gokubi.com

I’ve been working in web businesses since 1997, so I’ve seen my share of web design, web designers, and code. Styles have changed over the years, often dictated by what was possible with the wildly divergent browsers that we all were using. Back then, the browsers behaved so differently that we often had to write separate code for each type of browser. There was no “standard” set of behaviors we could count on.

Web Standards

Recently, that divergence has shrunk, thanks to a little think called web standards–the guidelines of how the web is written. HTML, XHTML, CSS, DOM–these are the tools in the toolkit. But web standards are guidelines and not rules. Nothing is forcing us to write code that lives up to the guidelines. Because of browser divergence, you still can write non-standard code that turns out a nice looking website–some of your favorite large sites are woefully out of standards compliance.

Now, about 98% of all users on the web are surfing with browsers that are very good at supporting web standards. Web developers can finally design beautiful sites that adhere to the best practices of web design. This seachange is happening slowly, but some of the biggest sites are making the shift, and reaping the rewards.

Jeffrey Zeldman is one of the clear voices identifying the rewards of making the change to web standards, and he pulls it all together in his 2002 book Designing With Web Standards. Design with web standards and your site will be lighter, easier to maintain, be accessible in the many devices that people surf the web with, and be forward compatible. All these benefits are great, but forward compatibility is the real reason to do this work. The web didn’t exist 20 years ago–none of us can fathom what it will look like in 20 years. The only insurance we have that our work will last is if we follow web standards. The designers of the future of the web, those who set the standards, will ensure backwards compatility of code, but only for good code, standards based code. Follow the standards now, and you’ll do less rework later. Standards are the way to go. Word.

Web Usability

My job has recently thrust me head first into a number of major site redesign projects. Like I said earlier, I’ve seen a lot of web properties in my day, and can tell a good one from a bad one. But coming up with a redesign seemed to require a bit more focus on what it really means for a site to be “useable”. So I got a copy of Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think. The book is a godsend to those of us trying to make useable sites on a shoestring budget. His tips on navigation and the mindset of web users brings home the common sense we all should have internalized by now. I’m champing at the bit to do an in-depth reading of the book after my first skim through and apply some of the many gems I’ve already seen.

These two books together have brought into clear focus what I need to do in these redesign projects–standards based code, and simple, clear layout and navigation. We’ll see how far along the standards curve we can move. I suspect we’ll start with minor steps, but with the web standards goal in mind, we can only be better off.

Prounounced Goo-ree toe Goo-rah, these two Japanese mice have zany adventures that always end with them eating good food with friends. The Guri and Gura books were given to us by our friends from Japan, Saori and Akio. These books are currently in heavy rotation for the little boy. Even when it’s really hot and we go shirtless, he still loves to read.

Beth and I were discussing something in the kitchen tonight, and were pretty involved in our conversation. I looked down and realized that Malcolm had pulled a bag of wheat flour out of the pantry and dumped in on the floor right next to us without our realizing. We looked down and were amazed that this had happened with us there and we hadn’t noticed. It was truly ham-handed parenting at its best. So, we ran and got the camera before the moment was lost. Then it was bath time.

When we’re cooking on the stove, Malcolm absolutely has to see what’s going on. He literally tugs on your pant leg to get a good view. We’ve gotten very good at cooking with one hand!

There’s a great system over at del.icio.us that is yet another example of social networks in computing. They’ve created an online system for storing your bookmarks. If you’ve ever tried to use someone elses computer, you realize that your bookmarks are back at home in your browser software. No longer with del.icio.us. But that’s not the cool part.

Everyone else can see your bookmarks, and you can see theirs. When you bookmark something, you can see who else bookmarked the same thing and look for related links they may have. Similar interests, different interests, it’s all there. Check out my bookmarks and get set up to store your own.

this picture was taken shortly before a complete outfit change due to excessive moistness. Malcolm loves to “help” me water the perenials. Touching the water as it comes out of the hose is good, getting all mucked up in the soil after it gets wet is even better…

Tengbo now hangs at the end of our dining room table. We saw it hanging in a local business and I really liked it. The bombers and the obliviously fashionable women resonated with me and our current political situation. Thanks Potts for a great present! We hope to see more of Natalie’s work around town.

Potts did her first triathlon! This is the same event Kris did a few years ago:

• 0.5 mi swim
• 12 mi bike
• 3 mi run

She kicked its butt and had a great time. You can see the chaos she survived in the transition zone from swim to bike. Nice job Pottser!

Grammy came to town bearing gifts–one of which is the zany book, More Spaghetti I Say, which has ended up in Malcolm’s heavy rotation. As children’s books go, it’s on the repetitive side, but has a decent rythm and you can dance to it. There is a spaghetti throwing incident that may be too intense for young readers. Grammy reads the books to kids at Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee, so she knew it would be a hit. Malcolm hasn’t started throwing spaghetti on us all yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time.

Although he spent a good part of his first few months in the bouncy seat, Malcolm hadn’t seen the chair in an eternity–at least 6 months. We had to retire it once he learned to sit up and constantly attempted to capsize the whole enterprise. It came out of storage when Nate was over one day, and Malcolm discovered he could throw his weight against it and make it bounce. It was very humorous and quite dangerous, I’m sure.