Sam Hutchinson said ...
>
> There is a debate raging here in Chester,
>
> What should the minimum level browser be specified as?
> I was wondering if others had experienced this debate?
I think there are 2 angles on this one:
1 - While you may desire a "standard" web browser - and possibly for
reasons other than your web pages (eg. user support), you will have to
look at the associated cost of doing this for the institution. Here it
would appear we have a "breakpoint" between older PCs which cannot
really cope with anything beyond Win 95/Netscape 3 and more recent
machines which can handle the latest browsers. To enforce use of a post
Netscape 3 browser would entail a signficant cost on some departments in
terms of machine upgrades.
2 - "Minimum browser spec." should not be an issue in web site design
(OK, with perhaps some special exceptions for targetted audiences
only!). Good website design is compliant with HTML standards, and should
work with any compliant browser. If you are using more recent features,
eg. javascript, CSS etc., then it is your task as a designer to ensure
that the website "degrades gracefully" on old spec browsers - by this I
mean you offer (and fairly transparently) alternate means of doing the
same things. You may be legally required to do this (this September?)
due to Disability legislation which basically states your info needs to
be accessible to disabled users. So for example, your site may need to
work with a text only browser such as Lynx. See
http://www.disinhe.ac.uk/
fo info and advice.
Cheers.
Colin
--
_________________________________________________
Colin K. Work, Information Resources Manager
Computing Services
University of Southampton
email [log in to unmask]
tel. (023) 8059 3090 (direct line)
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