Where do you start (6)?

Back

• Why does my web site look different on different machines? - Not everyone appreciates the constraints that the medium of the web has just because of the way it operates. This may not apply to you but the following may help.
• I have a newspaper delivered daily. If you go to the newsagents today and buy a copy of the same paper, and compare it with my copy it will be the same. And, no matter how much you look at it during the day the content and layout will remain the same. This is because the editor has complete control over layout and printing and delivers the completed product.
• A news web-site, however, changes through the day. This is because the editor controls content but delivers it over a telephone line to the user's computer, and it is this computer that renders the page. How it does so depends upon the user's computer - age, make, operating system, browser, screen, location in a room etc.
• The following illustrates this.
• Mr and Mrs Geek live with their 4 year old son Master Geek. I telephone the Geek household. Mrs Geek answers. I ask her to stand and hold her hand in the air. She does so and her husband observes this. A little later I telephone and Master Geek answers. I ask him to stand and hold his hand in the air. He does so, watched by his father. Both mother and son had the same instructions over the telephone line, but what Mr Geek sees depends on how each person renders the instruction. Mrs Geek is taller and holds her left hand in the air. Master Geek is smaller and holds his right hand in the air. Both are correct, but Mr Geek sees a different image dependant on who answers the phone. The internet is the same. A Mac will render pages different from a PC. Internet Explorer is different from Firefox. A flat screen shows colours differently from a cathode ray tube. And a screen in the sun will be washed out compared to a screen in a darkened room. Consequently a web page will never be as accurate as a printed page. What appears on my computer may look completely different on your computer.
• And then you have to cope with a user's preferences. Every site has to be made accessible to cope with the Disability Discrimination Act, and so text has to be able to be made larger. If you go to our accessibility page and read the second paragraph you will see what I mean. If you change your computer's settings in that way on that page you will see how it can change. Some people will have their computer permanently set like that because of failing eyesight. And some will not view a screen at all because it will be read by a screen reader.