Sep 03
Web Standards in Belgium
2005 at 11.50 am posted by Veerle Pieters
I’ve discovered Web Standards around end 2003 and now we are almost 2 years further but I still feel a bit like the lone gunmen in Belgium when it comes to general usage of proper W3C guidelines. Ok, there are probably a few that uses them but it’s like a needle in a hay stack. We often work together with the top 20 internet agencies in Belgium. In most of these projects we are responsible for the design and XHTML templates.
I always deliver valid XHTML/CSS templates in the hope that they get the message and the end result is a nice clean, light, valid (as valid as humanly possible) website. But that's the part where the lovely dream ends. So far I have yet to meet the agency which succeeded in implementing my templates exactly as I've delivered them. The most used excuse they have is that their CMS works with certain templates and that the templates I deliver aren't compatible with their system. Most of these systems sound like nothing is really possible, everything is fixed and not flexible at all. Rather strange if you ask me, I thought a CMS is all about flexibility, easy adaptable to a new design, easy to update etc.
These systems have no way near the flexibility of Expression Engine, just to give an example, and that system costs only a fraction. Some agency even claimed that it doesn't matter if I deliver templates, they have to re-build them from scratch anyway. Huh!? They just want my Photoshop files and that's it.... makes me even more worried for the end result... what will come out is most likely an ugly beast from deep inside hell :-D
It's like David against Goliath every single day, unless of course we have complete control of the website (both design and CMS). But with major brands or projects it doesn't happen often. Some agencies use a known CMS brand from the U.S. and others use their own fabricated one and claim it's the best and it can do anything. But the end result is always the same ... total code mess!
It's so hard to initiate change here. But now a small window of opportunity has opened. One of the major internet related Belgian magazines (Inside) has asked me to write a rather extended article (15.000 char.) about Web Standards. This is a first! There has never been, as far as my memory serves, a major article about this matter. Well, not that I think it will move mountains but every little bit helps. And lets hope it will change a thing or two ;-)
One of the questions I'll answer in my article is "why is it interesting for the average web designer?". Well I think these are major advantages:
- improved accessibility / usability
- less markup (file size)
- increased rendering speed
- much more leaner code
- easier to maintain
- improved update-ability
- greater flexibility
Only, I'm wondering if I've covered everything here. Do you have anything on your mind that you think I should cover? Please let me know and thanks in advance.
UPDATE: Keith Robinson said it so well in his article 'Web Standards Are Your Responsibility', a definite must read for those who are still finding excuses :o)
68served
1
Just wondering if you should say something about the fact that there’s more in (web)life than Internet Explorer ?
I keep meeting people who agree with me that IE is .... well… basically… crap, but when I look at web sites, so many of them still use IE-only code.
Let’s hope that someday others will see the light about web standards. Good luck, Veerle !!
2
The webcompanys make what the clients want. The client doesn’t know what they should ask for (standards), therefor the webcompanys make websites in the way they learned it in 1776. The webcompanys don’t need to change to keep the clients coming. I think that clients should be educated with the known arguments (light weight, accessibility, cross-browser, etc) to ask for standards. This can be done with conferences, Chamber of Commerce seminars, etc. Once the webcompanys see that they are losing revenue because they don’t do standards, they will have to change if they don’t want to go bust.
3
Well, I don’t know but Webstudio and Cap&Design; do talk a lot of design and quite a lot of web standards, not as much as one would’ve hoped but at least giving out a hint then and then. Webstudio brings this up a lot as it is a resource page for developers in swedish. But overall, I think webstandards is very much talked about around in Sweden and it’s “communities” for developers and designers… let’s hope this will go internationally more than just to freelancedesigners and let us hope it moves faster than it has done so far.
4
Here in Portugal the scenario is the same.
Webdesign in the media is nothing more than Dreamweaver’esque tutorials on monthly magazines. Some weeks ago I “took a ride” on a review of IE7 I was asked to write to a weekly computer-related supplement to a dialy newspaper, and dedicated about half the article to the web standards not being implemented on the Beta 1, and why it is important that they be , and soon on the development/testing phase.
Other than that I’ve never read an article on the matter on the media (not wanting to consider my self as a pioneer, and I hope I’m not and that someone wrote something I missed).
Question is: is there no webstandards awareness in Portugal? The answer I dare to give: it exists, but it is not on the mainstream. The main webdesign commercial companies deliver the poorest code you could ever see (not even a goddamn DOCTYPE, and you can guess the rest: random use of lower/uppcase, übernested tables, spacer.gif, so on) for a zillion simoleons (and no, the backend programming doesn’t balance things).
On the other hand, there was a presentation on YAPC Europe 2005 (note: a Perl conference) on “Web Developing with HTML Mason and CSS Layout” (posts with links to the slides, which are in English), and I was delighted to see that 25~30% of the slides were dedicated to good webstandard-prone webdesign practices.
On the CMS side, I find the following pattern: giving the slightest responsability of following webstandards to the guy that inserts/updates contents is mostly worthless. You say “Thou shall use ul and li to create a bulleted list”, but it won’t take but a month for him not to bother with more than typing a list as a series of lines of text beginning with a dash or an asterisk. CMSs should be developed in order to make every possible move towards correct markup—- be it with WYSIWYG and/or some more artefacts.
Finnaly, in regard to your article, you can add “increased download speed” to “increased rendering speed”. Separating content and presentation makes a more optimal use of the browsers’ caching capabilities—- downloading 1 global stylesheet for every site’s pages’ presentation vs. downloading each page with its own presentation code embedded onto the HTML. This also leads to another advantage achieved: “avoiding code repetition”.
Well, these were my 3¢ (or shall I say $29.99?—sorry for the long comment ;) )
P.S.: Just 2 questions: are you aware if that magazine is solely distributed in Belgium? The article will be in French? Thanks in advance. :)
5
Define what Web Standards are, and what they’re all about. Then go on to say that there are three noticeable changes from the olden days:
- External styling, no more inline styling. Saves bandwidth and time.
- From tables to CSS Positioning. Another time and bandwidth saver.
- Improved SEO through supposedly semantic mark-up. (In my opinion it’s _more_ semantic, but not semantic - if you know what I mean.)
Also be clear in that this is _the way_ to build sites in this day and age, we’re not the underdog anymore.
6
Very much the same feeling here. I don’t understand “large” CMS builders are complaining about webstandards. It’s much easier and flexible (design <-> programming) to build eg. a navigation with an unordered list instead of with tables/td’s.
In my opinion the different types of media (css) are a nice feature. Prints, small screens…they look very nice, with exactly the same code.
Go go Veerle for Belgium Standards President ;)
7
Veerle ... you’re not alone.
I remember back in 2000, I joined a 150 persons company to found a “Web Consulting Unit”. The web site of this company just s…..
Instead of calling the internal talents to revamp the site, they have delegated this work to a design agency where people had NO clue what CSS was.
I know ... it’s back in 2000 but since then, I think that the situation has not really evolved favorably.
Here in Brussels we also try to promote standards: valid XHTML 1.1, Triple-A WCAG (and YES standards help attain accessibility), and valid CSS.
All the advantages that you cited are correct of course (sic Zeldman. Personally, I like the idea of having my sites displayable on PDA, phones, etc. Maybe you can put some emphasis on this cross-browser plus-point. Ah ... yes ... and of course the ability to print a page without being obliged to create a “printable” version of the same content ... just thanks to CSS.
Now, having said this, and this comes from one of your (little) competitors, I find your work remarkable. Keep up with this excellent work, and say it loudly, say it clear : there are more and more people who love to push the standards.
8
I have long been looking for a Belgian eqiuvalent of the (great, IMO) project called drempelsweg (http://www.drempelsweg.nl/) in the netherlands. Drempels weg, means ‘obstacles away’. And is aimed at gettign (official) sites to use technologies ttha do not lock out users. Off course that includes standards.
Veerle (or any other Belgian reader), Do you have any clue if something like that exists in Flanders or Belgium?
9
New to webdesign as I am (june ‘04), I was lucky to have asked myself a rather obvious (bordering on stupid) question: “Who runs the internet?“. Turned out to have been a very fortunate question for me: I ended up on w3.org which guided me in the right direction from day one. So standards, semantics, usability, accesibility, crossbrowser scripting seem the natural goals to strive for to me.
When faced with yet another discussion on the importance of standards an added advantage I point out is that maintaining or redesigning a standardcompliant site made by someone else is also much easier than a non-compliant one (and no longer means starting for scratch). Same thing goes for projects on which more than one person or teams are working on.
Good luck on the article: every additional designer who finds the way to standards is a step in the right direction. Many revolutions start out small. Keep up the good (and beautifull) work!
10
Yoeri: The thing is, that cms’s really need to be built from the ground up incorporating ‘web standards’ (i.e. tableless templates) as it really changes the whole dynamic of a template. This means the templating system has to be geared towards this, or rather not geared towards tables.
And boy is it crappy to have to strip tables out of a cms…did it on Mambo once…once and never again!
11
@AkaXakA
“Stripping tables out” of a CMS is a bit too radical, I think. What urges is that the tables’ use is optimized.
For example: I think it makes no sense to build tableless (100% tableless) templates for phpBB (like this).
A board index really makes sense with tables, as long as they’re acessible ones (good use of td vs. th, scopes for th’s, etc.). Taking off tables just because “tables are bad” (pitfall) turns (in this specific example) a board index into a div omelet (which is just a slight flavour of what we want to avoid, a table omelet), which degrades to 0% semantic hypertext.
Despite all this: the table problem resides mainly in the template. Even if the CMS is not specially webstandards driven, the “too much tables” problem has sufficient solution in hiring a template to a competent designer.
The real problem lies when webstandards-unaware (or even people with nothing but basic knowledge of using computers) are behind the task of creating dynamic content, and that’s what CMSs should be as imune to as possible.
12
I certainly understand what you’re saying. Even if you explain all the benefits of standards based design, most shops don’t get it. Long term is not really embedded in the heads of most people. What I try to do is educate and influence the people I work with and get them up to snuff.
I started to work at Jobs & Careers last year (home of vacature.com, references.be and jobscareer.be) and we’re slowly creeping towards standard compliance. The first standards - but still invalid - release is the new jobscareers.be
13
It’s the same thing in Holland. People really don’t care about web standards. It’s even worse, they don’t even care about good design. The only sites that look good AND obey to web standards in Holland are those made by webloggers. I’ve worked for several web companies and most of the time I’ve been the only one or at best one of the very few that advocates web standards. The companies don’t really care and the clients care even less. As long as their site looks ok in Internet Explorer they seem to be happy enough. Cross browser compliance doesn’t even seem to be a selling point!
14
I’m reading a good book right now, called “CSS Cookbook” publisher - O’Reilly, covering CSS2.1, and written by Christopher Schmitt. It discusses some of these very issues with creating web site layouts with CSS (instead of tables), and how to create effective navigation using ul’s, etc., which browsers they will work in, and which they won’t, covering limitations and problems with IE. Anyway, it helps to have this type of book as a reference to use, and it also refers to DocTypes and browsers - on this site here:
www.webstandards.org/learn/refence/ddoctype_switch.html, as well as the w3.org.
Regarding the CMS issue. One of my sites is contained inside of a customized CMS, and we have our share of problems with it. It doesn’t support CSS, and there are other limitations, too. I build the pages in Dreamweaver and have to copy and paste them into the CMS in their HTML form screen, and it completely alters the code, so you can’t really copy back to DW after that, if you needed to, plus have to tweak the spacing and other things to get it to look right once it is in the CMS. It is hard to work inside of, but I have gotten used to it, now. It isn’t all bad, allowing us to have some features otherwise would have had to be created by a programmer, but it isn’t totally a great solution, either. The one thing it allows us to do is maintain a database that works in conjunction with the web site, and to have online registrations for example, which I guess is pretty common. CMS’s were created so people who didn’t know how to code in HTML and other web languages could manage their own sites sort of like using a Word program or something, but in some ways, just learning to use the CMS is a huge hassle, and too difficult for people with no experience in computers. Some of the members of this organization have tried to do learn to work in it themselves without much success or understanding of it, and in the end they come back to me for help and to do most of the formatting. They even have a lot of problems with just doing the basics like selecting fonts and formatting text - which isn’t that difficult once you know how, but if you don’t I guess you can make a mess out of things. I wonder what the answer is - as someone suggested creating a CMS that will support the emerging standards would help, but again, I don’t think it can replace having the clean code or competent coders and programmers who can create the necessary elements of a web site. Having something automated by a CMS is - just that. I think the CMS’s are a mixed-bag - good for some purposes, but not for others.
15
Veerle ... this thread is a bit deviating from your original question. I think it was more to gather ideas for your forthcoming article, right?
However, the question of the CMS seems to be relevant to your original question. Not only designers and coders must be savvy when it comes to apply standards, but also the tools they use mut allow them to express their art without losing dependability.
You seem to be very happy of your CMS, which seems to be Expression Engine. Can you elaborate a bit more on it? How does it help you very concretely?
16
Veerle, misschien moet je eens kijken naar www.webstandaarden.org. Dit is de site van Davy, een stagiair hier bij Netlash. Hij maakte zijn eindwerk over webstandaarden.
17
I feel your pain ;)
I’ve worked on two different types of open source forum software projects. One where I was one of the project administrators and so could push a switch to web standards and data only tables through. And one where I was recently asked to join as an advisor for the “Design Team”. The first things I advised was to drop the nested tables and things like <span style=“font-size: 130%;“> for headings. This sparked to my amazement a hefty debate of why this would be bad. Their main reason seemed to be that it would be near impossible to implement a design that leans more on a CSS structure in IE4 an thus look bad on PDA’s. Pretty void argument I felt.
One thing I’d add to that list is the ability to create several lay-outs for several media, like a style sheet used when printing an article. But then again this isn’t something that’s really related to web standards.
I feel that when done right, lay outs that adhere to web standards are displayed exactly the same in more browsers.
Good luck writing the article, and tell us when we can read it in Inside
18
It’s not all darkness in Belgium. I’m not at all a professional, but I do care about webstandards, as a lot of my collegues do. But still we are not professional though:
http://www.ksjknokke.be/
http://www.scoutswindeke.be/
http://www.scoutsmeerdaal.be/
http://www.scoutswindeke.be/
....
It’s like the professionals care less about webstandards then these amateurs, I don’t know any big Belgian website that follows the standards.
ps: @João Craveiro
There are three official languages in Belgium: Dutch (biggest part of Belgium), French and German (very small part).
19
Good timing for this: just when Andy Budd has an article on standards and printed magazines.
This might sound like a stupid question but does anybody use or recommend XStandard to enable people who know nothing of technology to input data in a CMS using web standards?
20
Great that you are going to write something in Inside. Because it is slightly geared towards web-marketing, it is going to be read by a lot of people in the really big companies.
I do a lot of freelance work for one of those and people really have no idea about web standards and how it can help them.
I was actually thinking about checking out which Belgian web companies actively support webstandards. Both as a way of getting an overview and as a way of raising the interest in it.
Best of luck with the article, I’m really looking forward to it.
21
João Craveiro: I’m talking about bigass CMS’s, not forums. Forums can be a part of it, and indeed tables are one of the better ways to build a classic forum layout.
Quite a lot of CMS’s use tables for everything - hacking them is hopeless, even when you are using tables!
22
Veerle, can I add some things to your list with advantages?
* Bandwith savings. In his excellent article Throwing tables out of the window, Doug Bowman calculated that using a lean XHTML/CSS lay-out could save Microsoft.com 924 GB a day (!)
* Dramatically better search engine ranking. Just google on ‘veerle’ ;)
* Separation of structure and lay-out makes it more comfortable for others to update your pages (because semantic XHTML is much easier to interpret than tag soup). It also ‘could’ make team work easier.
* Using web standards is the only way to ensure compatibility with future browsers or user agents that are yet to invent (no deprecated tags, proper doctype etc.)
* It’s a great starting point to ensure that disabled people can access your website (but it’s not the only requirement, as we discussed earlier) ;)
I would also like to remark that, in my opinion, there’s no direct relationship between web standards and usability. You can’t tell a ‘tag soup’ website apart from a XHTML/CSS site just by looking at the rendered result or by navigating around (take www.tijd.com en www.standaard.be for example). However, it is true that most web developers that use of web standards, also care about usability (and often about accessibility). But again: I believe there’s no proven correlation between these two ‘good practices’.
23
I dont agree with Alexander Berglund; at least i havent seen the kind of response he’s talking about. I think Sweden is extremely bad in adopding web standards. This is the result of extremely high usage of Microsoft products within the government, municipalities, large corporations etcetera. People just don’t care how pages are built, only how they function (in IE).
Almost every client i’ve worked with dont know a thing about web scalability and optimization, and they have a good reason for it. ADSL and faster connections is a de facto standard in internet connectivity, both for companies and households.
A common approach from my side is to educate my client, show them why web standards is a good thing - and then try to help them with migration.
I find it very hard to make a living in Sweden on this kind of business since no-one seems to care about it. (i run my own firm)
24
Indeed, our little country is pretty sucky when it comes to Web Standardsâ„¢. Perhaps we should start a Belgian Web Standards Enthousiasts Webring of sorts, kinda like the Brit Pack or Happy Clog, to name a few… How about that?
25
@João Craveiro, about the coding it is exactly how you descrive it, no doctype, font tag soup, inline styling etc. etc. The article will be in Dutch but the magazine is also spread over the French part of Belgium, so it will be translated.
@Bèr Kessels, as far as I know there isn’t something similar here in Belgium. There is FeWeb, a federation of web developers but as far as I know they never mention web standards, so why bother becoming a member :-S
@Pat Boens, EE gives me the freedom and control over my source code. I just add the EE tags (dynamic parts) where I want them in my pages without touching any of my code. You can always download a 30 day trial if you like.
@Bruno, haven’t heard of XStandard before but I will check this out. Sounds interesting.
@Roel Van Gils, thanks for adding those to my list, these are great and should be mentioned. About the search results, I know! Amazing isn’t it? Now, if this isn’t a nice advantage to convince then I don’t know what will ;-)
@Mathias Bynens, not a bad idea ;-)
@Stijn De Lathouwer, “Great that you are going to write something in Inside. Because it is slightly geared towards web-marketing, it is going to be read by a lot of people in the really big companies.“ Exactly my thought, so I really hope the article will make some difference, even if it is just a little bit ;-)
I’ve got the feeling that there are indeed people who care about Web Standards, but most of them are either some (read: not a lot) smaller agencies, freelancers or bloggers. The mainstream bigger agencies don’t really care or haven’t even heard from it. As long as their clients have no clue on what the difference is, things will remain the same. Although they have to be aware that they are actually creating websites that will become obsolete… Like Jeffrey Zeldman mentions : “You can’t afford to design tomorrow’s sites with yesterday’s piecemeal methods”.
26
Hey, I hate “The Reference” too.
27
greate stuff.. like you always have :D
veerle rock ;)
28
which “Reference”?
29
@Jackie, they are one of the Belgian bigger/top 20 web agencies. But I don’t hate them, I don’t hate any of them, let’s make this clear. I only find their working methods and coding skills disturbing and not up to par for a future web. Actually, I’ve worked with The Reference, they are less “worse” then some others. At least they didn’t break down my code, they only added a bunch of java-based cms code.
30
I think it’s better to see things in the correct perspective. Lets face it, its often easier (as in: takes less time) not to follow the web standards. And if you have ever worked in any company doing web development in any way, you should know that the budget or the time schedule is not up to par with your expectations or ambitions to make a website that complies with web standards, or even to deliver a good website. That is not an excuse, it is a fact. It is something I see every single day. And it will last some more years before we’ve got out of this trap. I, personally, even think we will never reach enough momentum to get every single company to work with web standards. We don’t do it either. I’d like to, I’d love to brag about the fact that I follow web standards from morning to evening, but it’s just not feasible in some cases. And I can assure you that that’s not a matter of ‘not caring’. Not in the smaller companies, not in the bigger companies.
The story about CMS not being flexible enough is another reality check. A simple thing as the order of code execution in a CMS’s system can make it impossible to implement a certain design. For example, a CMS could be built in such a way that the breadcrumbs cannot be rendered after the left hand navigation code has been rendered. It is our job to take this into account. You could of course go and criticize that CMS, and blame it for not meeting your needs. There are a thousand of CMS around, and if your client has chosen product X, they have very good reasons to have done so (I hope at least) and it is our job to work with what we’re offered. In the end, the world is not an ideal place, so I think it’s better to accept the limits, and learn to work within them. It is often frustrating, but a client is happier when you accept the situation and make the best out of it, instead of blaming them for that choice of CMS they made and its limitations.
That’s what sets real designers apart from the rest. Look at product design, where the limits or constraints (materials, cost…) are even stronger that in our business. Product designer that can deliver a good product, taking into account these constraints, or even using them to their own profit, are the best around.
31
Webstandards must be taken seriously….. Once you start to practice it, it just makes sense….
32
It is, in my opinion, not a ‘fight’ against big internet companys.
The belgium market has 33% of ‘freelancers’ ( one person bussines), and 43% are companys with 1 to 9 persons working for them.
Only 3% are semi-big companies and 2% of the market are really ‘big players’.
So it are not the big vompanies who need to change, but all those small campanies and freelancers who are making a living out of www-services.
I am a freelancer myself and have never heard of the magazine Inside (Maybe because all the articles i read usualy starts with www. )
So maybe a big part of the people related to developing webpages won’t get reached at all.
Still it is good to hear that ‘something’ is changing, step by step.
btw: does Inside have a website of there own? I can’t find it.
If not, seems a bit strange, an internet magazine without a website
Well at least it wont give any errors when you try to validate your website :)
good luck with the article.
33
Veerle,
Let’s not be to harsh on the Content Management world here.
Most decent, template based WCM applications I know don’t have that much (if any) problems with valid and standards based. So blame the template programmers rather than the products.
Don’t forget that CMS programming is a completely different specialty than xhtml/css programming. Few people have both these qualities.
But in some cases these products WILL inject some specific tags into your html template, for instance to surround an insite editable block of content. In some cases this can break the page, but i’ve never had any problems working around such issues.
Also don’t forget that problems CMers are faced with are completely different from the problems designers are faced with.
Remember the first time we worked together Veerle? I won’t judge the quality of the css/xhtml because it was one of your first ;-), but you created a lovely three column homepage, where all the text was magicaly just as high in each column…
If we translate this to a CMS, we have only one field to input this text… (i don’t have to explain that both are impossible to combine)
Designers also have the luxury, to look at everything page by page, with an average amount of “lorem ipsum”. CMers are faced with the fact that all (or as much as possible) pages should be built with the same template set, and should be generic. Pages also have to be able the have 1 word or 10 pages of text, without breaking the design.
This just as an example of how designers and CMers have a different view on a website, and are faced with different issues.
Also, you know I do, and I know you do care about webstandards, but do you know the website responsible (our customer!) most of the time doesn’t? What he cares about is the fact that his website looks crappy in prehistoric browsers like macIE5 & co.
Now to add a few advantages (you and roel already mentioned most important)
- browser compatibility (not IE compatibility): Better to have standard code working in 90% of the browsers and hacking your way to the other 10% than the other way around.
- Speed of implementation
- accesibility and usability towards small-devices.
34
@Vincent: Lets face it, its often easier (as in: takes less time) not to follow the web standards
In most circumstances that argument doesn’t hold any ground. Ok, there can be some challenges in some designs with IE but once your coding skills are up to par there is no difference in time at all. I work in this world every day too and the coding skills of most of them are very alarming and they call themselves on the edge of current technologies. They even have problems with HTML 4.01, to me this is unacceptable if you call yourself a web professional.
you should know that the budget or the time schedule is not up to par with your expectations or ambitions to make a website that complies with web standards, or even to deliver a good website.
Sorry but building a bad website just because budget is not allowing it is the worst you can do in my opinion. Money is an important factor yes but there is also professional honor in my book so I would never settle for something you or your company seems willing too. I owe it to myself to deliver a product to the client that is finished and looks exactly as the design does and works in any modern browser on any platform. It is just like the silly argument that is harder to make something work on Mac, it isn’t! If this means a little less money so be it. Then again if budget doesn’t allow it then in most cases your prices are too dirt cheap which is bad for this sector anyway. I have had experience with this that a large company (read 50 people and more) charges much less then a small player like Duoh!, that should tell you something isn’t it?
I’d like to, I’d love to brag about the fact that I follow web standards
This isn’t about bragging at all just about using common sense. I am not obsessed with standards but to me it makes more sense to use code that I know will still work with tomorrow inventions then instead of settling for the easy way out and ignoring a large amount of people and only make things work in IE for example.
The story about CMS not being flexible enough is another reality check.
If the little boys can do it why not the big ones? It is possible to make a web-standards friendly CMS. Come on some of them doesn’t even allow using CSS! If you are prepared to live with that or work with it well I’m not. In most cases it is because that client has been feed a line of bull and he believes it and that’s the reason why he is happy. Nobody shows him a counter example what is really possible and that’s the real reason why he is happy. The client doesn’t know that his website looks like crap in other browsers or that design wise it could have been a lot more appealing with the help of CSS. The client has every right to use a certain CMS but I see it as my task to inform him that more is possible.
That’s what sets real designers apart from the rest.
A good designer is somebody who isn’t afraid to cross boundaries and to me it sounds like you have settled for the status quo.
35
I posted an article about web standards in Belgium on my blog.
I hope I get a lot of reactions from Belgian companies that DO support standards.
It’s meant to get a better view on who is using web standards at the moment and to raise further awareness on the issue.
36
@Koen, Remember the first time we worked together Veerle? I won’t judge the quality of the css/xhtml because it was one of your first ;-)
First of all, who are you? Should I know you? If you are Koen Sienaert then remember that I only knew CSS for about 2 or maybe 3 months back then. A lot of ground has been covered since then. If you are not that person, then please identify yourself.
but you created a lovely three column homepage, where all the text was magicaly just as high in each column…
Well isn’t this possible with CSS? In my book it is. I have recently designed a template for a site (even liquid) that has 3 columns and if the amount of content isn’t equal, they layout is still OK. The background goes from top to bottom etc. nothing is broken. It needs some creativity to make it possible but it is possible.
If we translate this to a CMS, we have only one field to input this text… (i don’t have to explain that both are impossible to combine)
Strange, in EE this is no problem. Or maybe I don’t understand and you have to explain.
Most decent, template based WCM applications I know don’t have that much (if any) problems with valid and standards based. So blame the template programmers rather than the products.
The end result is still the same. Aren’t the people who are using the CMS supposed to be knowledgeable in how to use it properly? If they don’t understand their own product or don’t really care ‘how’ it is implemented, then it says a lot about the company’s mentality. And if that CMS supports CSS or web standards, well, then it is even worse.
Designers also have the luxury, to look at everything page by page
And this is a “luxury” I have with EE, believe it or not.
browser compatibility (not IE compatibility): Better to have standard code working in 90% of the browsers and hacking your way to the other 10% than the other way around.
Excuse me?! Hum?! Maybe you’ll get in trouble when I.E. 7 comes out. Since they are becoming more web standards aware. In fact, it looks like it will become a great browser. In my opinion it is better to hack the bad support of CSS (like box-model) then the other way around.
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Veerle,
Yes it is me, i wasn’t aware my full name was not in my profile.
No need to get so protective, i’m only giving you a view on my personal experiences.
1) I was a CSS newbie then too, (notice the ;-) )
2) If you are able to display one element (a paragraph let’s say) with varying lengths of text over three colums (or two, or four,...) i’d like a quick tip on how to do that, because that’s new for me.
3) I don’t know EE, but as i said above, the problem is not in the cms, but in displaying one element over more columns.
4) In an ideal world this would be correct, but in my experience .net or java programmers are no css experts and vice-versa…
5) when working template based, your page needs to work in all cases, and all types of pages, not on a by page example.
6) I think you misread me (i probaly was unclear). With 90% i meant Firefox, Opera, Safari, Mozilla, camino. And with 10% IE and ... ok just ie :-).
We both protect the same idea to hack the issues not the standard right?
I’m using IE7b1 for a while now, and i must say, that i’m not impressed! They solved 3 (three) CSS bugs. I surely hope more will come, or we’re stuck for another decade.
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@Koen, I’m not protective I just want to know who you are since you mention certain things here that I did and to be honest I don’t remember this. I don’t understand the homepage with 3 column layout… since I didn’t create such page for the project we worked on :-S I just find this rather strange… Which project are you talking about? If you can’t use the company name then please describe.
Anyhow, maybe I don’t understand you correctly here but what I meant was a design like this example.
Or do you mean a block of text that is spread over 3 columns? I can’t remember me designing such thing. I would never, because it is not only hard to read it would indeed cause some trouble, that, I understand. If I used let’s say 2 columns for one of the section template pages then those 2 columns are 2 separate text fields not one. This is the only thing I can remember I used for one of the template pages.
I’m using IE7b1 for a while now, and i must say, that i’m not impressed!...
After talking to Molly I’m seeing the future positively. If you don’t believe me, here it is from the source ‘himself’ (Microsoft). I think there is hope ;-)
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It was an investing thing, with some oranges in the design ;-)
hey veerle i’m not acusing you of anything here, it was just an example, of how a design template might cause problems in a CMS, and that it’s not always the CMS causing problems for the design. (I was talking about text flowing in more columns, maybe it even was on another project, it was just an example).
I just felt that CMS products were taking way too much beating here, where it is the poor implementation of them that should be under fire.
About IE7, yeah i’ve heard about the PIE list aswell; let’s hope they fix all these bugs before releasing it. Even more i would have liked them to just build a standards compliant render engine and not just fix the most anoying bugs.
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@Vincent, ... I strongly disagree with the statement that “it’s easier not to follow web standards”. I would rephrase it to “it’s easier not to bother about web standards because we, web designers, don’t want to bother about it”. It’s a question of attitude vs a question of easiness”.
I am an old programmer, about 20 years C and dBASE experience, with strong OOP background (C++, C#, Java). I touched HTML for the first time back in 1996. I taught Object Orientation techniques to more than 1000 persons ... and you know what : people are lazy by nature when it comes down to learning new techniques. It breaks their habits and they hate it. “What? me learning something new? Out of question, I already know more than the average”. And ... it seems to be Vincent, that your remark perfectly matches this attitude. I hope I am wrong of course. Surely I am.
Having said this, in the long run, you save yourself a lot of time - I said in the ‘long run’ - when adhering to standards. In fact you don’t know how much time you’ll save : it is phenomenal. You know why? Because software sticks. Once you have developed something the wrong way, it is incredibly difficult to get rid of it. It stays with you for a long time. Believe an old-cruiser lime me, buddy.
Turn yourself to standards: it’s fun, it is rewarding (I always stand in awe when I see my pages validating completely, which is strange in fact, because being a programmer in the first place, my C programs would not compile at all if they were not syntactically correct - should be the same with any language, even (X)HTML), and it puts my mind at rest (as I know that I have done my job to the max).
@Koen, ... Don’t feel offended by what’s about to follow ... there is nothing personal in here (since I don’t even know you). I will simply express a view that you can counter-attack.
CMS is sdftware that manage content (a nice “lapalissade”, huh). By nature, it does not mean that it needs to render the contents ... but of course many CMS systems, not to say all, do just that : they also render the contents (much) as the designers have told them to do it (remember the old trick of separation between the structure, the content, the presentation, and the behaviors ?). If the CMS is not capable to render the pages like the designers want them, then the “Rendering engine” of the CMS is wrong, or the templates that are used are wrong ... but something is wrong at the level of the CMS. Period. There is no reason why the designers have to cast themselves to the CMS possibilities. It’s much more the other way around (designers are the customers of the CMS). With that in mind, I think that your remark about the 3 columns layout has no (or little) ground.
And no Koen, xhtml/css is no different from CMS programming (at least from your standpoint). If you’re one of these smart guys that create or extend CMS capabilities, you must be savvy about xhtml/css ... because this is your core business : you’re not in the “CMS industry”, you are in the “Web site Automation industry”. If you’re not offering yourself the “luxury” to see, page by page, what your automatic system did generate, then I think something is wrong. By the way, what you call “luxury” is maybe what web designers call “professionalism”, don’t you think so? Maybe simply a point of view.
When you say that the customer does not care about web standards, I want to reply: “Why would he?“. He cares about TTM (time-to-marke), about independence, about flexibility, about compatibility and ... about price. This is exactly what I present him, and this translates for me by “web standards”. Funny, isn’t it. On top of this, when I come up with the first mockups, I can’t resist showing him the demo on my PDA. Not only this sells (it matters), both my competence and a PDA (should also be on the payroll of Palm ;-)
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it was just an example, of how a design template might cause problems in a CMS, and that it’s not always the CMS causing problems for the design.
Right, I understand now and your right in one underlying page I’ve used such a page. I’ve grown up since then and to be honest I was also pushed into that direction by the client to design it that way. In the cases I’m referring to in the article I’m talking about visual anomalies in different browsers, pictures without borders, no list styles, default linking styles etc. In other words a unfinished job since all things were originally in the templates. If the CMS can’t handle that then the beating is with good reason is it not? If I sell something I make a promise to the client because I know I have the skills otherwise I won’t accept the job. If the people can’t handle a good CMS well then why sell it?
I just felt that CMS products were taking way too much beating here, where it is the poor implementation of them that should be under fire.
I’ve got a lot more experience now and I still stand by my original statement that most of the CMS systems that I came in contact with are not flexible in any way. As long as it has a Word import feature it is a revolution. I still think most of them deserve a kick in the ass ;-)
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@Pat Boens, don’t worry, i don’t bite, and enjoy a good ol’ discussion :-)
First of all, just to make this clear: me= pro standards, xhtml/css freak, working alot on ECM projects.
Here’s the thing, when i talk about WCM solutions, i don’t mean small PHP or perl projects (won’t even mention old ASP crap i’ve seen) where your editor creates <font> tags and other stuff destroying your xhtml template.
I talk about products like Documentum, Tridion, Interwoven, Vignette, or in open source OpenCMS, Apache Lenya, or the great Dutch Hippo (both cocoon based).
These CMS have no problem at all to present the site in the way is was designed, with valid code. (just not to get shot, i have no experience with interwoven or vignette, but can only asume them to be the same as the rest)
So my points are:
* I ALWAYS push a project towards clean standard code. I DO get frustrated if conditions over which i have no control prevent this.
* The software I work with has no problem with clean, standard compliant code.
* sometimes it’s just not feasible to push your ideals (lack of time, budget or flexibility from the customer or design agency)
Because what can you do if you get html like this, and no time/budget to modify it (this IS a real example btw):
<div class="dotted-line-640"></div>And from my experience i can say that more web agencies produce stuff like this than we would like. (Duoh is not one of them btw!)
So if I agree to the fact that not ALL agencies produce crap like that, can you agree that the more professional WCM solutions in no way limit you in clean or standard code? :-)
So again, the only reason for my post here is: don’t blame ALL CMS, and don’t blame ALL CMS implementations, just as web agencies, there are good ones and bad ones!
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@Koen, ... got the message. I see your point.
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@Koen, So if I agree to the fact that not ALL agencies produce crap like that, can you agree that the more professional WCM solutions in no way limit you in clean or standard code? :-)
But still if it is true what you are saying then why isn’t there much publicity about this. And I wonder why has the WaSP to set up a CMS Task Force? This force is there to negotiate with those major systems, to push them towards web standards. I’m sure this task force is there to concentrate on the most wildly used systems out there, and those are the ones you mention I assume. Also, why don’t we see any Belgian major sites implemented with web standards in mind? They are all probably using one of those systems you mention. Do you suggest that we purely have to blame the person who implements the CMS? Then I only have one conclusion, the makers of those systems should maybe educate their customers. And I admire your courage, since you must be an exception.
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...Not to fuel the fire going on here, but
if you want to see an example of a web site contained inside of a CMS, here is the one I was referring to, that I manage: www.gwapf.org Not a real exciting-looking site, but this part we have sort of accepted, for now.
You can see the navigation and headers are fixed on every page, and it doesn’t really allow much choice of design or style with regard to the appearance of the navigation. All we could do was to choose colors that would go with the site. (They did offer a background hover effect, for whatever that is worth.)
However, whenever I set up a new page, as mentioned, it has to be predesigned in Dreamweaver, for ex., then copied into the HTML section of the CMS, and given a name, then given permissions for people to view, it, etc. and saved instantly, otherwise you lose the whole thing and you have to start over again from square one - which isn’t too neat. Then next I have to actually trick the CMS into accepting a line of code at the top of each page in the HTML window, by inserting a body tag, where I can define link colors, otherwise we are stuck with the ugly maroon default color of the browser, when the links change after they’ve been clicked. Every time the page is edited, however, this line has to be reinserted manually, otherwise it disappears the next time. There is no split-window where you can see the code and the visual page at the same time, another hindrance to working effectively, in my opinion. And there isn’t really a way that I know of presently, to create a style sheet as a relative link, which could control the page appearance, or link colors, and I was told that they didn’t support style sheets, so that left me with this as the only alternative. They may add this capability in the future, but for now it isn’t possible.
I think anyone who has had to work within a CMS will realize the limitations with what you can do with the design and appearance, and even the cumbersome way it works. But I know that many businesses in the U.S. are using them especially very large organizations where they have lots of pages to manage, and it is true they have a share of the web market. I guess it is a mix of good and bad - we had to give up some control in order to have the database feature, which we desperately needed for this organization, and now have just finished setting up online credit card processing. The forms were a bit different too, from the type of form you can create with Dreamweaver, and I thought it was very cumbersome to learn how to set all of these things up, and hated the way they looked too, but now as I said, I have just accepted it as the solution we could afford, and tried to make the best of it, using attractive fonts and colors. The only alternative was to hire a programmer to create a customized database for us, that would do what we needed it to - register people, and instanly update their records, allow them to log in to modify their record, and stuff like that, but this was more cost prohibitive.
But seriously, I think that what people are saying here is true: while they do offer some solutions and have enabled some things we didn’t have, the CMS’s can definitely be improved upon in terms of coding and rendering more attractive visual appearance and design for web sites. I think in some ways they make the web site more complicated to manage, as well, but realize that everyone has their own opinion, as well as their own CMS they are working with.
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Hi Veerle,
Very nice blog, ... and very interesting thread. Boy oh boy! Obviously touches a nerve huh?!
Sigh! Basically, it all just boils down to one small simple fact: “Time is MONEY”.
It is impossible in our free and merry Western world to ignore the mighty buck.
As long as developers, large and small, don’t embrace the standards - because it takes more time and MONEY to make something decent (research, testing etc) than to go the “fast, cheap and easy” route - the end-users of their “hard” labour will have to suffer the consequences ...
We’re developers, we’re end-users ... we’re suckers.
I try to do my bit, but it just isn’t always possible. As long as the marketing-boys rule the world (I’m not just talking about IT here!), the mighty “M” will continue it’s “M"onopoly and obliviate all and everything in it’s path!
I sincerely hope that your article in “Inside” will get them on our side ;-)
(My first thought was definitely better search results - should rattle their chain!).
Good luck with you article and keep this kind of stuff coming! ;-)
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The sad fact is that clients couldn’t care less about web standards.
To quote Andy Budd “Sell the sizzle, not the sausage”!
I almost lost the client I’m working for now because I talked about webstandards ;-) ;all they care about is how the photoshop mockup looks, how you implement it is up to you. Using web standards doesn’t always save time either: anyone who’s ever tried some of the more complex stuff surely has lost time getting everything to work in Internet Explorer. Debugging in IE amounts to roughly 15-20% of the development time for me.
I’m leaving you with an anecdote: I made a a standards based website for a local dance school, with their school schedule a huge xhtml table (marked up in XHTML strict and accesible). I used a few classes on the table cells to add some colour to the table. Wanna change the colours? Whip open the CSS file and change them, right? Last week I get an e-mail saying that they’ve “recoded” the entire table in Frontpage because they wanted to change the coulour scheme. Not a happy moment :-ç
And yeah, EE is trulty the dogs gonads!
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EE is a publishing system, there is a big difference between a publishing system and a CMS
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Veerle,
Openweb about CMS & Accesibility [fr] :
http://blog.palaci.fr/2005/07/13/138-accessibilite-cms
By the way, I use an opensource PHP/XML based CMS, who don’t break valid design and it’s called Automne : http://sourceforge.net/projects/automne
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@Bowa: I know but we are talking about the web part here and not about the fact that in many systems you also manage your printing matter for example. In essence the web part does the same. And EE is not your traditional web log system it is much more then that so that’s why it can compete with some CMS systems out there. Anyway this isn’t about EE, I just used EE to set an example of what is possible with a smaller player. I’m not somebody with an appetite for all those correct buzz words ;-) Keep it simple!
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Pat, I don’t blame you for it, but to set the record straight, you are indeed wrong when you assume that I subscribe to the attitude of “me learning something new? Out of question, I already know more than the average”. I don’t subscribe to it, not in an intended or unintended way. If I would, you know like I do, that I’d definitely be in the wrong business.
I don’t have your experience, but still, I’m building websites since 1995, daily. Not as a hobby, it is my trade, and one I am proud of. I do both back-end and front-end, so I do know what I am talking about. And yes, I know, and I agree that using web-standards is “(...)fun” and “(...)rewarding”. I do it almost weekly. Depending, like I said, on what the project allows or requires. Because, I can assure you, I build a table base webpage at double the speed that anyone would build a web-standards based website. And the companies we work for, both clients and other web agencies (small and large alike) know that, and understand that. And that is not rewarding at all. It just works. Or it just fits the job. Period. Sometimes clients do ask for web-standards (a mayor Belgian Telco and ISP has asked us to do it just two weeks ago, and we did it, and we didn’t fail). Often, we propose to clients to use web-standards. Sometimes they don’t care, sometimes they don’t want to, sometimes there’s not enough time.
I compare this to using Patterns, Unit Testing or a strict methodology when doing back-end programming. Yes, oh yes I’d love to do it by the book each time. Yet, I’d be out of work if I’d do so. Sadly enough. And it’s a pure waste of time and money to apply these fundamentals for each single project. For a small thing, it’s often good enough to just delve into the code, write the thing. And I understand if anyone would go haywire when reading the ‘good enough’ part.
And it’s always funny people assume things about other people based on one single comment. Like assuming I don’t have any work-ethic, or professional honor, or that my prices are damn low (I really can assure you, they are not, really).
To put things in focus, this was written down with a smile on my face, and not one of sarcasm or cynicism, and not with any form of anger or frustration. It’s always hard to put intonation in a comment, that’s why I prefer to have these discussions in person.
Veerle, you have obviously stirred up something. Which is good. And which proves that there’s not one single best view on this subject.
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its important to come up with arguments that your clients will appreciate.
“Separating content and presentation makes a more optimal use of the browsers’ caching capabilities” will evoke nothing but a blank stare
I imagine a debate with the big non-standards compliant players and am sure they will say “we” are preaching some theoretical concept that no client is going to listen to. they might react in a similar way to the article you are about to write.
but, if you come up with arguments that will make a client pick you over a big player, you’re sold. both to the client and to the big players.
I always like the argument, that:
“using standards complaint design, im going to give you a website that you can always take to another company and they will know how to continue working on it. by not using this technique, I would be taking your website’s code hostage”.
I imagine a client will appreciate this very much and its therefore an argument that could well make the big players change their technique
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To get back to the “me too"s here: Same situation here in Norway.
I don’t even know a single soul here who could pull off a design for CSS Zen Garden. Which is sad - both because I would enjoy some creative exchange and because I’ve been looking for CSS-skilled Norwegian designers to help me out with some CSS-based skins for an application.
I contacted a top notch design agency and asked if they were familiar with (and preferrably great at) CSS. No problem, they said. But of course there were problems! They found my (very well organized) CSS-template to be tooo big and complex (I assure you, it was not!). My guess is that they’ve probably written some inline CSS here and there, but never actually done any complete CSS-designs. And obviously: They didn’t get to do that for us either.
So to any norwegian csszen-gardeners out there: Raise a hand!
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Haha….. CMS, Belgium, Web Standards, accessibility - I can’t believe no one has mentioned Drupal yet!
Drupal is an Open Source CMS from Belgium which is Web Standards compliant, accessible and used on some major sites like Spreadfirefox, Evolt, and The Onion.
I created the Pushbutton theme/template for Drupal which is Section 508 and WCAG Priority 1 compliant.
The core Drupal developers are based in Antwerp, they’re always keen to get new designers involved, so if you have time get in touch with Dries, Steven or Bèr. Maybe you can steer some users our way in your article ;-)
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ah ah! another alone gunmen in Belgium… great! Since I have discovered you blog a few months ago, I was conviced you were the only belgian designer that cares about web standards AND have skills to demonstrate its interest for the belgian designer community.
I have worked for nearly a year now to convice some local web agencies (including one of the 3 most creative walonian agencies) that it is time to embrace the web standards.
The most common reply to “You should use web standards” is “yes, indeed… but using tables is faster and easier and we can achieve the same results”.
I think this answer should be the goal of your article: convice them that it is not faster, nor easier to not use web standards and that they will not have the same results.
When I have to explain the advantages of the CSS for table freak web designers, I say “designing a website with web standards will free you from the obsession of Ctrl+Shift+h (display guides in Win) and will allow you to focus on what really matters, the user experience”.
Beside this, your to-do list for the article is great and I am really looking forward to read it!
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A bit late in the discussion, but here are a couple of random thoughts/remarks:
1. a typical Big Company (not talking about the design or webvertising agencies here but the ‘clients’ so to speak) invested loads of money in CMS systems (either licenced or custom made) a few years back, before they even know the term css was and they are less likely to throw that all away because of some ‘new trend’. They just wait and see and for the time being ‘use the existing one!‘
Such a typical Big Company usually does have people who are interested in css, probably even with their own standards compliant site/blog, but it’s usually not for them to decide which system to use. The decision makers, the suits, don’t care how their site is build, they just want it to look good, work in their outdated IE (if I can’t see it, nobody can), and are obliged to go for the cheapest offer. They often have connections and can secure ‘good deals’, so the Big Company ends up with an exotic CMS hardly anybody knew it existed.
2. designers / developers (on both client as well as agency side) now have years of expierence working with old-school html and can quickly test/change/update/rework the sites they are responsable for, in old-school html. You can hear them curse and swear whenever they try to change something in css. And they go back to the tables and all. They’ve been there for years, it works, so why would they change? The designers/developers have full-time jobs, started families with kids… Gone are the days where they can sit behind a computer till the wee hours and discover the latest techniques and experiment.
3. Where are the CSS related courses? The closest I know of is a one day Dreamweaver course where they teach you how you can design and control your CSS with DW. And charge you 800 euros for it…
I know I just need to learn it on my own, but it would be so much better (easier / quicker) to have a decent base to start building on. Can I come and live with you for a couple of days Veerle?
4. Veerle, great to have Inside finally addressing the subject of web standards and I’m curious for the article. But isn’t it frustrating that Inside is the only Belgian magazine who can publish such articles? I used to read every Best of Macs (and Inside Internet after that) but Inside is hardly worth the name magazine. A collection of press-releases and articles written (or published) way past their relevance date. Maybe I’m not their target audience (anymore) and if so, I hope your article reaches the people who need it (the suits).
BTW, any suggestions for interesting Belgian (or foreign) internet mags? Where are the days when we had Create Online…
Anyway, sorry ‘bout the long rant, I might come over as frustrated, but I’m actually enjoying the net every day again.
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I happen to work for such a “typical Big Company” -in Belgium, btw- that depends on a CMS (Interwoven) for one of its websites.
Last year, we got to redesign the whole thing, and instead of asking the biggies if we could go with web standards, we just showed them a nice looking xhtml/css mockup (not Photoshop!). They liked the design, went all ‘WOOW’ on the print stylesheet, gave their approval and we just went for it.
And here lies the beauty of the CMS : I just changed the presentation template from table-based to css based, redeployed a couple of thousand pages and bam - all schmandards and good to go! Ok, the CMS still allows font tags, divs-inside-list-items and blockquotes with margin attributes, but with a little educational effort towards our content providers, we eliminated most of that, too.
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I wonder whether we should create a sort of generic grade that would rate web sites for Accessibility conformance (WCAG) and Code conformance ((X)HTML code validity + CSS validity).
Then we would publish the results of it in a transparent manner for everybody to see.
Maybe that would reward the good students and encourage the others upwards.
Don’t know ... just an idea to pass to “Test Aankoop/Test Achat”.
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Hi, having read most of the comments and of course your article, I’d like to repeat part of a comment I posted today at Keith Robinson:
I find that the Dutch government has come far to implement and advocate Webstandards. It even has set up an online library (http://webrichtlijnen.overheid.nl) and ‘tutorial’ for the whole process of developing a website/webapp using Webstandards. From information analysys, to development to exploitation. It’s really impressive. Unfortunately for all you foreign-speaking people out there, it’s all in Dutch :-(
This is a really great website for all of the Dutch speaking webdesign / development community. Use it ;-) !
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I fully empathise with you. Standards evangelism is such an uphill battle! Too many people are in their comfort zone of designing in Photoshop and slicing it up into a template - they’re efficient at what they do but their skills are stagnant, imho. The struggle sucks at my will to live at times but it helps make the little triumphs and rebellious, hidden rewrites all the more sweeter!
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Hi Veerle
I’m following your blog for some months now. It’s really interesting.
I’m the person who incorporated your code for Telenet Games between the
java-bunch of the developers. I once met you then. It was a little bit
longer than a year ago, because I left that company now a year ago.
Nice to read that you mention it. But believe me, for the rest they
still don’t give a thing about webstandards and so (except for one
project manager, the one from the same project).
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Oh dear. A standards-compliant site I wrote (I need a graphic designer though!) was beaten by something written in Frontpage (with real bad image optimisation) in a corporate comms competition :o Read and help here please :o
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Veerle, a couple of days ago some Belgian bloggers started a new project, called “Nono”. They discuss websites which claim to be W3C complaint, but which are not.
http://www.el73.be/nono/
They also made a list of good websites and called that list ... Yesyes. Find it at: http://www.el73.be/nono/yesyes/
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It seems like Joomla - the “official” fork of Mambo - is going to push towards standards and accessibility
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,3731.0.html
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One important advantage with web standards, seen in a business perspective, is cost effectiveness in the long term. Maintainance and redesign takes less time (=cheaper) when using standards.
People in charge of companies (and the major decisions) wants to know how to earn money from web standards, not how cool it is. A business focus is probably what the standards community lacks, cause it sounds pretty boring for people like us…
(I’m not sure the magazine you’re writing for is for business people, just thought it might be something to think about)
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It’s sad to see that the internet in Belgium seems to be stuck in the 90’s. In the way that nothing really changed most companies still do their stuff entirely wrong some don’t even use “CSS” at all and or are using Flash in ways they absolutely shouldn’t.
Well i’m not the person that should judge those companies but i can’t deny it seriously worries me when i see the state of things..
Then agian to my knowledge there isn’t done much towards webstandards in Belgium either, and it’s obviously no secret that most “design” companies don’t really care if it’s done correctly or not.
But i just can’t agree with what “Jonas Persson” said, i just can’t understand how a company could find something that could save them money “boring” either that’s just being ignorant or they honestly just don’t give a damn…
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You’re not alone ! ;)
i’m working in the technical team for “LE SOIR” (belgian newspaper) and our CMS did work with full CSS template. Take a look at http://www.lesoir.be
didier lahousse
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@Didier: I have always found that “Le Soir” did a very good job in terms of quality of code for their web site. I am not about to change my mind about this statement.
Lately I wanted to create a sort of survey of web sites that did comply with web standards. Le Soir was one of the nominees with a homepage that contained only 1 error. This is to me a baffling success given the “material” found on the homepage (I mean ... it’s quite substantial).
Actually my survey is organized in 2 groups : the ones that have less than 10 errors on their homepage and the ones with more.
Unfortunately, I had to shift Le Soir in the “Bad group” because they now have more or less 15 errors on the homepage (this is still very good result given the quantity of information).
Didier ... please correct this ... it will make me such a happy man. Maybe ... some of your journalists can write an article about the benefits of writing good HTML code, applying the standards, and so on ... after all, why is “Le Soir” caring about it whereas others don’t (La Libre, La Dernière Heure; Roularta Media, just to name a few).
Cheers,
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