Progressive improvement

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Progressive improvement ( English progressive enhancement ) describes a method in web design that includes accessibility , semantic marking and separation of information and presentation in order to make a website usable for end devices that only have limited functions ( JavaScript - / CSS - / Flash - Support). The philosophy behind this is that websites should generally be accessible in their most basic form - the provision of information - with any web browser and any type of Internet connection, and an improved version of the page is presented to users with better bandwidth and more advanced browsers with extended functionality.

background

Progressive improvement is the reversal of the previously prevailing practice of graceful degradation in web development , in which a website was initially programmed for the most modern end devices and for older devices that do not support modern functions. an alternate version was provided or relied on simply to ignore the newer features and automatically render a more basic version. The problem with this approach, however, is that either the workload is higher because several different versions of a page have to be programmed and maintained for different end devices, or that an older device does not have the desired error tolerance and the content is therefore not or only insufficiently displayed . are usable.

This attitude and approach on the part of many web designers resulted from the fact that early browsers were hardly standardized with regard to the support of HTML , CSS and JavaScript and websites were also rarely displayed on devices other than regular computer browsers . For example, mobile devices ( PDA / smartphone ) were not yet able to display websites or even connect to the Internet. In practice, the “dignified demotion” theory has been based on the belief that the end user simply needs to update their browser software. However, this attitude ignores the fact that many users do not easily update their software can , for there. B. Company computers only have limited access rights and software is not constantly updated there. It also ignores the fact that there are users who either deliberately do not update or who connect via mobile devices where the available bandwidth and support for images and scripts or the screen size are limited.

This fact is countered with the progressive improvement in that the basic information that makes up a website is accessible to all devices and extended functionality is made available to the devices using externally integrated style sheets and / or scripts that have the technical capabilities, to use this.

literature

  • Todd Parker, Scott Jehl, Maggie Costello Wachs, Patty Toland: Designing with Progressive Enhancement . E-Book, 2010, ISBN 0-321-77024-2 (English)
  • Steven Champeon: Progressive Enhancement and the Future of Web Design . 2003 (english)
  • Steven Champeon and Nick Finck: Inclusive Web Design for the Future . 2003 (english)

Web links