Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[heretic]

> http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html
> What do you think?

Well... the piece would would have made sense if his point was "you
still need to do this, but you need to filter the way you tell the
client". Instead, the implication here is that we should stop
bothering with web standards since there's no financial return (which
is utterly incorrect anyway).

The whole "which brand of hammer" demonstrates a lack of understanding
of the process. Standards would equate to building methods, not tools.
Our *tools* are the editors and graphics packages we use, along with
validators etc.

So... I'm not all that impressed. The idea is sound, but the conclusion is bad.

h

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--- 
--- The future has arrived; it's just not 
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[James Ellis]

Hi

If you use a rubber hammer, you'll never be able to bang the nails in
to build the house in the first place.

Of course. having a discussion here doesn't help -- it's preaching to
the converted. Stick it in his blog somewhere, he alludes to it but I
couldn't find. Stick it somewhere so Google can find it when they
search for Vincent Flanders

Cheers
James
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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[John Horner]

There is a vital ingredient in web design which is never mentioned by guys
like this  : IMAGE.  There are many web sites which sell nothing but image
The Web Pages That Suck guy sort of covers that, further down the 
page. He says (in his section on Mystery Meat) that it's OK for 
certain sites:

"music, band, movie, art, experimental, fashion -- sites where making 
an impression or being cool is mandatory. It's OK because nobody 
really cares about these sites and their purpose isn't really about 
making money."

so in a sense he agrees with you, which is not to say that I do. 
*Band* sites? Where I might want to find the latest gigs, buy a 
t-shirt or CD etc?

Everyone's had their chance to criticise the "Mystical Belief" thing 
already ("tableless CSS" by the way? There are no tables in my CSS, 
how about you?) but of course the key arguments are about speed: 
faster redesigns and updates, but also smaller pages for faster 
downloads.

   "Have You Validated Your Code?"
John Horner(+612 / 02) 9333 3488
Senior Developer, ABC Online  http://www.abc.net.au/

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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Anthony Yeung]

An interesting peiceOn 4/20/05, Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
Yep, he probably is right about that , but he's wrong about something
else  ". My home page uses >> web standards and it's no
monument to great design.>> "...
Hah! But theres only *88* errors, so its not that bad ;)**The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
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RE: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Paul Bennett]

 
>> Yep, he probably is right about that , but he's wrong about something else  
>> ". My home page uses >> web standards and it's no monument to great design. 
>> "...

Hah! But theres only *88* errors, so its not that bad ;)
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RE: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Mike Pepper]

Original Message by Bob McClelland

> There is a vital ingredient in web design which is never mentioned by guys
> like this  : IMAGE.  There are many web sites which sell nothing
> but image -
> no products, no marketing: just image.  Such a site is:
>
> http://www.fosterandpartners.com/internetsite/Flash.html
>
There are considerable shortcoming re accessibility but, yes, I'm inclined
to agree, the site is visually arresting and the dynamics are brilliant. I
came across this one a while back. It held my interest and was just plain
fun to play with :o)

Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com

Administrator
Guild of Accessible Web Designers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gawds.org

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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Jan Brasna]

I saw the "IMAGE"
Yeah... Image or "branding flash site" looks IMHO different than this. 
This looks really quickly put together with no intention and idea.

--
Jan Brasna aka JohnyB :: www.alphanumeric.cz | www.janbrasna.com
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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Kornel Lesinski]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 18:41:34 +0100, designer  
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

There is a vital ingredient in web design which is never mentioned by  
guys like this  : IMAGE.  There are many web sites which sell nothing  
but image -
no products, no marketing: just image.  Such a site is:

http://www.fosterandpartners.com/internetsite/Flash.html
4 seconds and I go back to Mars.
I saw the "IMAGE", all hundreds kilobytes of it,
but I don't know who they are and what they're selling.
It suffers from many of the criticisms: text too small, if you don't have
ADSL you can see the flash loading, etc, but boy - what a site! It all  
fits in an 800 by 600 browser, and the amount of information contained  
in there is fantastic.
Small and blurry text. I just skip over blocks of text because I can't  
read them.
Clicking images doesn't zoom them.

There is no content on this site!
I can't *find* it either:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://www.fosterandpartners.com/

--
regards, Kornel Lesiński
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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[designer]

There is a vital ingredient in web design which is never mentioned by guys
like this  : IMAGE.  There are many web sites which sell nothing but image -
no products, no marketing: just image.  Such a site is:

http://www.fosterandpartners.com/internetsite/Flash.html

It suffers from many of the criticisms: text too small, if you don't have
ADSL you can see the flash loading, etc, but boy - what a site! It all fits
in an 800 by 600 browser, and the amount of information contained in there
is fantastic. Just compare it to the average three column, totally
cluttered, masses of information 'in your face' kind of site which puts me
off straight away
.
But all it this site sells is the IMAGE of the architect Sir Norman Foster's
company.  And there is a valid place for that on the web.

Furthermore, ALL web sites should reflect the image of the
company/organisation/whatever it is selling. Selling the company is the
first step in selling the product. And you do that by developing/emphasising
the image.

Just my 2p's worth.

Bob McClelland,
Cornwall (U.K.)
www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk




- Original Message - 
From: "Stevio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Web Standards Group" 
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 2:49 PM
Subject: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and
tableless CSS


> Interesting thoughts from Vincent Flanders:
> http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html
>
> Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability,
> and tableless CSS
>
> What do you think?
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
> -- 
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
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>
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>  See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
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>
>
>

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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Elly Thompson]

Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS. These are
simply tools. Remember, nobody gets excited about the tools used to build a
house ("Please tell me what brand of hammers you used!"). People get excited
about how the house looks and performs.


Surely they're not so much tools as methods? I may not get excited
about the brand of hammer used, but if someone is using one in an
idiotic fashion then that would be different.

to continue with the building metaphor...
I expect a bricklayer to know how to put one brick on top of another,
and I expect him to use something suitable to attach them together
(mortar instead of toothpaste, perhaps) If he doesn't then not only is
the building not going to "perform" but I suspect people are going to
notice.
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RE: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Peter Firminger]

Further more (this rubbish by or about people justifying their inability to
do a job right really annoys me).

A person developing a website is expected to produce a product that serves
HTML or XHTML and through that some other files (images, stylesheets etc.)
to a browser. Lets just go with the HTML for now. Doesn't matter what
server-side scripting used or anything, just the output to the browser.

If that code is not valid HTML, then they simply haven't done their job.

Lets take an example kids. Russ loves to give me analogies so here's one
right back at you buddy.

We all know, at least vaguely, what written music looks like. There are 5
lines (and occasionally others briefly written above or below those) and
there are documented symbols for key, tempo and of course the notes.

Lets say we now draw 6 lines, don't put the key it's to be played in and
just use "x" to mark the notes instead of the correct symbols that denote
the duration of each note.

It's great... I can do it in an email as plain text.


--
x
--x---
x   x
--x---x---x---
x   x  x  x
--

--

--

But it aint music!

The poor violinist trying to make sense of it is going to have a lot of
trouble interpreting it. They may decide to ignore the bottom line and try
to play each x as a note but they have no sense of the duration of the
notes, the key it was designed for or the speed at which they should play
it.

Yes standards are important. If that guy built a house, I wouldn't be buying
it.

P

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stevio
> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 11:49 PM
> To: Web Standards Group
> Subject: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards,
> Usability, and tableless CSS
>
> Interesting thoughts from Vincent Flanders:
> http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in
-2004.html
>
> Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web
> Standards, Usability,
> and tableless CSS
>
> What do you think?
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.18 - Release Date: 19/04/2005
>
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>
>  See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
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RE: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Mike Pepper]

Original Message From: Stevio
> Sent: 20 April 2005 14:49
> Interesting thoughts from Vincent Flanders:
> http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html
>
> Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability,
> and tableless CSS
>
> What do you think?
>
> Stephen

He's placing standards and accessibility in context of a business
proposition and they're of negligible consequence to financial decision
makers unless a clear monetary gain is demonstrated. In a cold-hearted
business world, social responsibility doesn't exist ... which is why we have
to do it ourselves and illustrate clear benefits in terms of revenue and
hope our respective governments pop their dentures back in and start to bite
through legislative sanctions.

It's that simple.

Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com

Administrator
Guild of Accessible Web Designers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gawds.org

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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Lee Jorgensen]

Yep, he probably is right about that , but he's wrong about something 
else  ". My home page uses web standards and it's no monument to great 
design. 
"...

Jan Brasna wrote:
Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, 
Usability, and tableless CSS

What do you think?

That he might be particularly right. All of this is not self-salutary, 
there are many other points that lead to a successful website.

Lee
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RE: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Peter Firminger]

There is nothing wrong with any of the above except they're being touted
by...guess who?...people who offer web design services specializing
in...guess what?...Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS. These are
simply tools. Remember, nobody gets excited about the tools used to build a
house ("Please tell me what brand of hammers you used!"). People get excited
about how the house looks and performs.


It's got nothing what-so-ever to do with the brand of hammer used, it's to
do with the material. You can build a perfectly good house using asbestos
products but why would you when they are proven to be bad.

I don't tell anyone that a standards-based design will make more money than
a table layout, but there are significant savings in building, maintaining
and serving a standards based website. Whether the developer passes these
savings onto the client or not is a matter often discussed. We do and we get
penalised for it often by people thinking our quotes are too cheap to be
realistic.

I've never liked this guy much anyway. His domain name is entirely
appropriate for the site it holds.

P

> Interesting thoughts from Vincent Flanders:
> http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html
>
> Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web
> Standards, Usability,
> and tableless CSS
>
> What do you think?
>
> Stephen


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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Jan Brasna]

Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, 
Usability, and tableless CSS

What do you think?
That he might be particularly right. All of this is not self-salutary, 
there are many other points that lead to a successful website.

--
Jan Brasna aka JohnyB :: www.alphanumeric.cz | www.janbrasna.com
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Re: [WSG] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS

[Marco van Hylckama Vlieg]

Funny. I agree with this article. I even wrote something quite similar
a while ago:

http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/archive/2005/04/07/why_xhtml

Web standards are great for perfectionists like us. I love them and I'll
continue to use them and teach other people how to use them but honestly,
they have 0,0 commercial value really... Sure there are arguments but
clients just don't care about most of them.

Marco

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005, Stevio wrote:

> Interesting thoughts from Vincent Flanders:
> http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html
>
> Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability,
> and tableless CSS
>
> What do you think?
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.18 - Release Date: 19/04/2005
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--
Marco van Hylckama Vlieg - Senior Web Developer
http://www.i-marco.nl/
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