The web design challenge

The diversity of devices

One of the skills a web designer needs is the ability to put themselves into the shoes of the website visitor. Web designers have to think about what their visitors know, what they will expect the website to do, and how they will expect it to work.

The most basic part of this is understanding the range of different devices that people might use to view your website. These include:

A desktop computer, laptop or netbook

An Android phone, iPhone or other handheld device

A tablet device, such as an iPad

An cell phone with a small screen and keypad

A screenreader, which reads web pages aloud to blind people

A refreshable Braille display, which a blind person can run their fingers along to read the website content

A games console, such as the PlayStation, Nintendo Wii or Nintendo 3DS

When we use the word "design", we tend to think of something visual. But, in its purest sense, a website isn't necessarily a visual medium. Somebody using a screenreader might experience it as a stream of spoken text. Some handheld devices with small screens include a mode to switch off the layout and just view the content, so that it fits better in the space available.

While you do need your website to look appealing, it's a mistake to think that you can (or should) focus purely on the look of a website. Some of the most important work in web design goes on behind the scenes, where the visitors can't see it. It's about adding meaning to the web page, so that people can use it easily even if their device doesn't support all the features available on a desktop computer.

The challenge of web design is to create a site that is engaging and easy to use, whatever is used to view it. Visitors want the flexibility to use whichever device they prefer. Sometimes they will combine devices, using a desktop during their lunch break at work and a mobile on the way home, for example. All they care about is whether the site works or not. It's your job to make sure it does.

How devices affect design

Different devices have different capabilities, and this should inform the decisions you make while designing your website. For example:

There might be no support for pictures (or "graphics") on the device. A screenreader and Braille display can't show images, and mobile devices sometimes enable users to switch them off to speed up their browsing.

There might be no conventional keyboard. It puts everyone off if they have to type in lots of information to use a website, but those who have to use a virtual keyboard on their touchscreen might be especially deterred.

The website animation technology Flash might not be supported. The iPhone and iPad don't use Flash, and nonvisual devices (such as screenreaders) can't render it either.

There might be no mouse. Some users struggle to use a mouse because of physical impairment, and some devices (including games consoles and netbooks) don't have a mouse. If you demand precise use of a mouse, you might lose visitors.

There is a wide range of screen sizes. Even on a desktop computer, people will have different sized monitors and will open the browser window to different widths, depending on what else they're doing at the same time as web browsing. Designers tend to have large monitors, but they shouldn't forget that most of their audience have to settle for smaller screens.

Devices differ in how much of the web page can be seen at once. Mobile devices might provide a small picture of the whole web page with little detail, so users can identify the content to zoom in on. Clear headings are important to help users navigate to the section they should read. Users with poor vision sometimes use screen magnifiers to massively enlarge a small part of the screen. If people are zoomed in on one part of the page, they can't see any updates you make to a different part of it.

A screenreader user can't get a quick overview of what's on the page by skim-reading it: while a PC screen is twodimensional, a screenreader has a one dimensional interface: a stream of audio reading the web page aloud.

The web browser challenge

As well as the differences in hardware used to visit websites, people often have a choice over which software they use. On a desktop computer, they might be using Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Apple's Safari browser. They might have downloaded Google's Chrome browser or the Firefox browser.

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