On Jan 15, 2008, at 6:15 AM, Dan wrote: > I have been reading a lot about the semantic web of late and am > wondering > what it will hold for the future of online and more specifically > for us > (Ixd/IA/UE etc etc).
Oh this will be a fun thread... 8^) I wouldn't worry or sweat about the "semantic web" too much. (This coming from a web standards kind of guy to boot.) The semantic web as a means of writing markup is only useful to the point it's not, which in a structured layout world, is quite often. I write my markup as semantic as I can until I hit those barriers. Then I do whatever I need to in order to get the job done. Easy example: H# Tags. The concept of numbered headers that also designate indentation and nesting only ever made sense in a linear content world, like a novel or technical manual. It makes no sense in the newspaper world, where headlines are designed to work so that stories can start or continue anywhere on the page, and are stylized for that purpose. In the structured layout world of the web, I often use H# tags as a means or simply identifying different classes of styles to use for things like headlines, where their intention was to create organizational logic and nesting of meaning. Using H# tags to denote only the type of headline one wants is not "semantic" but oh well... That's how I'm going to use it since there is no other clean way for me as a designer to create headlines for non-linear content. Another example: The Float property in CSS. It was designed to work to allow simple images or illustrations to be nested inside body copy with the text flowing around it. It wasn't really designed for anything else. However, since in HTML there is still no way to create a legitimate column or layout structure, designers like to use Float to forces DIVs to create the column structure. However, given the nature of Float and given how a computer reads in a linear stream (machine language, PostScript, all of these do the same thing) you have to put markup in a certain order for the float effects to do what you want to create a structured grid. This sometimes means the markup has to be written out of order, which prevents it from being easily human readable, which if my memory serves me, is one of the goals of being semantic markup; being human readable. (It is possible given certain conditions to have the markup still be in order to make the effect work, but when its not, you simple change the order.) For a good example of these issues at work, check out the new CNN.com. I think the redesign was pretty good at making CNN far more readable and approachable than the old one. It follows a nice grid structure, the typography is spec'd nicely and gets better when you dive further in to the site and it's a lot cleaner to look at. On the whole, I think they did a really nice job with it. If you view its page source, you'll also note that they did a really good job of keeping most of the markup pretty clean. But is their markup "semantic." Sort of, but not quite. A lot of that has to do with creating structure to make the visual presentation work, and using tricks when doing so. So in that sense, the semantic web is a nice goal to have, but don't get too caught up in trying to make it a 100% reality as its not really 100% possible except for simple and linear content on the web, which is becoming more and more rare. HTML+CSS would have to be written from scratch to solve structured layout for the semantic web to truly happen 100%, and getting that happen is probably going to be as hard as getting people to stop using double spaces after periods in the writing. 8^) However, like CNN, use the lessons taught in the semantic web to help you create cleaner code and markup. Cleaner code which is a result from web standards and attempts at being "semantic" is more lightweight to write, manage and pass over the tubes, and will always be better than other methods. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
