Web Development Standards - Best Practices

For better or for worse, everyone developing web sites at UCLA abides by different rules. For those of us who build for public consumption, what are the best practices — considerate of time and maintenance limitations — to get a little closer to building better, lasting sites? How does the audience to your site play into adjusting the standards, from playing it old school to going cutting edge? Where does the CMS solution play a role in separating content editors from designers and programmers?

PROGRAMMING

DESIGN

  • Page Layout
  • Typography
  • Width / Screen Resolutions
    • 800×600 vs. 1024×768+ (or users with resolutions > 744 vs. > 968, the widths minus the worst-case scenario browser chrome width of 56px)
    • 960px Width
    • Strict vs. Elastic
  • Graphics
  • Browser Testing
    • The Top 70%: IE 6, Firefox 1.X
    • The Middle 20%: IE 7, Firefox 2
    • The Bottom 10%: Safari, IE 5.5 / 5.0, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, Camino…
    • Backwards compatibility until…

STRATEGY

Additional Resources

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