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11/18/2001 Entry: "18-Nov-2001 -- The Web Designer's Toolkit (What to buy, and why)"

The Web Designer's Toolkit (What to buy, and why) -- "Rather than go into the relative merits of Macs and PCs, which usually ends up in something like a religious war, let's look at the actual requirements of a Web designer's toolkit."

Replies: 4 comments

It doesn't matter whether you design on a Mac or Windows system? Say again?

Hands-down you design on a Windows PC because 90+ percent of your audience is on Windows w/IE (unless you manage a Mac or Linux-oriented site) and there are display differences between Windows and Mac. So you simply should be designing through the eyes of the majority of your audience, and testing your work on the lesser platforms - not the other way around.

Posted by JS @ 11/19/2001 12:08 AM EST

JS, I don't think it matters on what platform you're designing on, as long as the design is properly tested on all platforms.

Posted by Francis @ 11/19/2001 10:25 AM EST

But if you acknowledge the display differences between platforms you must also acknowledge that your site looks better on one platform vs. another... not good vs. bad, just a marginally better appearance on a particular platform.

That "best" presentation is going to be on the platform that you are designing on of course. So why would you use a Mac or Linux if 90 percent of your audience is on Windows?

Time and time again I talk to Mac designers who are slightly surprised when they see their sites on Wintel PCs. Sure, they tested their layout in Wintel, but they haven't looked at the pages day-in and day-out on Wintel. It's very clear to me that they prefer the "best" presentation that they designed for when they were on their Macintosh.

Posted by JS @ 11/19/2001 12:11 PM EST

In retrospect, I usually don't worry about the platform screwing things up for me. The only thing I really worry about are Netscape's shortcomings in terms of how it interprets the code. If I had a penny for each time I have to deal with Netscape's crap, I'd be workin' on a Mac instead of a PC :).

Posted by Francis @ 11/19/2001 04:50 PM EST

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