Every once in a while, you the client, are surprised at the live demo of your website that you just opened up at a friend’s home computer. It could look like a mess!
Before shooting off that email to your designer, add a few notes to make sure the energy is focused on finding a solution to the problem rather than hunting it down (saves you time and money):
Quick Environment Checklist
What was the screen resolution of the monitor at the time?
What operating system do you have, and what version?
What browser are you using, and what version?
Sometimes, the situation can not be helped due to increasingly unsupported settings such as if you’re still using IE6 or lower (which you really should stop using right now) or if you are trying to peek at a resolution as small as 800 x 600 pixels. The above tidbits will definitely help.
Take a Screen Capture
A screen capture is your best bet at illustrating exactly what you see to your designer. Literally, it is digitally snapping a photo of what your monitor is displaying to you.
So how do you take a screen capture?
For PC
On a PC you usually have a Print Screen button somewhere in the top right area of your keyboard. Sometimes above the arrow keys, sometimes across the top row with function keys.
Depending on the make of your computer, the label on that key could be “Print Screen”, “Prt Scr”, and might even share Key space with another function such as “SysRq” or “Insert”.
Find your Print Screen key
Activate it by hitting it once, or use it in combination with Fn (function key) or Ctrl (Control key) by holding either one down first
Once you do that your capture is in your clipboard
Open an art program, such as MS Paint
Right Click and select paste or hit Control + V
Save and email
A detailed tutorial can be found here, especially for those of you who use Vista.
For Mac
Command + Shift + 3 is the standard, or most basic way of taking a screen capture on a Mac. It saves it to your desktop as Picture1.png, Picture2.png etc.
If you want to copy to your clipboard instead, use Control + Command + Shift + 3 (or 4).
For me, it’s enough to just hit Command + Shift + 4 + spacebar to literally snapshot the entire browser window.
There are several more combinations listed here, they can get complex, but if you use them frequently they are very, very big time savers.
What other ways have you as clients or web designers smoothed over trouble shooting when meeting face to face is not an option?
Checklist for When your Live Demo Looks Horribly Wrong
Photo Credits: Sir. Mo
Every once in a while, you the client, are surprised at the live demo of your website that you just opened up at a friend’s home computer. It could look like a mess!
Before shooting off that email to your designer, add a few notes to make sure the energy is focused on finding a solution to the problem rather than hunting it down (saves you time and money):
Quick Environment Checklist
Sometimes, the situation can not be helped due to increasingly unsupported settings such as if you’re still using IE6 or lower (which you really should stop using right now) or if you are trying to peek at a resolution as small as 800 x 600 pixels. The above tidbits will definitely help.
Take a Screen Capture
A screen capture is your best bet at illustrating exactly what you see to your designer. Literally, it is digitally snapping a photo of what your monitor is displaying to you.
So how do you take a screen capture?
For PC
On a PC you usually have a Print Screen button somewhere in the top right area of your keyboard. Sometimes above the arrow keys, sometimes across the top row with function keys.
Depending on the make of your computer, the label on that key could be “Print Screen”, “Prt Scr”, and might even share Key space with another function such as “SysRq” or “Insert”.
A detailed tutorial can be found here, especially for those of you who use Vista.
For Mac
There are several more combinations listed here, they can get complex, but if you use them frequently they are very, very big time savers.
What other ways have you as clients or web designers smoothed over trouble shooting when meeting face to face is not an option?
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