Discuss: Understanding Progressive Enhancement

by Aaron Gustafson

11 Re: Real world Examples?

No, I don’t think you’re being nitpicky. I noticed too that the arrow links aren’t unobtrusive ([removed]ScrollArrow should and could easily be made into standard links, just like the tabs at the top.)

Maybe someone else will have a better example. But I think the Coda site is pretty good, and is mostly using progressive enhancement. :-)

posted at 09:18 pm on October 7, 2008 by Aaron Burrows

12 Concept vs practise

Clients, designers, employers, project managers, etc. (I’d say anyone except for front-end developers and accessibility experts) always seem to have the opinion that the fully pimped version of the website is its only real incarnation.

Therefore I agree with Robert Grant that Graceful Degradation is a goal and Progressive Enhancement is a method to achieve that goal. And for now it’s probably the best method there is.

The difference between GD and PE is one of concept more than of working practise in my mind.

posted at 11:44 pm on October 7, 2008 by Sander Aarts

13 Looking forward to the next articles...

Thanks for the article. And I think the M&M analogy is great.

My eyes were opened to progressive enhancement by Jeremy Keith’s Dom Scripting book and I’ve tried to apply the principle whenever possible since. As he says in the book, “web pages that are progressively enhanced will almost certainly degrade gracefully”.

By the way, is there any point worrying about behaviour without style scenarios (peanut and candy-coating)?

posted at 01:50 am on October 8, 2008 by David Penny

14 RE: REAL WORLD EXAMPLES?

Yahoo! is mentioned as an example in the article.

posted at 01:59 am on October 8, 2008 by David Penny

15 Hear, hear!

Thanks for this simple, straightforward article. If this approach to design catches on widely (as many other ALA concepts have) the web will surely become a better experience for all.

The key is the statement “Content is the reason we create websites to begin with”. All the fancy tricks of CSS and JavaScript etc. (wonderful as they are) distract from this fundamental point.

Even though we have fancy cars today, the roads still accommodate horse-and-cart. Every discipline has its foundation, and ours is “rich, semantic (X)HTML”.

Looking forward to the following installments…

posted at 04:49 am on October 8, 2008 by Ralph Mason

16 How different it is the real world

I agree with the article. It’s what I believe in and tell my manager so often. But in our company, clients first want to see a great layout, and much, much later they come up with the content.

posted at 09:57 am on October 8, 2008 by Hans Kuiters

17 Real World ....

I am a web designer/UI Developer. The article is a great one indeed, so thank you very much.
However I might have some comments on the whole subject.
I have been working on PE for the last 3 years without really knowing it. And it’s really great!
Only last month I started studying this cross browser compatibility. I realized that often the need for 3 or 4 style sheets is not necessary at all (it’s in fact a hug NONO because of the increase of requests to the server).I found that If your work is correct and according to the W3 standards then you hardly will have any problem with the CSS, Especially if you use a tables layout (which is the hardest thing to be compatible in 4-5 big name browsers).
I know the emphasis in PE is on the content. But often when doing web applications and systems such as intranet HR systems, the focus is set on the behavior of the user and the user experience. In this case GD is better in my opinion. There is no way that you can actually give the same user experience to all the browsers that the client might have, without having to lower the user experience.
I believe that there 2 ways to developing systems in web. First you need to lose a lot of the great experience of the user and use the PE method afterward. Or simply apply the GD and I prefer the second.
I think it is now obvious that I don’t agree that PE is a method and GD is a goal. But rather 2 ways of developing depending on the environment which the application of the website will be in.
One last thing, I am currently working on a new project in am supposed to create a full User Experience bearing in mind the need for limitations of browsers in relation to JS.
I know I have made this comments long but I hope I made some sort of use to you all. And hope to get some feedback and some help and hints regarding the previous paragraph.
I’ll be waiting eagerly for the second and third part of this document.

posted at 02:27 pm on October 8, 2008 by Basil Mohammad