Top do's and don't for websites

[cyrus]

I'm sorry, but how many of you really think a photgraphy or art portfolio on line has a chance in a million of looking good enough to care about on a teeny phone screen?

Ah, but when the time comes that the majority of people use those things to surf the web, you would want to be included, right? Anyway standards compliance is not intended just to look good on a cellphone. It has all sorts of other benefits too.

Leaving that aside, there's a bigger issue here: people's willingness to keep up with the changing technology. Even if your site works fine NOW, you can't limit yourself to "how things are now" because "now" is changing faster than ever. For many, just having a site (even a non-compliant one) was a hard slog. Naturally, once they make a site, they're not overly eager to go over and redo/fix it to meet the latest standards, but they don't realize that by just "having a website" they've only reached a stage equivalent to the 1990s - almost 2 decades ago! The world continues to change - whether we like it or not - and you don't want to end up the Betamax in a DVD world. Whatever your objections, you're just going to have to keep up.

[Photomax]

For years we had the browser wars. Mainly Netscape vs Internet Explorer. Thank God for folks like Jeffrey Zeldman and the Web Standards Project. If it was not for these guys we would have a lot more of the truly bogus messages that read "this site can only be viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 with Windows XXX" etc.

Back in the day when the web was new and budgets were huge people would design for all the different browsers with separate code. Or not! So many sites were shut out to users of other browsers or operating systems. This was NOT a good trend.

Web Standards was a life ring in these choppy waters. Fast forward to today: you can now design one page that will work well across all modern browsers, still provide content on older legacy browsers, AND work on all the new devices available today (and tomorrow)... What do you get? Efficient design, performance, increased search engine capability and the ability to reach the MAXIMUM audience.

To avoid using Web Standards because you don't care how your content looks like on a cell phone is at least shortsighted or at most totally ridiculous. If you are putting your work out there then it makes sense to want to reach the widest audience possible. The plain fact is that an increasing percentage of web viewing will be done on hand held devices. If someone hires me for a job I really could care less what they used to discover my work or services - just so long as they can see me!

The avoidance of Web Standards by some folks really puzzles me. Not that I worry about these people. Its like holding onto the proverbial buggy whip or typewriter ribbons: while you are denying progress it will steadily pass you by...

Max

[Kirk Gittings]

http://www.photonewmexico.biz/

[Photomax]

http://www.photonewmexico.biz/

Good Lord!!! That is just awesome!!!

[Photomax]

Check out his "fine" gallery:

http://websitesthatsuck.com/

[r.e.]

I think that the examples that people have pointed to in this thread as good examples of web design reflect a particular perspective on design.

Companies like Hi-Res ( www.hi-res.net ) are doing work that reflects a different perspective, one that I personally find appealing. For example, they did this site for the UK photographer Miles Aldridge: www.milesaldridge.com

I like Aldridge's site a lot, despite the fact that it violates at least three of the Commandments widely balleyhooed in this thread - it is based on Flash, it uses background sound and takes a bit of effort to figure out. Hi-Res also designed a site for Beck that is pure fun - www.beck.com , and for me, Sean MacKaoui's site is a delight: http://www.mackaoui.com I also like the BBC's Flash-based audio-photography slideshows, which they have done for everything from war zone situations to cultural phenomena. Here is one example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/6969032.stm

It is news to me that being a card-carrying member of the CSS/XHTML standards movement means being antithetical to Flash. I can't find that sentiment anywhere in core books on the subject, such as Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards (2007) and Dan Cederholm's Bulletproof Web Design (2006). For those who aren't familiar with him, Jeffrey Zeldman ( www.zeldman.com ) is a major player in website design and is the publisher and creative director of the influential A List Apart ( www.alistapart.com ) This is what Zeldman says in Designing with Web Standards, at p. 95:

"In capable hands, Flash facilitates rich interactive experiences that would be difficult to emulate using web standards..."

At p. 96:

"News sites, portals, shopping sites, institutional sites, community sites, magazines, directories, and others that emphasize text or involve practical interactivity are still best served with XHTML, CSS, and other standards".

"I have no problem with shops that specialize in beautiful, usable, highly functional Flash work. I would just like to see the same care and attention paid to the other 90% of design and development. But I don't have to sell you. You bought this book."

The debate is not about CSS/XHTML v. Flash; at its core, it is about CSS/XHTML v. HTML that does not use CSS to its full capacity.

There have been statements in this thread that Flash is not Google-friendly. I'll add, because I didn't see it mentioned here, that Apple's iPhone does not currently support Flash and perhaps never will. Regarding Google, some people don't need a site that meets Google's requirements, and for those who do, it is possible to design with both Flash and CSS/XHTML. Regarding cell phones, again there are people who don't care, and there are also work-arounds, including the construction of an alternate site that takes into account the many limitations of cell phones. I think that there is an argument for a simplified alternate site, tailored to cell phones, regardless of how the main site is coded. And for those who want a single site, for whom cell-phone access is important, well then it is a major design criterion that militates against the extensive use of Flash.

It is certainly possible to do a photography site with nothing more than CSS/XHTML, but I personally haven't seen examples that catch my eye.

One of the sites that in this thread has been widely praised is Frank Petronio's. I like his site, but it is important to understand something. It is a long way from being a pure CSS/XHTML site. It is based on Movable Type, which is a turnkey content management system. Other examples of such systems are Wordpress, ExpressionEngine, Dupral and Typo. These systems have two main attributes: they allow users to make changes from a web interface instead of via FTP upload to a server, and to make them work you have to have a database such as MySQL. In addition to CSS/XHTML, they rely, at their core, on Pearl (Movable Type), PHP (Wordpress) or Ruby on Rails (Typo). They also come with templates that take a lot of effort and time to customize, which is why there is a whole cottage industry of people designing "themes" for these systems. It is also why the vast majority of Movable Type and Wordpress sites look pretty much the same. My hat is off to Frank Petronio for getting Movable Type to work for a photographic site, because the templates for MT and these other programmes are more text than photography oriented. Their most typical use is for blogging. If it works for Frank Petronio, part of the reason is that he has a lot of text on his site and he changes the text frequently. My personal view, having tested several of these systems, is that they are overkill and overly-complicated for most photography-oriented sites, and that customizing them is more trouble than it is worth.

Of the photography sites that appeal to my own sense of design and views about web interfaces, none of them is based exclusively on CSS/XHTML. Some of them are Flash, some of them are CSS/XHTML plus Flash or some other programming component. Examples of the latter are ZenPhoto and Lightbox/Slimbox, although I have reservations about the Lightbox/Slimbox phenomenon. For a current debate about the Lightbox javascript plugin, see this discussion on the influential 37 Signals website: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/5...htboxed-lately War photographer Marcus Bleasdale's site is an interesting, and sophisticated, combination of CSS/XHTML, Flash and ZenPhoto - www.marcusbleasdale.com - that is worth comparing with the BBC audio-photography slide show series.

If there are people in this thread who know of interesting, entertaining photography-oriented web sites that are based purely on CSS/XHTML, I'm keenly interested in checking them out. CSS/XHTML is certainly a simple solution, if it can be used to make sites that are a little more hip and a little more exciting than what I've come across myself.

Cheers

[cyrus]

http://www.photonewmexico.biz/

Holy Moly! LOL!

[cyrus]

It is news to me that being a card-carrying member of the CSS/XHTML standards movement means being antithetical to Flash. I can't find that sentiment anywhere in core books on the subject

Webstandard is not necessarily opposed to Flash. If you noticed the main objection to Flash is that it won't rank well with the search engines (that comprehend only text) and also, that the small but not insignificant minority of web surfers won't wait for it to load or can't see a Flash site.

Also, the use of Flash encourages some "bad" practices. For example, having a splash page is bad enough but having a flash-based splash pages is really bad - but people tend to want to show off their "cool" flash tricks anyway. (a phenomenon known as Flashturbation)

Flash is a tool, not an end in of itself - use it if at all with good judgment.

Also, as far as Movable Type goes, I don't think that's really relevant to the issue of web standards and flash or CSS/XHTML. You can have an MT site where the templates are created using pure CSS/XHTML and there are no tables used for layout. Sure, there are additional "things to learn" when you use an application like MT as a content management system (like how to use the MT tags), but that's a different matter than the issue of CSS/XHTML. You can have a very nice "pure" CSSXHTML site and not use MT at all.

[Frank Petronio]

Thanks for the praise. My galleries (which are overdue for a huge update) are static XHTML/CSS and validate. Only the front page (blog) and the related archives are tied to Movable Type, the rest of the site is all simple static pages.

I worked with an excellent (and very busy and expensive NYC) designer/webgeek, Michael, who is credited on the footer of each page. Michael is great if you can get him. I really stopped trying to be web savvy around 2000 when I got laid off from a dot.com. Now I only cut-and-paste code and art direct minimalistic type stuff. I really am trying to work my way out of design and marketing but it keeps sucking me back in....

I just did a little website for a company where the young freelance geek wrote her own Content Management System for blog text and photos, which seems easier and nicer than Moveable Type (and far nicer than WordPress). It wasn't too expensive either.

Like most things, MT was great 3-4-5 years ago and now it seems dated.

Really the best advice is just to follow, copy, and hire people like Zeldman. Jeff sent me to Michael and steered me right.

Too expensive for you, Jeffery: http://www.zeldman.com/

Really busy Michael: http://lumino.us/

Jon is pretty good too: http://www.blurbomat.com/

Good, young, and less $ Amy: http://www.amy-wong.com/

Really inexpensive student Dave: http://angry-pigeon.com/

Maybe a few folks on this forum might be available too, I'd ask around.

I am only an overpaid "idea" consultant, I don't actually do any work...

[walter23]

Amen. Music on a website makes me want to kick a puppy through a field goal.

That and the use of any of the following rage trigger-words:

treasured
special
precious
memories
reflections
moments

Especially in a curly font.