Does Your Website Appear Correctly To Everyone?
Overview of this week's e-Newsletter
Does your website look and function correctly on most computers and Internet Browser? (Internet Browser - a program used to view websites, such as Internet Explorer.) A major axiom every website owner should be aware of is that some designs and functions don't always work and display correctly with every computer and Internet Browser. Lack of correctly working functions (for example an online contact form that's not working) or the design/layout not showing up correctly can deter visitors from using your website and possibly your services or products. Therefore this week I'm going to discuss how you can tell if your website is displaying and working correctly, as well as what can be done if it's not.

How We Make Your Site...
Cross-Browser and Multi-Computer Friendly
What we do to ensure your website is cross-browser friendly
Ensuring your website is displaying and functioning correctly plays a big part in development of all of our projects. I actually devote a large amount of project time ensuring a website is displaying and functioning correctly. How is this done? This is accomplished in a two phase fashion. As design and development is being processing the project is simultaneously tested for design and functionality flaws. Then after the design and development is complete the website is run through a check list of known display and functionality problems. Part of that check list includes viewing the website in different Internet Browsers to ensure display and functionality are the same. Any problems found are then corrected.

What You Can Do...
To Make Sure Your Website Appears Correctly
How you can ensure your site is displaying correctly.
There are actually many things that can be done to ensure a website is working and displaying correctly without having to be a web designer or knowing the nomenclature. I have listed below a few choice things you can do right away!

1. Check different Internet Browsers. View your website in different Internet Browsers at the same time. Simply open up each of your internet browsers and go through each page checking the display and functions. If you only have one Internet Browser installed on your computer follow use the links below to download and install another browser type.
   www.getfirefox.com (FireFox)
   www.microsoft.com (Internet Explorer)
   www.apple.com (Safari)
   
   
2. Check the width of the website and pages. Sometimes web pages will view different depending on the computer monitor's screen size. To test this yourself requires changing a few setting on your computer. Simply change the monitor size to simulate what others might see in different screen size. For help changing your screen size: window / mac.
   
   
3. Check different computers. Lastly you can check your site by view it on two or more different computers. Specifically you want to check the width of the pages and the overall display on both computers. Also you many notice colors appear different between computer, this is due to the computer monitor quality. Viewing the color differences is also important but is usually not something that can be changed/fixed, because the problem is actually with the monitor not the website. If you don't have more than 1 computer you can always ask a friend to use their's or even go to your local library.
   

What if you found a few things that need fixed?
If you found a few things that need fixed you'll most likely need a web designer to make the necessary corrections to your website. (In the event you're not sure if it needs fixed email us and we can review it for you.) Changes that involve page width issues or simple positioning issues are usually fixed relatively easily. Please let us know if you need something corrected.

If you have basic web design skills Google CSS to learn more about design changes you can do.

Final Words
Ending comments
I hope this week's topic was useful and provide you with some references from which you can judge your website and future work that might be done it. As always, look for next weeks newsletter where we hope to provide you with more useful tips and advice. If you have any suggestions about topics you would like to hear more about please send us an email with your thoughts.