs me.
Wait, I know,they might be optimized for one type of browser or another. I understand that proper html, css, javascript code and all that doesn’t usually work the same in all the browsers. I have had to write some really good tweaks to make a site look the way I want. And when I do, I think look at the site in at least two major browsers and sometimes four. The machine I’m writing this on has three browsers on it. I have another that has five. It’s not that hard to open your site in all those browsers and make sure the code works.
Oh, and then, while you’re at it, resized your browser window. Not everyone runs their browser in full screen mode. I know I don’t. It is a very rare case when I do and it’s usually because someone with poorer sight than mine is looking at something with me. Pages that are written for a certain size or a certain resolution don’t look right when they are on a machine that uses different settings. Just because you have a mondo size screen and can run your resolution at 1680 x 1440 or whatever the setting is, doesn’t mean that the rest of us can or even do if we can.
These things just really disturb me. I don’t think it takes that much more effort to make it look right. And if you are a person selling your skills as a web site developer and your page looks like that…well, I would be thinking really hard about whether I want you to develop my website. And run spell check. I forget to sometimes when I’m writing these articles. If you are getting paid to put something up on the web for someone, run spell check. If your software you use to write pages doesn’t have it then cut and paste it into a word or open office text document and run it there.
If you are getting paid to write someone’s web page, you are a professional. You should be turning out professional level work and demonstrating professional level standards. That means the site shows up properly in a variety of web browsers, it displays properly in a variety of sizes and resolutions, and you don’t misspell obvious things. (Note: I did look up misspell with the spell checker.)
As you can tell, this really bugs me. I try not to be guilty of it. I occaisionally miss a word when I’m writing or setting up a menu item. I go back and fix it as soon as I see it, or someone points it out. I try to make my sites show properly in most browsers and resolutions. These are the small details that really make a site look like it was purposely developed instead of thrown out on the web as an after thought.
I’ll get down off my soapbox now. Anyone else want to step up onto it?
Cheers.
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
