Post Archive
› June 28, 2003
Designing with MOSe in mind
In the wake of the discussion about the future of webdesign (e.g. here at webgraphics) after the announcement that IE6sp1 will probably be the final standalone version of Microsoft's browser, interesting ideas are taking shape. Over at Mezzoblue, Dave Shea proposes his MOSe approach and similar voices can be heard in other corners of the web.
The idea is that webdesigners should develop pages that look good in IE6, and add extra (extra, not crucial) functionality for Mozilla/Opera/Safari users, by means of advanced CSS2 and CSS3 rules. An excellent idea, I think. The mini-icons on this site, Pixy's hierarchical menus or maybe even last week's sidenotes can be seen as experimental steps in this direction.
In this context, I've been thinking about the ideal designing process for accomplishing this task; even more than before, it sounds like a good idea to 1. design for IE6 and 2. tweak your design and add extra functionality for MOS. Doing it the other way around (designing for MOS, tweaking for IE) might result in endless back and forth checking between several browsers, in my opinion.
Any thoughts, refreshing ideas about MOSe or the ideal designing process?
Comments
1. June 28, 2003 11:42 AM
2. June 28, 2003 01:50 PM
Sander Posted…
Of course it depends on if you know your visitors don't use macIE, but generally I'd strongly recommended to support macIE, even if only for all pre-OSX business users, who have no other choice. As you know (last time i checked it was 30%?) loads of macs still use a preOSX environment. Also many people might not be aware of Camino and Safari (although less for safari) or might not like them.3. June 29, 2003 06:48 AM
Lon Posted…
I still think it's strange you would willingly disadvantage 90% of your potential visitors... The examples mentioned can all be accomplished in IE6. So, if you think they are important to your visitors, why not make sure (almost) all of them have access to them. By just adding some (generic) JavaScript now and then none of the issues I have heard/read until now would be a problem in IE6. Take a look at something a (new) collegue of mine has made: http://home.hccnet.nl/f.abbing/hover/nohtc.html. It's in dutch, but that shouldn't matter. It's a small JavaScript adding ':hover-pseudo-class'-capabilities to IE. This would be a perfect solution to the side-notes, as well as hierarchical menus problem. A solution for the mini-icons is easy as well. You just have to show some flexibility of the mind. I think you have to ask yourself for whom you are designing your web pages. Are you doing it for yourself or for your visitors? If you are doing it for yourself then you can easily ignore 90% of the web population and just go on and do things the academical 'right' way. If you want to offer your visitors the best user-experience possible you will have to do your best and sometimes set design principles aside and be a bit more pragmatic.4. June 29, 2003 10:10 AM
Stephane Posted…
I just started to make page in XHTML/CSS and I though it was a good idea, the announcement of Microsoft made me rethink my choice. I came to the conclusion that I will continue to code for the newest browser and tweak as little as I can for Explorer. I might even put a warning about Explorer, a little bit like the beginning of the web, remember the best viewed with...5. June 29, 2003 10:59 AM
Andreas Posted…
First a reaction on a related post at adot's notblog. Asa points out that it might be better to take version 5 browsers as the baseline instead of IE6. Good point, but as WinIE5/5.5's CSS support is rather buggy and incomplete, doing so might impose serious constraints on your design.
Second. Sander and huphtur are right about MacIE5. My mistake I didn't mention it. So maybe better put it as 1. design for IE (with WinIE5/5.5 or WinIE6 as baseline and assuring your design looks good in MacIE5, too) and 2. tweak and add extras for MOS.
Third. Lon, I am aware that certain CSS features can be replaced with JavaScript and I agree that for a commercial site, the JavaScript solution is probably the best solution. On weblogs and other non-commercial sites however, there's room for some MOSe experimenting, I think. Like that, designers can play around with the possibilities CSS2 and CSS3 offer, without alienating their readers (<blunt_statement>of whom probably a substantial part is using something else than IE6</blunt_statement>). I think the first-IE-then-MOS way of designing I suggest exactly shows that I do care about IE users. Their experience is first taken care of (let's say by means of css1 and some css2 selectors), then the focus shifts to other browsers (by means of advanced css2 and css3 selectors). But again, for commercial sites for which an identical user experience is important, it is better to be pragmatic.
huphtur Posted…
im working on a site redesign, and was using the MOSe approach (gotta love that term) and yes, i was also going to use the pure css menus. as an extra treat for people with 'real' browsers. and finally i'm completely ditching design for macIE.