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(or "how to produce web pages that are available to the majority of people, browsers, and Internet devices")

Summary:

Elaboration:

"What do you mean that's not how it's supposed to look?"
It is impossible to design and code a web page in such a way that it will display exactly as you intend on every browser that your readers may be using. Earlier versions of browsers did not have support for many of the things we now take for granted, eg. tables, style sheets, etc. Also each company's interpretation and implementation of emerging standards is not identical resulting in unexpected differences. The best that you can hope for is that your pages will closely resemble your intentions when viewed by the majority.

Design principally for the most used browsers.
eg. Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera. Also keep your eye on the increasing emergence of Mozilla.

Platform independence.
If available, test your site using as many different browsers, operating systems, and hardware platforms as possible, eg. Windows PCs, Unix/Linux, Apple Macintosh, Web TV, etc.

Attempt to comply with the latest standards.
See: The Web Standards Project.

Backward compatibility.
Spare a thought for those who might still be using older browsers and, whilst continuing to adhere to standards, attempt to write/design in such a way that your pages appear reasonable to them.
(This is not actually all that difficult, eg. this site is XHTML 1.0 compliant, designed to be best viewed with the latest browser versions, but is still viewable/navigable with older browsers, even the text-based browser, Lynx!

Remember those individuals who have no style!
If you use style sheets check that your pages still look reasonable when viewed with browsers that do not support them; eg. temporarily disable style sheets whilst testing your pages.