Websites are generated at the intersection point of a large collection of technologies which are brought together through standards, and defined in each case by a technical specification.

Frequently, as  a person commissioning a web site, you may feel you have some experience or expertise in how a web site should look, and almost none in the technical processes which have to work together to bring it into being.

This is usually a good reason for getting help early in the specification process - getting the technical specification right can make the difference between having a site which works only for a narrow range of users, and one which is more widely useful, and can greatly influence the on-going value of your investment.

Usually your site should:

• be accessible - that is it should be usable
  • by people with a wide range of disabilities, and these days,
  • with a wide range of device types
  • by search engines
  • as well as people with good eyesight, modern computers and monitors
• respect the meanings of all the html mark-up.
• in particular, should use tables for the display of tabular data, not as a way of implementing layout features
• separate mark-up from appearance by using CSS
• Be consistently styled in a way which makes a visitor
  • aware that all the content is from the same source (or, at times is from one of several conceptual sources), and
  • clear regarding the level of importance of a given piece of text.  
• work on older screens with a resolution of 800*600 as well as on more modern screens with much higher resolutions
• work on a wide range of browsers, and a wide range of operating systems
• ideally, within limits determined by the design, should resize to suit higher screen resolutions
• be printer-friendly: when a page is printed, unnecessary elements such as menus should not appear, and the remaining content should fit the paper it is being printed on.
• also (and increasingly) be usable on very low resolution screens, such as mobile phones
• be updated on a regular basis
• have satisfactory and secure means to support updating, possibly by a number of people

Many of these issues are made considerably simpler if you implement your design through a CSS framework such as YAML, and the content through a professional content management system such as TYPO3.