To play devil's advocate here for a moment:
If you design Web pages using any one Web browser -- in Windows or on a
Mac -- you're headed for trouble. This is a normal mistake for a new
designer to make: build the page so it looks great on YOUR system, then
discover it looks awful (or doesn't work) for other people.
This problem is sometimes amplified on the Mac for several reasons:
- default text on some Mac browsers is 72 dpi compared to 96 dpi for
Windows
- colour issues: colours other than the 216 Web-safe ones look fine on
a Mac but look awful ("different" at least) in Windows
- fonts that come free on new Macs -- especially OS X -- are not
present on most other machines (including OS 9 machines)
- poor support for Java on Mac (until recent update to OS X)
- many Mac users are anti-Microsoft, and avoid Internet Explorer
- Netscape 4.x is one of the WORST browsers when it comes to W3C.org
Web standards, but one of the best / most useful for Mac OS 9 users
Bottom line here is not that Macs are worse for Web design, but that any
page you build on a Mac MUST be tested on several different Windows
browsers (ideally in more than one flavour of Windows) for you to
understand how your page behaves and is perceived to the other 90% - 95%
of the Web's population!
Mac designers must use IE and Netscape 6 and Netscape 4 and Mozilla and
iCab and Opera, etc. to test their pages. They must also fire up a
Windows machine (and/or Virtual PC) and test their pages in IE5 and IE6
and Mozilla and Netscape 6 and Netscape 4...
The issue, then, is not really a Mac issue -- it's the arrogant
assumption made by many beginning Web designers that every user has the
same hardware/software/bandwidth as the designer. Of course this isn't
true -- designers must always test their pages on other platforms to see
what the experience is like. (Depending on your target audience, you
might also need to test the page with a 28.8 modem or a WebTV box or a
cell phone...)
Since a vast majority of the Web's audience uses Windows, a Windows-only
design inconveniences a relatively small group of users, and the site
owner may not care about them. In contrast, a Mac-only design may
inconvenience or alienate the MAJORITY of your potential audience.
A design that works in Windows can bully the user into matching its
technical specs. It's not a good idea, but it's a common problem. (e.g.
"This page looks best in IE6 on a new Dell P4 with 512 MB of RAM running
Windows XP Professional. Also, get Shockwave, Windows Media Player
RealAudio and more RAM before proceeding.") If you build a site that
only looks good on a Mac, you're going to have a hard time convincing
visitors to "upgrade to a new Mac running OS X before proceeding."
(Forcing Windows users to install QuickTime is as big a mistake as
forcing Mac users to install Windows Media Player.)
In summary, there *are* compatibility issues to doing Web page design on
a Mac -- the same compatibility issues that face designers using
Windows. But thanks to Windows' market dominance, Mac designers have to
pay more attention or they get slapped.
I hope that helps.
McMe
--
Sandy McMurray, Managing Editor
GROUNDED: Tech stuff in plain language
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