The Boston University Core Design raises the bar for content and functionality, introducing wider pages, more subtle colors, and compact, intuitive navigation. We've accomplished these goals keeping in mind that visitors to the BU Web are using a vast array of computers, browsers, and other devices to access the web.
- The Core Design expands the page width to 760 pixels. Fewer than 1% of visitors to the BU home page in September 2004 were using screen resolutions smaller than 800 x 600 pixels.
- The Core Design breaks out of the so-called "web safe" color palette. Fewer than 2% of visitors to the BU home page in September 2004 were using monitors limited to 256 colors.
- The numbers for the old Netscape 4 browser are negligible and dwindling (approximately 1.2 percent web-wide, according to Browser News). Netscape 4 doesn't support the dynamic menu technology used in the Core Design, but pages remain functional — the link that initiates the drop-down menus also links to an index page and/or a page with full navigation options in plain text.
- The BU Core Design has been thoroughly tested on Internet Explorer browsers version 5 and higher, as well as Firefox, a leaner and more standards-compliant browser that's essentially the newest generation of Netscape. Testing is done on Windows, Mac (OS-X), and Linux-based systems.
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