Web Design: Welcome to the 2000s

Last Updated on Friday, 30 July 2004 11:09 Written by Steve Friday, 30 July 2004 11:09

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.

Guri to Gura

Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 July 2004 08:53 Written by Steve Wednesday, 28 July 2004 08:53

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.

FLOUR!

Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 July 2004 09:35 Written by Steve Tuesday, 27 July 2004 09:35

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.