How to ensure everyone can get your information

Certain interests see the web as a commercial arena where there is money to be made by continually upping the stakes with new (often platform specific) features, requiring new soft- and hard-ware to get to the content

The users are an unpredictable lot who just want to get to the content without a lot of fuss (strangely enough, pretty much what HTML was meant for).

Granting there are certain things that text cannot do (like the geometry lesson or the java-powered visible human project), there are ways to compromise and convey most of the content out there relatively painlessly.

Tips for designers:

• Know the HTML specs. Follow them where possible.
• Validate your pages.
• Make reasonably-sized documents, that is, less than 50K
• Carefully weigh content. Is it really critical? Could it be represented in a simpler way? Is it helpful or distracting?
• Identify your audience. Is your information critical for users worldwide, or is it only going to appeal to a tiny group?
• Provide alternate pages - if you are going to take the time to do fancy stuff, you can take a little more time to make a text version. use your web server to dynamically redirect browsers to the appropriate page or provide a simple entry page with links to plain and fancy versions. (this is where to put those 'download blah now' blurbs.)
• Put text alternatives at the top of pages!
• If you must use frames: use <noframes> outside of the <frameset> tags - preferably at the *top* of the page - for critical links and text.
• Don't count on the following to convey your information properly. many browsers don't see these the way you expect they will (or at all)
  • centering
  • font information
  • graphics (inline or background)
  • tables - use <pre> alternate pages
  • blinking text
  • &nbsp
  • plug-ins
  • frames
• Use pictures sparingly, many folks can't or don't want to look at them, many folks are paying by the minute for web access, and wasting time and bandwidth is criminal.
• Use alt tags for grahics always, especially when using graphics as links.
• Some browsers don't see alt tags either, include text in the body for descriptions and links. put pictures on their own pages, make a link to the page with a note as to content and size of graphics.
• Use transparent and interlaced gifs to improve download time