Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates, Fourth Edition

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Chapter 3 ■ Things to Consider Before Beginning
capability than a site designed for a more general audience, such as a momand-pop
shop that sells homemade gift baskets.
3. High-bandwidth functionality versus purely content-driven: Often, the
purpose of a site also allows for a higher bandwidth flexibility. For instance,
an online music store is going to have users with higher bandwidth than a
site that is designed to offer pure text content.
Moderation is the secret in Web design. The three previous examples are not
necessarily excuses for a designer to create a site with a larger download. If there
are technical reasons, for example, to have a higher download for an intranet site,
then that is all right. If the higher download, on the other hand, is the result of a
designer’s adding unnecessary elements because it’s possible, then it is not all
right. Rather than think, ‘‘Wow! This is an intranet, so I can build a site with a
high download,’’ the designer should think, ‘‘If this site is optimized to be as fast
as possible for a slow connection, it is going to be that much faster over an
intranet.’’
The designer should take increasing server and network usage into consideration.
As more people use a site, the usage will take more of a toll on the server.
The smaller a site, the less effect the overall usage will have on the speed of the
site. Play it safe; the designer should always strive to cut as many bits from a site
as possible. This has traditionally been the case, and will continue to be the case
for years to come because of various technologies, such as PDAs, Smartphones,
and Netbooks.
Deciding on Resolution
One of the biggest considerations with Web design is designing for resolution.
Web sites are designed for a certain monitor resolution. Monitors, however, have
varying resolutions that are set independently of the site.
If the user’s monitor resolution does not match the resolution the site was designed
for, the site will appear differently than was originally intended. In other
words, the way a monitor resizes a screen is similar to that of a television set.
Whether a monitor screen size is 17 inches or 30 inches, the content will be
dynamically resized to fill the entire screen the same way, at least horizontally.
However, the problem is that computer monitors, unlike television sets, allow
the user different resolutions. If the resolution of a monitor, for example, is set at
800 640 pixels, a site that is designed for 1024 768 resolution will appear too