What standards should we be promoting?
So the thinking behind RefreshCleveland is partly to promote web standards in the real world and their adoption by designers and developers in the Cleveland area. But what standards should we be promoting?
There seems to be a rumble amongst the big name advocates on this very subject. Partly brought about by the “Dear W3C, Dear WaSP” post by Molly. I saw this trickling through my feeds even before I reached Molly’s blog. Jeremy Keith’ s post was the first and others followed, while Patrick Lauke and Tantek Çelik slugged it out in the comments of Molly’s blog.
These big names cite apathy towards the organizations and a desire to just get on with it and use the standards we have. I sort of agree. I was one of the first people at Optiem to promote web standards within our day-to-day production and I still bang the drum four years on. But I just don’t think we need HTML5 and how long before browsers support CSS3 (they hardly fully support CSS2 now)? I still see sites that are developed recently that don’t get HTML4 transitional right, let alone XHTML Strict.
Does anyone disagree? Should we just concentrate on getting the basics right, with maybe the addition of some newer pieces such as microformats and the currently supported CSS, and let the browsers and other developers catch up?
What would you like to see as the standard that Cleveland web firms put out?
Technorati tags: web standards, standards, w3c, advocates, css3
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Tags: webstandards, standards, w3c, advocates, css3
August 16th, 2007 at 6:23 am
David, Just recently found this blog and the View from W6th. Hi!
Just a thought, but with all the hoopla around the medical industry here, I would like to see more effort put into accessibility standards - section 508 etc.
I must admit that I have been fairly suprised at the number of sites that aren’t even close in the area. It’s like they’re not even trying to get close to the standards.
Of course, I also need to do my part…..
August 17th, 2007 at 12:01 am
David, with all due respect, in no way were my comments on Molly’s blog intended to “slug” “it out” with Patrick Lauke. I have a great deal of respect for Patrick and his passionate dedication to accessibility. My comments to Patrick were intended to a) raise the level of conversation, and b) provide ways to participate in helping improve things beyond comments on blog posts, and I fully expect that Patrick will do what it takes to improve things.
Unfortunately some of the other comments (to be clear, not from Patrick) on Molly’s blog post were filled with ad hominem attacks, and thus I decided to stop commenting on that post.
As far as what standards to use, an excellent question, to which as you noted, many wise folks have written many opinions.
My opinion very much echoes your own rhetorical question: “Should we just concentrate on getting the basics right, with maybe the addition of some newer pieces such as microformats and the currently supported CSS, and let the browsers and other developers catch up?”
Yes. And for this very reason of “getting the basics right”, some of the most active folks in the microformats community decided to promote the abbreviation “POSH” for Plain Old Semantic HTML as something that web designers and developers should focus on even before microformats. And thus we’ve noted POSH at the top of the microformats wiki and encourage contributors to make sure their websites are POSH before pursuing new microformats.
August 17th, 2007 at 6:33 am
“What would you like to see as the standard that Cleveland web firms put out?”
Personally, I’m down with getting the basics right first. I’m probably not the only developer who has had a little trouble keeping up what the standards actually *are*. It’s sad, but true.
It’s been my experience that you folks on the design side of things tend to be more in tune with these things. I think that we developers need to step up and get a little training from you folks on the basics, and once those become second nature, look at what the future holds.
August 17th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Rob,
It does seem that accessibility is still being largely ignored as part and parcel of building websites today. That’s one of the reasons for this blog and (hopefully) the Web Standards meet-up group.
Basic Section 508 compliance should be achievable on every site. I know the use of CMS’s and client demands for Flash can impact it heavily but at least it’s worth trying.
And I agree with you that its surprising some medical sites don’t do more.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Tantek, I didn’t mean to infer that you guys had anything but the utmost respect for each other. Thanks for posting to clear that up.
I am excited about the arrival of POSH and it is something I hope to talk about and promote here. Maybe we (as a industry) can look at this as a bit of a natural breathing space and ratify what we have achieved so far.
I personally feel I’ve come a long way since first opening Mosaic and it’s felt like a never-ending sprint since the inception of WaSP and my first exposure to web standards. Maybe that’s the just the nature of the medium.
I’d love to pursue the next generation web that comes along without having to reinvent stuff we already know works (HTML etc.) and works extremely well everywhere.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Start with the basics, and go from there. Most Northeast Ohio agencies are still churning out Flash sites.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I agree with all of the comments above. Starting out with the basics is definitely the standard we should be promoting in Cleveland. A well structured, semantic page is the most important step in creating a great standards based site.
Hope to see you at the next Web Standards Meetup (although we are now in the process of becoming the Cleveland Web Standards Association).
August 28th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
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