2.6. Know Your Audience Although by following standards-driven development techniques, you ensure that your site is usable for all visitors, you may decide to embrace or steer clear of certain technologies based on knowledge of your audience. Before designing a new site, be sure to spend time up front researching the likely platforms, browsers , technical savviness, and connection speeds of the users you are targeting. If you are redesigning an existing site, spend time with the server logs to analyze past site usage. There are no browser-support guidelines that can anticipate every design situation; however, the following scenarios should start you thinking: If your site is aimed at a consumer audiencefor instance, a site that sells educational toys to a primarily parent audiencedon't ignore your site's performance and presentation in the AOL browsers or older browser versions over dial-up connections. If you are designing for a controlled environment, such as a corporate intranet or, even better, a web-based kiosk, you've got it made! Knowing exactly what browser and platform your viewers are using means you can take full advantage of the bells and whistles (and even proprietary features) appropriate to that browser. If you are designing a standalone kiosk, you may even have the luxury of loading the fonts you want to use. Just be sure your design won't crash the browser, because there won't be anyone there to restart it for you immediately. If your site is about the technology being used, such as SVG graphics or Flash animations, you have every right to expect users to use the appropriate browser or plug-in to catch up with your content. But it might still be nice to at least provide some screenshots or other alternative content to let the others know what they're missing. If you are designing a government site, you are required by law under Section 508 to make your pages accessible to all browsing devices. For more information, see Chapter 5.
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