What is your preferred approach when creating websites :
- Make effort so pages looks exactly the same on every browser ? or
- Let the browser apply its default stylesheet on some specific objects like inputs, borders, colors, etc. ?
The first solution is obviously what we would naturally have in a perfect world, but require a lot more work, CSS hacks, browser specific stylesheets and so on.
Is it what webdesigners should tend to do ?
About the second one, I’m thinking about forms, disabled elements, colors sometimes, table’s header and footer… It is a lot easier to let the browser handle it and has the advantage of being consistent across websites for the user.
Is it a good practice or I am being lazy ? How to “sell” this solution to a client that don’t care about those considerations ?
I’m looking for the pro and the cons of each method.
How to choose between one and another ? Where is the limit ? (How about : stick to the W3C standards and let the browser handle the rest ?)
The art of web design is to work within the constraints of the medium, of which there are many, and still come up with something 100% functional across many different platforms. It is a challenge to make your pages look good and function completely across all browsers at multiple screen sizes, resolutions, cultures, languages, connection speeds, accessibility issues, etc., If you can just accomplish “not broken in IE” that is something.
Of course I want it to look like it did in Fireworks, but that is not a realistic target. Every single machine is different, so every view of your page will be too.