Datasheet

FUTURE-PROOF WEB DESIGN
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understanding the needs of your audience can tell you a lot about their speci c require-
ments or about non-issues that may in uence decisions to build or postpone the imple-
mentation (see Figure 1-9).
Figure 1-9: If a site primarily attracts users of desktop browsers, you could postpone the  exible
upgrade.
If you were to produce a site purely for consumers of Apple products, you would probably
question the need for a stress-testing spree to try out the site with as many emulators,
browsers, and devices as possible. On the other hand, making your site as  exible as pos-
sible is important, but there isn’t really much point in spending the next year and three
months scaling your site to be in line with every potential variable. Let your users and
their needs determine the level of  exibility and whether you can a ord to cut corners.
Consideration #2: Rigid versus fluid
You can lay out content in di erent ways. In one camp, you have the grounded, rigid units
of measurement that can cause unpleasant horizontal scrolling when the available space
doesn’t match the demands of the interface (think  xed designs using pixel widths). In
the other camp, you have  uid designs that are pleasing, until there’s too much or too
little assigned space (causing occasional spillages or over ow from scrolling). In both
cases, entire layouts can break if the equations don’t add up.
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