This is a discussion that continuously reappears on this list.
I've been down this path myself and these days agree with those who say
not to bother selling the standards to people. They really don't care.
Sorry. I spent many meetings with clients trying to explain what
standards are, and the only thing they are interested in are any
tangible benefits. If you cannot focus on benefits, don't waste your time.
In my experience:
Clients do care about SEO, but don't care about screen readers.
Clients do care that google can whip through clean code, butt don't care
to know what tag soup is.
Clients think that it interesting that javascript image buttons with
"javascript:" in the url screw up search engines etc, but don't care for
the technical explanation.
Clients don't care that the 25 nested tables don't validate, but do care
that it takes 5 times as long to make a minor change on that type of page.
Clients think its cool when I press CTRL+SHIFT+S in firefox and remove
the presentation layer to show them what the search engine sees, but
they don't care to learn the difference between presentation,
information and behavior.
As a designer/developer you want to try and separate your self from your
competition, especially if they do crappy work. A long speech aimed at
educating the client is a nice thought but in practicality a waste of
the client's time.
Point being, we're not selling standards here. We're supposed to be
selling quality websites that are well-coded and accessible to a variety
of audiences. Following standards is simply the recommended way to do
so. Save the education for a brochure to hand them if you insist on
drilling the concept into their heads.
Keep in mind I'm in America so I'm in an environment where REALLY no one
cares. My competition all uses Frontpage, frames, javascript links,
whole pages that are just jpgs with image maps, only use CSS to style
scrollbars - its ridiculous!
My 2 cents,
*Joseph R. B. Taylor*
Sites by Joe, LLC
/Custom Web Design & Development/
Phone: (609) 335-3076
www.sitesbyjoe.com <http://www.sitesbyjoe.com>
Tony Crockford wrote:
kevin mcmonagle wrote:
Hello,
This has been discussed before but i was wondering about new input.
I've tendered on a big job and i will be up against a lot of
competition.
What are some web standards selling points that might get through to
a completely uniformed, unsavy client.
MACCAWS was ahead of its time and seems to have been forgotten, mores
the pity, but it was set up specifically to help web designers in your
position.
There's a whole Kit of information here:
http://www.maccaws.org/kit/
Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards | maccaws.org
hth
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