Platform Constraints

With so many platforms to display content on designers need to consider how applications need to work on multiple platforms. All users may receive a different experience due to variations in download rates, resolutions and screen sizes. I personally believe that designers need to use these ‘media shortcomings’ that help take advantage of the uniqueness of each device. For example the web is a medium in itself and ‘it is not crippled, nor is it just waiting idly around for the advent of universal broadband so it can magically morph into interactive television’ (Cloninger, 2002, p.3). This statement suggests to me that designers should use the Internet in such a way that compliments a complete array of platforms rather than seeing them as a constraint. There is not going to be an invention of a human like Internet that can automatically detect your resolution, screen size, operating system, download speed, etc in the near future (I am aware this has been created on a basic level), so therefore work with the platforms rather than against them.