Discuss in detail the creation of pages that degrade gracefully.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Creating a site with contemporary style and functionality is particularly important if your target audience includes a younger, tech-savvy crowd. Achieving a trendy look can involve using HTML5 and CSS3 code, which is not yet the current WC3 standard and does not have unified browser support. For example, Internet Explorer 9 does not support CSS transitions at all, although Internet Explorer 10 will support CSS transitions as well as other CSS-based animation. Chrome and Firefox already support CSS transitions as well as other CSS-based animation. Because of the spotty browser support, you must carefully consider the target audience and the site goals before you add new CSS3/HTML5-based flourishes such as transitions to your pages. If the target audience will most likely view the site from browsers that do not support some CSS3/HTML5 elements, then either avoid these elements or add these elements to the site in such a way that users with older browsers can still interact with the site and experience a positive aesthetic impact. For example, you could use CSS animation to create a transition that causes the borders of a div to change colors slowly when the user mouses over it. In this case, if a user's browser does not support transitions, the user will simply see the mouseover without a slow transition, which is what the user is expecting to see. Another example is if you add rounded corners to a div. If a user's browser does not support rounded corners, the user will simply see square corners. As long as this looks natural to the user and does not interfere with the user's interaction with the site, you have created a site that gracefully degrades in older browsers. Creating a site with current code and techniques that still work well and look pleasing in older browsers enables it to degrade gracefully. In contemporary design, these are considered best practices for creating sites. Creating gracefully degrading code enables you to incorporate the latest techniques into a site while maintaining a positive user experience for everyone who visits the site.