Designing With Progressive Enhancement

Progressive enhancement is an approach to web development that aims to deliver the best possible experience to the widest possible audience, and simplifies coding and testing as well. Whether users are viewing your sites on an iPhone, the latest and greatest high-end system, or even hearing them on a screen-reader, their experience should be easy to understand and use, and as fully-featured and functional as possible. Designing with Progressive Enhancement will show you how. It’s both a practical guide to understanding the principles and benefits of progressive enhancement, and a detailed exploration of examples that will teach you—whether you’re a designer or a developer—how, where, and when to implement the specific coding and scripting approaches that embody progressive enhancement. In this book, you’ll learn: Why common coding approaches leave users behind, and how progressive enhancement is a more inclusive and accessible alternative How to analyze complex interface designs, see the underlying semantic HTML experience that will work everywhere, and layer on advanced enhancements safely A unique browser capabilities testing suite that helps deliver enhancements only to devices that can handle them Real-world best practices for coding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to work with progressive enhancement, and cases where forward-looking HTML5 and CSS3 techniques can be applied effectively today How to factor in accessibility features like WAI-ARIA and keyboard support to ensure universal access Detailed techniques to transform semantic HTML into interactive components like sliders, tabs, tree controls, and charts, along with downloadable jQuery-based widgets to apply directly in your projects

Building an elegant, functional website requires more than just knowing how to code. In Adaptive Web Design, Second Edition, you’ll learn how to use progressive enhancement to build websites that work anywhere, won’t break, are accessible by anyone—on any device—and are designed to work well into the future. This new edition of Adaptive Web Design frames even more of the web design process in the lens of progressive enhancement. You will learn how content strategy, UX, HTML, CSS, responsive web design, JavaScript, server-side programming, and performance optimization all come together in the service of users on whatever device they happen to use to access the web. Understanding progressive enhancement will make you a better web professional, whether you’re a content strategist, information architect, UX designer, visual designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, or project manager. It will enable you to visualize experience as a continuum and craft interfaces that are capable of reaching more users while simultaneously costing less money to develop. When you’ve mastered the tenets and concepts of this book, you will see the web in a whole new way and gain web design superpowers that will make you invaluable to your employer, clients, and the web as a whole. Visit http://adaptivewebdesign.info to learn more.

This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version. Progressive enhancement is a strategy for web design that emphasizes accessibility, semantic markup, and external stylesheet and scripting technologies. Progressive enhancement uses web technologies in a layered fashion that allows everyone to access the basic content and functionality of a web page, using any browser or Internet connection, while also providing those with better bandwidth or more advanced browser software an enhanced version of the page. De.

Deliver an optimal user experience to all devices—including tablets, smartphones, feature phones, laptops, and large screens—by learning the basics of responsive web design. In this hands-on guide, UX designer Clarissa Peterson explains how responsive web design works, and takes you through a responsive workflow from project kickoff to site launch. Ideal for anyone involved in the process of creating websites—not just developers—this book teaches you fundamental strategies and techniques for using HTML and CSS to design websites that not only adapt to any screen size, but also use progressive enhancement to provide a better user experience based on device capabilities such as touchscreens and retina displays. Start with content strategy before creating a visual design Learn why your default design should be for the narrowest screens Explore the HTML elements and CSS properties essential for responsive web design Use media queries to display different CSS styles based on a device’s viewport width Handle elements such as images, typography, and navigation Use performance optimization techniques to make your site lighter and faster

It’s time for a current, definitive JavaScript book, and in this comprehensive beginner’s guide, bestselling author Larry Ullman teaches the language as it is implemented today. Larry demonstrates how to build upon JavaScript’s ease of use, while demystifying its often-cryptic syntax, especially for those who have not programmed before. This book enforces modern JavaScript’s best practices and embraces key Web development approaches such as progressive enhancement and unobtrusive scripting. The author demonstrates loads of real-world code and makes it available for download. You’ll learn about JavaScript itself and the relationship between JavaScript and HTML. Next you’ll explore variables, common operators, and control structures. Then you’ll create functions, handle events, and do more with HTML forms. You’ll master Ajax, work with frameworks, and use JavaScript with PHP to create a complete example. The result is a book that helps you not just tinker with JavaScript but to thoroughly comprehend it. This book includes: Easy step-by-step instruction, ample illustrations, and clear examples Real-world techniques to build your skills Insight into best practices from a veteran Web expert Emphasis on strategies for creating reliable code that will work on all of today’s browsers and devices, even those without JavaScript

Mobile devices outnumber desktop and laptop computers three to one worldwide, yet little information is available for designing and developing mobile applications. Mobile Design and Development fills that void with practical guidelines, standards, techniques, and best practices for building mobile products from start to finish. With this book, you'll learn basic design and development principles for all mobile devices and platforms. You'll also explore the more advanced capabilities of the mobile web, including markup, advanced styling techniques, and mobile Ajax. If you're a web designer, web developer, information architect, product manager, usability professional, content publisher, or an entrepreneur new to the mobile web, Mobile Design and Development provides you with the knowledge you need to work with this rapidly developing technology. Mobile Design and Development will help you: Understand how the mobile ecosystem works, how it differs from other mediums, and how to design products for the mobile context Learn the pros and cons of building native applications sold through operators or app stores versus mobile websites or web apps Work with flows, prototypes, usability practices, and screen-size-independent visual designs Use and test cross-platform mobile web standards for older devices, as well as devices that may be available in the future Learn how to justify a mobile product by building it on a budget