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Web content media switching

It's sometimes hard for designers who come to the Web from other media to understand that that not only is their work not viewed “pixel perfect” by everyone, but that people access Web content through different media. Sometimes that media is our good friend the computer monitor; sometimes it is an Internet kiosk at the airport; sometimes a handheld computer, a projected image, or even a mobile phone. Some people find it more difficult to read from a screen and like to print out pages.

In the past, preparing for all these different media types would have been cost-prohibitive, if not impossible, as it required making different versions for different viewing devices. But, with the advent of technologies that support common standards, we can create content that can be written once only, and then styled for different media output, all through the magic of CSS.

» Quoted from: Andy Clarke in Stuff and Nonsense: Strategies for CSS Switching, Chapter 8 of Professional CSS released July 2005.