Standards - Just One Part of a Sensible Design

[ArticleBot]

This is an article discussion thread for discussing the SitePoint article, "Standards - Just One Part of a Sensible Design"

[vgarcia]

That has to be one of the best articles I've read on Sitepoint in a long time. I've been thinking those same thoughts for a while now. Too many people ask "How?" before ever thinking of asking "Why?" when they try to solve a problem. Our job as Web designers is to make the nearly impossible look easy, not to complicate and complain. Nice piece of writing Christian!

[stymiee]

It's about time somebody came out and said that. (And I agree mmj as no one could really believe that article bashes web standards)

[r937]

add me to the list of folks who found that the article was a positive statement about standards

nice job, christian

the only valid point i found in brak's comments is that there are a lot of css newbies

let's face it, learning css is frustratingly hard

we need to do more to teach someone how to learn css

yeah, we can go read big john, but who wants to? that stuff is impossible to understand unless you're, you know, as skilled as he is

[Brak]

Let me clarify some of the points I was referring to for those of you whom seem to have missed them.

When we deal with a design that was created by a Web-illiterate designer, a hybrid table layout can still save us a lot of time and effort. If we instead use Web standards and follow the holy commandment of separating presentation and structure, we're in trouble.

This is just speaking from sheer ignorance of designing with web standards. For me to recode an entire layout using CSS it takes me approxomately 20minutes from ending slicing to finished product. After this, working with a "hybrid" layout ends up taking more time than it's worth. That's the main reason I've switched to web standards - it's cut my workload by about tenfold from a designer's point of view. Some people still think positioning with tables is easier - it's not, it's merely a different way of thinking.

Let's all get a bit less anal about the technicalities of the Web, and look at how to improve the usability and logic of the product before we start to develop it.

This is the part that threw me. The entire point of going to web stanards over old-school methods was to improve usability and logic, and the author seems to believe the opposite. Suddenly screen readers can read our websites, PDA's can render something usable, and those with full CSS capabilities get a product that is visually stimulating. I think if the author did a bit more research and found out that few people are nitpicky about sites having to validate. It's not about validation, it's about making the internet more usable and accessible (sounds familiar, eh?)

To reiterate, the purpose of the web standards movement is not to get the internet to validate, but to help it transcend into a usable multi-media experience.

[lo0ol]

I also enjoyed the article. It's been something in the back of my mind for awhile now- when is staying strict to standards too much? Calendars are a good example- why code that mess in CSS when you can code it in a table and be done with it? It IS tabular data, after all.

While I did like the article, one thing bothered me a little bit- this seemed more like an editorial rather than an article. I'm not really sure that's what SitePoint should be going for. I'd love to see it on a blog or the likes, but it's not really an article per se (at least not compared to other SP articles).

[Brak]

After re-reading my posts, I apologize for coming off a bit offensive - it was no intended.

I'm just getting quite annoyed with the flood of people I've been encountering lately claiming that things are just not possible with pure CSS or are overly difficult when in fact they are very possible. Many of these same people present things similarly to you, but their intentions were quite different.

As for your example, yes it would be difficult, but let's rethink the question here. Is it reasonable to assume you would ever need a variable column layout for design purposes? For displaying tabular data - of course, but tables come into play here. I have never seen this in action and quite frankly don't see the purpose. As long as you know either the number of columns or the length of the content, it's quite trivial to do in CSS.

[codepoet]

As for your example, yes it would be difficult, but let's rethink the question here. Is it reasonable to assume you would ever need a variable column layout for design purposes? For displaying tabular data - of course, but tables come into play here. I have never seen this in action and quite frankly don't see the purpose. As long as you know either the number of columns or the length of the content, it's quite trivial to do in CSS.

This is a real example I had to create in a 800 grand project lately, a tourism portal in 14 languages. And if you think about different languages, and different content-editors for those, you don't know the length of the content of each column. If a multi column layout makes sense in this case or not, is another issue, and I spent many an hour with our designers debating that.

[StolenGiraffe]

Abit off-topic.....

Originally Posted by Brak

I have never seen this in action and quite frankly don't see the purpose. As long as you know either the number of columns or the length of the content, it's quite trivial to do in CSS.

And how often do you have the information on how many columns or the length of the content!?!

For a website to be "alive" and truly dynamic, the code and the design is "information-independet" not browser-independent (this is up to the client and how much money he is willing to spend, this also makes the standardtalk irrelevant), and here CSS is a great "tool" in the presentationlayer.
More and more sites are becoming databasedriven and if the database is designed correctly, the presentationlayer (or businesslogic) doesnt care what information lies within and neither should you or your designer.

Use CSS (and tables)to define structure on the presentationlayer, take away the ever appearing 1x1pixel.gif ...

Great article!

[Si]

I found it quite refreshing to see an article debate and outline the whole Web Standards initiative. Whether you (or I) agree with what is said is completely opinionated - it's interesting to see how emotional people get over the Web and its technologies - it is, at the end of the day, just a job/hobby.

[Dano]

codepoet:

(...)
to those who have more w3c-linked icons on their page than content

aha...Now that i have that point, I can read the article more positively.

[xiaoali]

I've always coded my layouts in html, i find that tables work well for things that i need to do.

[Dangermouse]

Originally Posted by xiaoali

I've always coded my layouts in html, i find that tables work well for things that i need to do.

As opposed to a layout without html?

[DemonicPuffin]

Originally Posted by Dangermouse

As opposed to a layout without html?

right..most CSS layouts generally validate to XHTML trans or strict(I prefer strict myself...so much more fun to code to) ....so.....normal html won't be seen...just XHTML

[transio]

Originally Posted by Dangermouse

As opposed to a layout without html?

XSL-FO

[Mr. Brownstone]

Standards versus Sensible Design? Standards is sensible design on so many levels.

Adhere properly to standards and you create less code, increase compatibility to almost 100% of web-devices, consequently implementing better accessibility, and better search-engine rankings. What kind of client or developer doesn’t want that? Certainly, none of my clients.

Standards is no longer a realm of the web-zealot. It should be a no-brainer for developers everywhere.

[Dano]

Findus:

Just using tables for something they are not meant to do is wrong.

I think that is not "wrong", but "unnapropiate" (w3c always recommend).

You can check my site to see what i defend (CSS-P).
But now im working on a site that must be centered.I have content, images and a little flash movie, and if i make them float left/right or % they look very spread.
How can i do for the site to be viewed centered on any resolution?
I use tables.

(im not The Expert, so if you know another way just tell me)

[Brak]

Dano, There are many methods to float things in the middle of the screen using CSS, and it's MUCH easier than using tables.

Simply wrap everyhing in a div, give it either:

#wrapper{
margin: 0 auto;
}

with the outer element (body, other div) set to text-align:center; to account for IE5, and your'e done. Or, give it this:

#wrapper{
position:absolute;
left:50%;
margin-left:-[1/2 of container width]px;
}

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Inexperienced people believing CSS can't do things it very well can, and spreading the word like it's CSS's problem.

[r937]

that negative margin trick is an abomination

i've seen it before, on web sites where the d3zin3r thinks he knows my browser window dimensions better than i do

feh!!

[Brak]

What are you talking about? Every web design assumes people are running some sort of resolution, so what's the big deal?

Don't blame the code when incompetent designers use it the wrong way.

[r937]

Originally Posted by Brak

What are you talking about? Every web design assumes people are running some sort of resolution, so what's the big deal?

hey, man, don't jump down my throat, i'm just calling them like i see them

and, no, not every web design assumes some sort of resolution -- have you heard of liquid design?

your next statement, however, is totally accurate:

Don't blame the code when incompetent designers use it the wrong way.

see, this is precisely the point

incompetency is rampant

css is hard enough to learn in its pure form, when you encourage newbies to use hacks you are really messing with their chance of becoming successful

[Brak]

liquid still assumes a base resolution, let's take a look at sitepoint here for example - a liquid layout. Now, reduce your resolution to 640x 480. Suddenly the design fails and you have to scroll horizontally.

Even when you come down to the writing of a web page, you must assume some resolution otherwise you might have one letter per line.

CSS isn't hard, it's just hard to teach... I've been trying to figure out a way to teach newbies, but to be honest, I can't think of a way. But... I don't classify myself as genious as it comes to teaching... we'll just have to wait for an excellent beginners reference comes out.

[r937]

Originally Posted by Brak

liquid still assumes a base resolution

no it doesn't

if you assume a minimum fixed width, your design is, by definition, not liquid

but hey, let's agree to disagree on this one



try my site, it works when the browser window is way narrower than 640

this is because resolution is not the key design factor, it is browser window width

i know a lot of people on really high resolutions who do not open their browser windows wider than, say, 500 pixels

if you assume the site visitor will happily maximize her browser window, you are being designer-centric

it is this viewpoint ("oh, most visitors are at least 800x600, let's make the minimum width 740") that needs to change

css versus tables-for-layout is an ancillary consideration

[Brak]

Your site still fails at a very small resolution, so what's your point? You're being nitpicky.. going for the math end rather than the engineering end. The whole, 0.9999999999999999999 != 1 under any circumstances, where in all practical applications it does. The web isn't about small nuances (such the point of this article - even if your page validates it can easily fail).

Also, I don't know anyone on high resolutions that keeps their window smaller than 740 pixels wide. No offense, but that's just not an effective use of a browser. You can't fit enough text in to read effectively.

Do these same people prefer novels written on 3" x 5" index cards? It's the same equivelent... Granted you could have books printed on 30" x 50" pages, but most books are the standard 8.5 x 5.5.

I wouldn't call it designer-centric, but rather reality-centric Most visitors are at least 800x600, that's not some random thing we pull out of our arses - it's a set in stone fact. Please, feel free to argue this - but you're wrong and I believe I'd have 99% of the web designing community backing me here.

Granted there are always exceptions and your target visitors should always be considered. Are you targeting 3rd world countries? Gamers? Obviously this is going to have a massive effect on your design considerations, but for once let's go to reality, assuming 99% of things are norrmal and you're targeting normal, average users.

You are in fact arguing the point the author intended to discuss, that practicality has to overcome being compliant or exact.

Please, feel free to refute my comments, but please be rational and consider the real world.

[vgarcia]

Originally Posted by Brak

Also, I don't know anyone on high resolutions that keeps their window smaller than 740 pixels wide. Perhaps you're dealing with mentally retarded people?

That was uncalled for.