webdepend

Hi Mike, welcome to the forum.

Hi Diederik, welcome to the forum.

Hello Jenny, what are you googling if you're not getting the information you need? There are many guides out there to help you with designing or building a nice user interface (UI) and guides on what users expect of a website and how to deliver a good user experience (UX) for them. Pretty much what BrowserBugs said.

Hello Javi, welcome to the forum.

Done

With the Wordpress route you can make the whole site private if you want to. Anybody who is not a Member that tries to access a restricted page (even if they know the URL of the page) will get redirected to a 'You cannot view this page' message. The main problem that I've found with the plugin I'm currently playing around with is that I keep locking my entire website out, even the public parts so you need to tread carefully.

My top 3 (can I have 3?) would be: 1. Agree with 4li4s and Lyndsey, lots of images. Some really good quality large images as soon as you access the site and then a gallery of more images. 2. Location - easy to see where the villa is, what surrounds it and where or how far the nearest things are (depends on target market but might include, shops, bars, restaurants, beaches, town, airport, etc.) 3. Facilities - being able to easily see what facilities the villa has what is included. Does it have its own pool or is it a shared pool, does it come with a welcome basket of essentials, does it have small children facilities like a high chair, etc? Again, depends on target market, if the villa is aimed at families then you would want to highlight all the family friendly facilities. Price and availability would be my 4th one but how much you make out of that depends on your target market. If it is an expensive and exclusive villa then you don't need to highlight the price so much, just let people find out how much it costs when they go to check availability. If the villa is at the lower end of the market then you probably would want to highlight that a week costs x amount or that there are late availability offers or something. I know you wanted 1 or 2 but I hope the 4 items above are useful.

If you do go down the Wordpress route (the client is bound to want to add or change content at some point, aren't they?) then there are several plugins to Wordpress that extend the built-in functionality so that you can give Members access to particular parts of the site, or specific posts and pages if you want to. You can also set up different levels so that Members on level 1 can access certain things and Members on level 2 can access more things, etc. I have been playing around with a couple of plugins recently, as I'm looking to add a Members only area to my site in the coming months.

Android in particular is pretty complicated just because there are so many variations. iOS devices are simpler, as there are only a small number of different versions of iOS, screen sizes and screen densities. For Android, if you search for 'android platform versions' in Google and then click on the result that is called 'Dashboards | Android Developers' (I can't post links sorry). This gives you a breakdown for the popularity of different Android versions. So your old HTC Wildfire, what version of Android is it? If it is Gingerbread (2.3.3 - 2.3.7) then nearly 40% of Android users are still on that version so you should support it. Ok, so that is probably more relevant for actual Android apps. For websites, responsive ones in particular, screen sizes and screen densities are more important. On that same Dashboards page, there is section giving statistics for what the breakdown is for Android screen sizes and also screen densities (because a pixel isn't a pixel on higher density screens - the same size image will be displayed smaller on a higher density screen than a lower density screen). Your old HTC Wildfire has a 240 x 320 pixel display and a screen size of 3.2 inches. That puts it in the region of small screen size and small screen density. Looking at Android's statistics, that covers 9.5% of the Android population so I would continue to support it. As for actual browser usage on mobile devices, whether Opera is used more than the built in Android browser I'm not sure, I don't have stats to hand for that but will do some research. So for Android you have Android version, screen size, screen density and then browser type (Opera, Android, Chrome) and browser version to think about. For testing mobile apps it is even more complicated but we'll leave it at that for now. I might put a blog post together going through different screen sizes and densities with example popular UK handsets if that would help? Also, I can put a list of 5 or 6 handsets together that would cover all the major Android versions, screen sizes and densities if you want to cover all bases. You can then spot check your website on those handsets using Device Anywhere's free plan (unlimited 10 minute spot checks) and no, I'm not affiliated with Device Anywhere.

I still can't post links yet but if you go to the WebDepend dot co dot uk website, click on Blog and then have a look at the latest blog post you should see some easy to read browser market share statistics for March 2013 (just updated them). My aim is to keep this updated every 1 or 2 months so that it is easy to see which browsers, UK and Worldwide, you should be supporting. Let me know what you think and whether this is useful.

Hello 4li4s. I think if clients do request the older browsers then ask them why they need to support them. You should be able to demonstrate statistics that show general IE7 usage is now below 1% and that it is better to focus on the browsers above 1% (including mobile). Unless they have up to date statistics that show IE7 usage is at a meaningful level. I recommend testing on any browser that has over 1% market share and I use StatCounter to get our statistics. They are not foolproof, as they are only for a segment of the market, but they do show trends in browser usage. I have started taking these statistics and putting blog posts together (I can't link to anything yet) advising people what browsers they should be supporting. I also include the stats in our newsletters, in order to advise clients as to what browsers should be important and which are less important now. Even IE will start releasing more regular updates, perhaps not as often as Chrome and Firefox but it is going onto a more rapid release schedule. So it is important to keep abreast of the browser market.

The main point I would like to raise, which other people have mentioned, is that the browser market changes over time. New browsers are released and older browsers fade away. For example, back in 2011 when this topic was started, testing in IE6 and IE7 would have been recommended. IE6 hasn't been a top browser for quite some time and now IE7 itself is no longer one of the main browsers. Also, there has obviously been a huge surge in mobile. The most noticeable thing from this is that the iPad and its main browser, Mobile Safari (in the UK at least) has become the most used browser after Chrome, IE9, Firefox and IE8. And that will change as IE8 continues to fade. Safari has also gained ground with Safari 6 now having a larger share (still small in comparison to the other browsers above but significant). IE10 is gaining ground now whilst Opera still doesn't figure in the top 10. So when browser testing, you will need to adapt your browser list every couple of months. However, one big caveat is that the top browsers will be different depending on your target market, etc. Somebody mentioned reviewing your Google Analytics if you can, as this will show what people are actually using to browse the website. There might be some surprises in there. This is the current list that I test websites in: Chrome (latest version) Firefox (latest version) IE8 IE9 IE10 Safari 6 iPad (Mobile Safari 5) iPhone (Mobile Safari 6) Android (Android 4.0.3 - Ice Cream Sandwich) But you can go further than this and will get some oddballs in there, such as the client likes to review the site using their Blackberry or something so you have to test for that too.

@Jos - thank you, I'm glad you feel that way. Happy to try and answer any QA related questions you might have.

@hostmedia - thank you hostmedia

@webdesigner93 - thank you for the welcome. @andy9l - thank you for the welcome and I certainly try to offer guidance on UX matters when web developers are having to think about deadlines, clients, strange issues that shouldn't be happening, etc. Last thing you want is a vague comment along the lines of 'it is not good for the user' when it is more beneficial to say why it is not good and how it could be improved.