Fellow @numian was kind enough to share this very interesting post about the differences on the way browsers render HTML and display it to the user. You can also grab the nicely edited PDF version to share.

Of course that at WayNext this is a daily subject with Clients while developing websites and I believe this post sums up some interesting point of views, bringing up the kind of trade-offs one has to incur to make it look exactly the same on all browsers (and what a mirage that is…).

Some snippets from the post to make you want to read it in full:

“TAFEE (pronounced: taffy): tiered, adaptive front-end experiences. Customizing the experience to the unique capabilities of each browser, prioritizing a fast and good UX over consistency.”

“None of your users open your site in multiple browsers, so if you’re actively trying to make things look the same for that false goal, then you’re slowing down the page for your users on older browsers.”

“Consider what Google has done with the Google doodles: show off cool <canvas> or bouncing balls with just HTML+JS in “good” browsers and just keeping it the same old Google logo for slow browsers. You heard anybody complaining that they don’t get the bouncy balls in IE6?

Facebook, Google, Yahoo all embrace a TAFEE approach to show different browsers different things. It’d likely be wise for you to, as well.

It might make sense for you to segment your experiences into HD (high-def), SD (standard-def) and LR (low-res) tiers.”