This week’s headache was brought to you by CSS, which I’m learning in part for my Multimedia Planning and Design class and in part for my own professional development. I thought migrating my content over to WordPress and using a content management system would be the end of my eportfolio woes, but I’m still not satisfied with how it reflects my professional brand. Next up: “I spent my spring break hand coding my website.”
Which brings me to my next point: compatibility testing. Last week, a Denver group threw a funeral for the browser everyone loves to hate. But if you ask me, the celebrating may be a bit premature. As the obituary states, IE6 is survived by a son (IE7) and a granddaughter (IE8), but of which could carry on the legacy of frustration for years to come.
After our third-grade color lesson in Joy’s class, I dug out a favorite set of note cards and stole blatantly for this site’s color scheme. Imagine my horror several days later when I ran my website through Adobe’s BrowserLab only to find that the beautiful, professional grey on my monitory would display as murky blue on my dad’s computer. The temporary fix was to change the background to a standard light grey (#cccccc), but problems remain. IE6’s stubborn son does not like how I’ve coded my style sheet and ignored the majority of my carefully crafted headers.
Things aren’t faring much better with the package I’m working on for Joy’s class, either. The heading that looks so beautiful in Safari is far less visually appealing in Firefox (it renders as plain text in IE7). I’m sure it has to do with how new I am at this and how I code my CSS, but still. It’s frustrating to finally craft the look/feel you want only to have it fall apart on another machine.
So what’s a girl to do? Live and learn, I suppose (and improve her coding skills!). But at the same time, realistically, I feel like a line has to be drawn somewhere. Most of the people who view my portfolio aren’t using Internet Explorer anymore. The ones who do are likely members of my cheering section (mom, dad, grandma, etc.), and they can still read all of the content, even if it’s not as “pretty” as it is on my Mac. I’ll make a reasonable effort to include them when I redesign this website. But if they miss the subtleties and variations that others with better browsers see, then so be it.
We talk a lot about accessibility in Joy’s class, and since my boyfriend is colorblind, I usually try to sit up and pay attention. But while I wouldn’t stick green and red next together on an graphic, I’m not going to not use them on my site just because they might “look funny” to Brian. (Mentally, I keep likening the whole process to allergen-free baking. I cook gluten-free because I have to, and I certainly don’t go out of my way to throw nuts in when an allergic friends is coming to dinner. However, I’m not going nut-free all the time on the off chance that my friend might stop by and want to sample my brownies.)
Make sure everyone can partake in the content. I for one am going to stop sweating it when people can’t see the window dressing. Kudos to the souls that finally declared IE6 dead… may his surviving relatives not share his longevity.