Ironically, simple yet often overlooked techniques and universal standards exist that would allow a designer to satisfy not only their "optimized" audience, but also the rest of the audience in nearly all cases. And reaching and attracting a wider audience is one of the goals -- if not the goal -- of having a World Wide Web site in the first place. Isn't it?

The adopted standard language of the Web is HTML 2.0 with HTML 3.2 a finished recommendation and HTML 4.0 now also a finished recommendation. Information about these standards and recommendations can be found at the World Wide Web Consortium site at http://www.w3.org/. Some of the more knowledgeable Web authors and designers think of the HTML 2.0 standard as the cake, and certain useful HTML extensions and higher level recommended HTML 3.2 and 4.0 as the icing. They warn, however, one must place the icing on the cake carefully and artfully, otherwise, one might ruin the cake for those incapable of digesting this icing. If, however, one places the icing on artfully, then the cake should be edible by all. Still, too many designers practice proprietary and exclusionary techniques blindly, that often render the cake inedible for some, even though equally powerful, yet more universal standards and techniques would have accomplished the same task without denigrating the clarity or usefulness of the site for others.

Moreover, print image designers had few constraints placed on them with regard to the images they created. For the most part, the size of the image files and their corresponding image downloading and rendering times were irrelevant. Regardless of how large or complex an image, print images are viewable instantaneously by the viewer. This is untrue on the Web, however. Some designers by habit, lack of knowledge or for some other priority still focus too little on creating maximally efficient and speedy images for viewers. Slim and speedy images can be crucial to the success of a Web site. If a designer were to create a potentially award-winning image and only a small portion of the audience had the patience to wait to see it render, how much value would that image contribute to a site? At best it would contribute very little value. In fact, it could take away from the site's value. On the Web, in most cases, few will wait but a moment for a page and image to render!

"Few will wait but a moment
for a page and image to render."

Sure, one's relatives might wait, if they know they will see beloved nephew Johnny. Or others might wait, if they are guaranteed to see an image of their fantasy person performing their fantasy deed. Typically, however, long rendering times can significantly narrow a site's audience. And techniques exist (often unused) to squeeze the fat out of slow rendering, bloated images, typically without altering their appearance. Granted, your designer and those in the on-line business might have speedy, leading edge modems and special communications lines, but the general public does not. So if your site is aimed at the general public, they must craft images and image sizes for viewing at the basic 14,400 BPS modem speed. Many seasoned Web page builders recommend keeping images below 20k on a page unless you warn viewers in advance. No one appreciates staring endlessly or repeatedly at a blank screen waiting for an image to render.

Navigational Aids Keep Visitors Exploring Your Site

Lastly, awkward navigational aids also can cause a site to lose viewers. These aids are the means by which visitors travel from page-to-page and within a page at a site. In print, movement is simple: readers turn pages with thumb and forefinger in a linear fashion. Web site navigation, however, can be more complex and, therefore, usually requires built-in design techniques that allow viewers quickly and easily to discover what is available to them at your site and allow them to be able to get at it quickly and easily. Efficient navigational techniques, therefore, can keep viewers at your site and prevent them from leaving prematurely.

If "non-world-wide" design techniques are causing you to lose 33%, 15%, or even just 5% of your potential audience unnecessarily, are you getting full return on your Web site investment dollars? Moreover, exclusionary or limiting-audience HTML tags and techniques at your site, may come back to haunt you in other ways. Suppose your boss or boss's boss were to view your site from their "unoptimized" home computer and your site's warts were to show to them there? Suppose they were to find the same situation on their friend's "unoptimized" home computer? Then later, they also found it to be true at the computer at the public library? They would begin to wonder about the value of that Web site to their business? A major concern would be that the exclusionary nature of the site was not only causing visitors to turn away from the Web site, but also causing them to be turned off to the company itself.

Many who are aware this problem exists, do not realize that many of these "non-world-wide" design techniques are avoidable about 90% of the time without losing "optimized" features for those capable of viewing them.

Some designers will opine (due to lack of knowledge or experience), that if one wants the best and most advanced site, a "small" portion of one's audience will have to be excluded in whole or in part from the presentation. Do 3,000,000 Web viewers sound "small" to you? This is a number that is excluded as a result of one widely used Web markup tag and technique. And in this case and similar cases, equally powerful, yet more universal techniques would allow more visitors to receive the intended message.

Widen Your Audience Using Universal Techniques

Even at the largest and most technically advanced sites, site owners could widen their audience by using more universal techniques instead of using ill-crafted exclusionary or proprietary techniques. Why exclude and/or offend a portion of your audience unnecessarily? Moreover, if such a site is left as is, eventually, someone "important" may fall into the cracks of the site enough times, come away bruised, and want to know, "who's responsible?"

To the credit of some Web designers, they attempt to solve this problem by creating two versions of each Web page, a "low-tech" version and a "high-tech" version. Multiple page versions, however, mean higher development and maintenance costs. Again, in about 90% of cases, one well-designed page could serve both audiences.

So, contrary to popular belief one does not have to lose a portion of one's audience to use advanced design techniques. To ensure you're not excluding a part of your audience and you are catering to the widest possible audience, use non-proprietary Web markup language (HTML) whenever possible, use slim graphics with alternative text descriptions, and machine validate your Web markup language (HTML). Moreover, do not stick your head in the sand: view your Web pages on a variety of platforms (Windows, Mac, etc.), on various browsers, at various display resolution sizes and color settings. Browser software in wide use on which you may want to view and check your Web pages includes: the America On-Line Web browser, CompuServe's Browser, Netscape's Navigator (versions 1.22, 2.x, 3.x and 4.x), NCSA Mosaic 3.x, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.x and 4.x, Opera, and Lynx.