Have you ever visited a Web site that looked, well … strange? Something about it just wasn't right. The design was well done but it just didn't seem to fit the screen. It happens quite a bit. The cause is lack of attention on the designer's part.

I used to come across this problem almost every time I looked around the web. I would get to a web site that has a nice design, but I could not see everything without scrolling sideways with the bottom scrollbar in my browser! The reason is that the highest screen resolution my old monitor would support was 800x600 pixels. (It was an old monitor). There are also many other surfers out there who have older monitors or video cards. If you have a large target audience, you will want everyone to be able to read the page easily.

One of the most challenging things a Web designer faces is designing a site that looks good on everyone's computer screen. Because there are so many different browsers, and because each surfer can have their monitor set to a different screen size, the designer must pay attention to how the pages will look in a variety of situations.

Are Your Colors Safe?

Mac's and PC's both use different color palettes, however they have 216 colors that are common to both. These 216 colors are considered to be "Web safe" colors. Using the 216 Web safe colors means that your colors will look fairly consistent on different computer platforms (Mac or PC), different operating systems (Windows or Mac), as well as different browsers (Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, to name two). As a side note, any graphics created for the Web, such as logos or buttons should also use the 216 Web safe colors.