Use Any Browser -- by Design! Page of Sonoff Consulting Services, Inc.'s Productivity and Knowledge Transfer Web Site
The major headings provided on this Use Any Browser -- by Design! page are listed immediately below:
NOTE: Relevant hyperlinks are included within the associated paragraphs to make your browsing session productive and all the more enjoyable.
What makes the Scsi P&KT Web Site Unique?
The fundamental answer to this question is Scsi's achievement of 100% accessibility, and this unique fact is clearly attributable to deliberate adherence to Scsi's "Perfect 10" Web Site Standard.
To see the overall picture of what is stated above, select the image immediately below -- if present -- to view or download a full-page Adobe PDF diagram that provides hyperlinks to each of Scsi's "Perfect 10" Web Site Best Practices for your convenience.
In what ways can 100% accessibility be demonstrated? Listed below are just three specific examples of Scsi's ten Best Practices for Usability and Accessibility that every World Class Level Web site should provide its visitors -- and that you will learn firsthand apply to each and every Web page within the Scsi P&KT Web site:
- One significant facet of approaching 100% accessibility is exemplified by Best Practice #2: Every Web page is viewable with any type of browser.
- Another key facet of accessibility is illustrated by Best Practice #4: Every Web page's navigation always remains under user control, thereby allowing use of any combination of keyboard, mouse, or other pointing devices as hyperlink selection tools.
- A third key facet of accessibility is reflected in Best Practice #3: Every Web page incorporates meaningful, descriptive 'balloon help' text for every hyperlink (both text- and graphics-based). Additional details on the first two areas of accessibility are provided below.
Browser Independence
The fundamental underlying Web site design objective for the Scsi P&KT Web site is and will always remain as follows: To provide for 100% accessibility -- regardless of the particular means by which a visitor ultimately gets to the Scsi P&KT Web site.
Ubiquitous Web Access is exemplified through Scsi's P&KT Web Site
The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) "Ubiquitous Web Domain" reference document contains a definition similar to Scsi's Working Definition of Universal Web Accessibility and Web Usability. Stated simply, Ubiquitous Web Access is designed into Scsi's Web site -- through adherence to Scsi's "Perfect 10" Web Site Standard with its underlying set of ten Best Practices that every "World Class Level" Web site should strive to provide its visitors, prospects, customers, clients, and users.
Consider the various combinations listed below as examples of what can be employed to clearly and convincingly demonstrate Scsi's claim of universal Web accessibility (commonly referred to as Ubiquitous Web Access):
- Any Web browser involving any versions of vendors' products (for example, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, AOL's browser, Mozilla's Mozilla, SeaMonkey, and Firefox, Flock's browser, Apple's Safari, Netscape browsers, Opera's browser, Yahoo's browser, and W3C's Amaya browser, among others)
- Any of the small screen rendering (SSR) Internet-ready devices, such as cell phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and smartphones
- Any text mode-only Web browser (an emulation of which can be found on DJ Deloire's Lynx viewer Web page).
- Capability for ready access to and navigation easily among any and all Web pages and hyperlinks anywhere within the entire Scsi P&KT Web site.
- Navigation and access always allows for use of either the keyboard, the mouse (or other pointing devices), or any combinations of such tools to get the job done according to how the user prefers to perform these actions.
NOTE: If you are interested in finding out more about this "Any Browser Campaign" topic, visit Cari D. Burstein's Viewable with Any Browser Web site.
Please read on because there's more to be said and demonstrated everywhere within the Scsi P&KT Web site itself.
Hyperlink access any way you want to go about it -- mouse-only, keyboard-only, trackball, or any other pointing device, or any possible combination of the aforementioned.
In fact, if you are one of the majority who actually does prefer to navigate and access hyperlinks by pressing mouse buttons -- rather than making keyboard-based selections (e.g., use of the Tab and Enter keys) to reach any particular hyperlink on a Web page or to make a button selection, that's fine, too.
So, what is the point? The Scsi P&KT Web site can handle any combination of possible preferences, thereby allowing any visitor to have it his or her way at all times.
To find out more about how these things can and have been achieved here, please read on.
What's Wrong with other Web Sites?
Sticking to a WYSIWYG Way of Doing Web Site Development
Amazingly enough, nearly all Web sites that you've visited to date -- including highly prestigious brand name companies we all know about and respect -- must have been created by Web design/development/implementation personnel who really have not done their homework in order to assure "getting it done correctly" in the first place.
- Unfortunately, it definitely appears that most companies, regardless of size or financial resources available, continue to make what Scsi considers to be unwise Web page-related design/implementation/coding decisions, perhaps in the name of programming convenience, glitz, or whatever that fail to adequately consider either Web usability or accessibility factors along with their attendant negative effects on their company's costs of doing business.
- Examples abound of problematic situations created by many Web developers, and in particular by those who apparently rely upon using What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) HTML editing tools.
Taking this approach often results in generation of associated JavaScript-based Web page navigation schemes that inherently prove to be self-limiting. Why? Because their Web page scripting sections will almost always contain mouse device-dependent programming attributes. This fact in turn requires mouse-based actions be performed by the user for their completion to occur -- e.g., in order to gain access to whatever type(s) of multiple-layer menu selections that are so created -- a navigational approach (read: nightmare for the less-than-brain-surgeon-dexterous user) that Scsi dislikes in particular and considers to be an unsound design approach overall.
Failing to Focus on the Summarial Objective -- 100% Accessible Web Pages
As will be outlined in the following sub-sections, in contrast to the above-outlined situation for most companies, such examples of accessibility-related limitations are never employed for the Scsi P&KT Web site.
In effect, visitors should not be concerned about even the possibility for encountering such self-imposed limitations either now or at any time in the future within the Scsi P&KT Web site.
What Underlying Objectives Apply throughout the Scsi P&KT Web Site?
Fundamentally, burdening a Web design with overhead, assumptions, and unrealistic inferences should always be minimized. Less is truly more. Listed below are three topics that are reflected in Scsi's "Perfect 10" Web Site Standard design considerations and which will always apply throughout the entire Scsi P&KT Web site:
- Adhere to a KISS Philosophy
- Maximize Overall Accessibility
- Provide for 100% Markup Validation Testing
Adhere to a KISS Philosophy
"Less is more." That pretty much sums up why Scsi has chosen to apply the "Keep It Simple, Sonoff!" (KISS) philosophy to the overall design underlying the presentation of Web pages on the Scsi P&KT Web site.
Questions and Answers
As part of working toward implementation of the KISS philosophy, Scsi concentrated on not only asking but also answering just two fundamental questions:
- Is a specific "element X" -- for example, JavaScript, ActiveX, Java applets or servlets, dynamic HTML, etc. -- r-e-a-l-l-y necessary?
- Will either the use -- or the deliberate omission -- of any particular "element X" adversely impact accessibility for Web site visitors?
For each such instance in question, the correct answer always had to center upon satisfying one overriding consideration, namely: If an element is judged to be non-essential, then don't make use of it in the underlying Web design.
Element-by-Element Process of Elimination Results
So, this deliberate decision to a [KISS] philosophy is manifested by the following suite of facts -- all collectively applicable throughout the entire Web site:
- No JavaScript is ever used.
- No Java Applets or Servlets are ever used.
- No ActiveX or unnecessary plug-in elements are ever used.
- No Dynamic HTML elements are ever used.
Sophisticated Approaches Were Purposely Sacrificed
To readily achieve these reductions in programmatic options, some deliberate 'sacrifices' were made, including the following:
- No use of rollover images
- No scrolling text
- No animated images
- No Flash-, shock wave-, or video/audio streaming-based presentations
- No requirements for any associated specialized plug-ins
- ... etc. -- You get the idea (read: "K-I-S-S" -- Keep-It-Simple-Sonoff -- whenever possible).
How can sacrificing all of these powerful elements be done while still 'delivering all the desired goods' to every Web site visitor?
Amazing Benefits of Adopting Simplification
The explanation is truly both simple and elegant: As part of keeping things simple, only 'plain vanilla' HTML- and CSS-based source coding -- coupled with adherence to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)-based standards -- is employed for each and every Web page's contents.
Remarkably -- if not surprisingly to most persons -- is that is precisely what makes the adopted approach so universal in its applicability. Amazingly simple reason, isn't it?
Maximize Overall Accessibility
From the outset, Scsi decided to maximize accessibility to the Scsi P&KT Web site by adopting three specific stances:
- Avoid use of any Web browser-specific source code statements.
- Avoid using any design element that would restrict the user's choices in Web browser configurations.
- Avoid omitting any design element that would similarly restrict the user from navigating throughout the Web site.
To optimize Web usability-related factors, a purposeful choice was made to assiduously architect each Web page's source code so that it would always pass W3C-based markup validation tests.
Moreover, proof of concept, interactivity, and learning benefits on behalf of each and every Web site visitor, prospect, customer, client, and user are ever present, namely: three distinct validation testing-related choices -- (X)HTML; CSS; and WCAG recommendations -- are always included on this and on every other Web page within the Scsi P&KT Web site.
Provide for 100% Markup Validation Testing
Via convenient "Test-This-Page" Hyperlinks on each and every page of the Scsi P&KT Web Site
You can easily "W3C validation standard" test each and every Scsi P&KT Web page's HTML source code, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) source code, or Accessibility (Section 508/WAI).
How? Just select the corresponding hyperlink -- provided under the "Web Page Validation and Contact Information" section located near the bottom of each Scsi P&KT Web page -- corresponding to the test you want to execute. Repeat as desired for other selections until you are done with your testing, then select the Back button as many times as are necessary until the Scsi P&KT Web site page on which you began your tests appears.
Via "Fill in the URL address" for any other accessible Web Site's Pages
In a similar manner, you can also access the W3C's publicly accessible tools to test any other accessible Web site's pages of your choosing. To do this, select one of the three Web standards validation hyperlinks provided on Scsi's Tips and Notes page.
Within that validation testing window, you will need to make whatever corresponding field entries or selections are necessary to properly set up the test conditions and then select the associated button to initiate that specific W3C-based test. When you finish examining the displayed test results, select the Back button until the Tips and Notes Web page reappears.
Web Page Validation and Contact Information
This Use Any Browser -- by Design! Page of Sonoff Consulting Services, Inc.'s Productivity and Knowledge Transfer Web Site was validated -- to assure full conformance to W3C's XHTML 1.0 Strict, screen medium cascading style sheet (CSS), and WCAG Accessibility (Priorities 1, 2, and 3, inclusive) recommendations -- and uploaded on Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. EDT by Raymond Sonoff, President of Sonoff Consulting Services, Inc., 271 Saxony Drive, Crestview Hills, KY 41017 USA: Telephone: (859) 261-5908.
Remember: If you have some questions to ask, wish to request additional information about specific topics, or want to send a request for proposal, Scsi will always welcome your inquiries and respond promptly -- often the very same day -- to your e-mail communications --  .
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