Over at Modern Life, a recent “article” was written stating standards don’t matter to the end user. I’ll go as far as to say, I agree. Does that mean it shouldn’t? No, it doesn’t. What the author of the piece doesn’t seem to get is that standards are good for the end user. They save money by using less bandwidth, create money by being more search-engine friendly and are much easier to maintain by someone with casual HTML knowledge.
I do believe I’d have an easier time explaining to someone, “See these two tags <p> and </p>? Edit everything between that,” rather than the spaghetti code that nested tables create.
The author tries to cover his ass by saying, “I’m not condoning the use of bad code here at all, nor am I for encouraging lackadaisical markup. ” All the while in the next breath stating, “the time and effort expended in trawling through code for the sole purpose of making it W3C compliant may – in the long term – be fruitless, should the validation error have no visible side effects.” It seems to me that he has just contradicted himself because, in my opinion, web standards at the heart of things, is writing good code and if you’ve left something opened that should be closed, that is lackadaisical markup.
Whether the original “article” was intended to be truthful or is just link bait, only the author knows but it sure reads like a bunch of nonsense to me.
My name’s Jen; I’m a cynical, sarcastic, ex-drummer who is fond of dark humor. I've held way too many factory & retail jobs but finally found my calling one Christmas holiday in a dark, musty basement. I am now a CSS & XHTML web standards looney and can be found daily—when I’m not at my Mac—at the local fair-trade coffee shop buying an iced-soy mocha no matter the temperature.
I am also the owner of Pop Stalin Design specializing in CSS & XHTML web design as well as custom WordPress themes.
Stuart, you have indeed encouraged discussion.
I just think a good designer should strive to meet all the requirements you stated above—granted we don’t always hit the mark but we should still try. Web standards can comfortably have a place along side usability and accessibility and in my opinion should.
As far as Microsoft is concerned, just because they think they shouldn’t adhere to standards doesn’t mean everyone else should follow suite. The whole “jumping off a building” saying comes to mind.
From my side of things, I personally validate my work through W3C and am disappointed in myself if I don’t pass because for me, I haven’t written the best code I know I can.
Re: the “article”. The subject of web standards is indeed a prickly one should one go against common dogma. As web designers we are taught that standards are absolutely ‘right’, and that to stray from them is a path to doom. To decry the W3C is nothing short of heresy.
Most web design simply doesn’t benefit from slavish adherance, though - as there are many other factors whch should be considered. I’m not claiming that standards should be abandoned - far from it - but I think a better emphasis on other, more real factors (accessibility, usability) would be more healthy. A site that is fully XHTML compliant may very well be totally inaccessible and awful to use. It may not even render correctly for 90% of people - the developers of Internet Explorer clearly don’t place that much emphasis on the latest correct web standards.
So, the “article” - controversial, definitely - I am perhaps playing devil’s advocate. Link bait? Perhaps a little, but I wouldn’t consider that to be a bad thing. But I’d stand by the sentiment that web standards don’t matter - at least not as much as we are taught to believe. Other factors are more tangible, and more important.
Nice to see I’ve encouraged a spot of discussion, anyway