There are many factors involved here that you will need to consider, if you want to allow your site to be available to the widest possible audience.

Once again, in certain circumstances it may not be a problem. The personal web site for family and friends isn't really a worry. As mentioned elsewhere, if any of your visitors have a problem with your site, they can let you know, and between you, the problem can be rectified.

A company Intranet is also easy, because you will know exactly what equipment, software, browsers, plug-ins etc. are available, and design the site accordingly.

Another type of site that is usually not a problem are those sites that provide information, hints & tips etc. for the latest release games. Most keen game players have the most powerful computer that they can afford and are always upgrading it.

However, if your site is for general consumption over the world wide web then there are many factors that you need to consider.

Although the majority of people use an IBM compatible PC to access the Internet, not everybody does. There are a lot of Apple Macintosh computers out there.

The hardware for accessing the Internet is expanding at an alarming rate. Handheld computers, Palm Computers, mobile telephones can be used to access the Net. And recently, even refrigerators and microwave ovens are being made with built in screens for Internet access.

Even if you decide to concentrate your effort on the IBM compatible market, you will need to consider things such as CPU, monitor size, resolution and colour depth.

There are still many users still running old 486 computers, these are just about stretched to the limit accessing fairly basic pages on the Internet. They just don't have the processing power, to handle some of the newer plug-ins, especially the 3D ones.

These same computers will also have a fairly basic graphics card, which once again makes them unsuitable for handling pages overloaded with multimedia elements.

As far as monitor, resolution etc. go, be aware that the web page that looks great on your brand new 19" monitor, may not look so good on an ageing 15" monitor, or maybe even a new 15" monitor.

No matter what what type of computer is being used, there will still be vast differences in connection speed. Some people now have cable modems with really fast access, but there are still a lot of people out there using 14.4k modems.

You may say, so what? but that is not the attitude if you are a modem manufacturer and want to let those people know of the advantages of buying a new, faster modem from you.

Does this need to concern you when designing your web? yes, The operating system will determine what browsers are available for the user.

It will almost certainly affect you when choosing file names for your web pages. Some operating systems don't allow the use of spaces. Some like Linux are case sensitive (e.g.. index.html is not the same as Index.html)

And, you can't be complacent about this just because you use Windows. In all probability, your site will be hosted on a server running Linux, about 80% of web sites are, including this one.

You now have almost all of the information you need to start on the design phase of your web. There is just one more thing to consider - where your site is hosted.