I'm Claudia Snell & I build Websites

Turtle Boy Website Redesigned

I redesigned one of my personal ‘fun’ sites, The Turtle Boy Fan Site. I wanted to experiment with CSS3 and thought this personal project would be a good place to start.

The CSS3 enhancements I’ve used are not compatible with all browsers, just the ones that are modern and standards-compliant. (Sorry, IE users.)

I Know What You Are Thinking

You’re thinking that all websites need to be identical in all browsers. Well, they really don’t. I’ll explain.

For years, web designers have spent hours trying to make designs look identical in all browsers. It’s a very time-consuming and expensive process.

There are many web professionals that agree; we need to stop wasting time and money trying to force a design to be identical in all browsers. Obviously, I’m in that group.

On this project, I didn’t even try to make it look identical. The goal was to deliver a site that works well and looks good to all. Visitors using modern browsers will get a few visual extras. That’s all. Those not using modern browsers will never know they are seeing a slightly different version.

Here’s something to think about:

No one except web designers look at side-by-side comparisons of websites so its unlikely that a visitor would even realize there are differences. If you put that effort into developing better content, your visitors will definitely notice. They’ll have a better experience and the site will be more successful. The important thing to remember is that a site needs to be functional and look good for all – that doesn’t mean identical for all.

Go see the Turtle Boy site

Some Great Articles to Help You

• Understanding Progressive Enhancement by Aaron Gustafson
• Five CSS design browser differences I can live with by Andy Clarke
• Do websites need to look the same in every browser?

Ok, that last one is just fun. It amused me so I wanted to share.