Adaptive Web Design

About this book

The web is an ever-changing medium whose scope, application, audience and platform continue to grow on a daily basis. If you’ve worked on the web for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard or even used the term “progressive enhancement.” Since the term’s inception, it has been considered a best practice for approaching web design. But what is it really? And how do we reconcile its meaning with the rapid evolution of the languages and browsers we rely on to do our jobs? In this brief book, Aaron Gustafson chronicles the origins of progressive enhancement, its philosophy, and mechanisms, and reveals the countless practical ways that you can apply progressive enhancement principles using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. By understanding progressive enhancement and how to apply it properly, web practitioners can craft experiences that serve users (rather than browsers), giving them access to content without technological restrictions.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Aaron Gustafson

1977-04-29

Aaron has nearly 15 years experience on the web and, in that time, has cultivated a love of web standards and an in-depth knowledge of website strategy and architec­ture, interface design, and numerous languages (including XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP). He is Group Manager of the Web Standards Project (WaSP) and serves as an Invited Expert to the World Wide Web Consortium’s Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA). He created eCSStender, serves as Technical Editor for *A List Apart*, is a contributing writer for *.net Magazine*, and has filled a small library with his technical writing and editing credits.