The user agent string, a piece of data transmitted in the HTTP header during a web request, contains information valuable in determining browser type and often basic system information.
Example user agent string sent from a web browser during an HTTP request:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/532.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/4.0.249.89 Safari/532.5
The above example, for instance, provides information such as browser and browser version, user locale (language), OS, system architecture and the layout engine used. When authoring documents for the Web, information from the user agent string can be valuable in determining how best to mark-up documents.
Getting the information is easy.
Continue reading ‘Analyzing User Agent Strings’
Screenshot of a Lightview modal dialog
Though modal dialogs are not a new concept in UI design, the number of homegrown Lightbox clones appearing on the Web since major JavaScript libraries like Prototype and jQuery hit the scene has been staggering. Unfortunately, many of the clones developed leave some key usability considerations unaddressed, and struggle with common problems in accessibility. Some key usability features that should be considered during creation of a Web-based modal dialog include (1) manage focus and allow tab navigation (2) disable elements outside the modal dialog (3) give users an out and (4) provide graceful error recovery.
Continue reading ‘Building a Better Lightbox’
Following is a list of cross-browser/platform web development and debugging tools useful for client-side developers. Depending on the application, one or all of these tools can be valuable in completing work on a website front-end.
Continue reading ‘Web Development and Debugging Tools’
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