Posts in the Web Category

“This page best viewed in…”

If that phrase doesn’t provoke a shudder of horror and loathing, it should.  It’s the battle cry of the Browser Wars, those terrible and ultimately futile years at the end of the last milennium.  It’s the rallying cry of those who would take the open ubiquity of the web and fragment it into a collection of gated communities, where entrance to each is predicated on running a specific browser.

“Your browser is not compatible and must be upgraded…”

All too often, because developers are too fearful or prideful or just plain lazy, they put up unnecessary barriers to entrance.  They prevent people from using their sites based on choice of browser.  Of course there are situations where the experience will be different—nobody expects Netscape 4 users to be able to see all 2007’s pretty CSS effects, just like table-based sites look beyond bizarre in Mosaic.  That’s no excuse for sites that intentionally lock users out just because their choice of browser doesn’t line up with the developer’s expectations.  It’s regressive, short-sighted, and just plain unprofessional.

“This site is for iPhone users only.”

STOP IT.  Stop it right now.

The fact that optimizing pages for an iPhone makes the development of such specialized pages attractive in no way excuses lockout of other users.  I might be willing to entertain the argument if the iPhone’s browser were some specialized non-web contraption.  It’s not.  It’s a full-fledged XHTML+CSS+DOM browser that happens to lag a bit in some implementation areas and won’t run some plugins.

Besides, if you’ve developed a version of your site (or application or whatever) that works well on the iPhone, then why in the name of Tim Berners-Lee would you deny other people that optimized experience?  You might find that they prefer to interact with the site that way no matter what platform they’re using.  You might find that you don’t need a separate iPhone version after all.  The iPhoned version might be the only version you need.

Designers will argue that pages optimized for the iPhone screen will look bad on a desktop browser.  Maybe, and maybe not, but stop preventing your users from making that decision for themselves.  Nobody says you have to convert your whole site to be iPhoney.  But your lockout of non-iPhone users is worse than rude.  It’s stupid.

We finally learned, after much sweat and a fair number of tears, that “best viewed in” is a fool’s errand.  Are we so eager to rush back into that morass and fight the war all over again?

Please.  Just stop.

• The Veteran’s Charge was published on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Browsers, Rants, Standards, and Web categories.
• There have been eighty-nine replies.

Nick Finck just pointed me at his latest Flickr contribution—a screenshot of a site that ripped off the design of Digital Web.  I immediately tagged it “piratedsites” in honor of the late, great pirated-sites.com, figuring that doing so had to be a widespread practice.  In fact, no: only one other Flickr image had that tag, and it was a Zeldman original, and it was not a screenshot.

So I hereby propose that anyone who posts a site design ripoff shot on Flickr or a blog tag it “piratedsites”.  The original site may be gone, but the idea can absolutely be reborn using the social tools we already have.  Technorati, for example, would start pulling together screenshots and blog posts using that tag—and there you go.  Or someone could use the Flickr and Technorati APIs to create their own site dedicated to just this sort of thing.  Heck, it might even be a way to get the actual pirated-sites.com back on the air in its original form!

Out the scurvy dogs!  Arrrr!

• Avast! was published on Thursday, May 17th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Culture and Web categories.
• There have been twenty-three replies.

Yes, I’m alive.  So is the first-ever ALA Web Design Survey, but only for another week.  The response so far has been overwhelming, but every participant counts.  It literally takes nine minutes to finish (on average), so if you haven’t responded yet, please do!  Thank you.  And thanks especially to the more than 30,000 people who have already taken part!

• Survey Reminder was published on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Web category.
• There has been one reply.

Get over there, read the short introduction, and make with the answering!  It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes or so, and your participation is essential.

Also, please spread the link far and wide—it works best if as many people as possible take it, not just ALA readers.  Posting word in any relevant groups, forums, lists, etc. would be awesome.  Put the word on the street!  Please.  Thanks!

• I Took the 2007 Web Design Survey was published on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Web category.
• There have been twenty-three replies.

• MakeMeASpeaker

  This wiki is intended to be a place where those who are interested in becoming speakers (particularly, but not exclusively, in the web world) can come to get advice, mentoring and help. It is also intended to be a meeting place for those who are interested in helping others become speakers.

  On the same site: an evolving (and evolvable) page containing Advice.

• UltraNormal: How to Get to Speak at Web Conferences

  …some practical suggestions for folks who want to gain some confidence in their own speaking abilities and how I worked up to presenting at conferences… I’ve spoken at a bunch of conferences over the past year, and well, this might help someone.

• Bloggy Hell: Calling future speakers!

  Below are a list of some of the events which encourage people to get up and speak about what they love. The list is Australian-centric, mainly because that is the circles I hang with, but I would love to hear of similar things going on around the world…

• Speaking Assistance was published on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Speaking and Web categories.
• There have been four replies.

• mezzoblue: Homogeneity?

  There’s really nothing in the post I don’t want to quote, but this bit in particular jumped out at me:

  …as a conference organizer, you tend to be conservative. You need to ensure a speaker list that will fill seats. This isn’t “we want to maximize profit” filling of seats either, this is “holy crap we just signed a contract that would put us out multiple tens of thousands of dollars if we don’t hit certain numbers”. When you book larger venues, you make commitments and really put yourself on the line financially. Those who haven’t run conferences simply can’t understand what a nerve-wracking experience this is.

• Brian Oberkirch: Identity Is a Mashup

  This is an ongoing debate (as it has to be) though the argumentation tends toward the self-righteous, self-evident mode: look at all these white boys on the roster. What are they thinking? I think we can do better. I think we have to do better.

  On that post, a comment by Derek Powazek

  One of the reasons I got very excited about the internet when I discovered it in the 90s was because, finally, here was a place where race, gender, and religion truly did not matter. Where you could succeed or fail on the strength of your ideas alone – not what color you were or what junk was in your pants.

  I still believe this to be true.

• Hamm on Wry: Post Gender Preferences

  I don’t see how being male, female, white, black, brown, purple, queer, asexual, cancerous, capricorn or a carrot would matter if you happen to also be a professional in the web-standards-meets-development world. I would, honestly, attend a speech given by a carrot if that carrot was recognized as a leader in the field. That’s what professional speeches are all about.

• Jason Friesen {dot} ca: Diversity Wars

  To me, this is the key to being race- and gender-neutral — actually not caring about a person’s race or gender, but simply whether they can contribute what is needed in a given situation.

• Adactio: The diversity division

  I firmly believe that conferences shouldn’t simply be mirrors for the Web business, reflecting whatever is current and accepted. A good conference can act as a force on the industry. Conference organisers have a great opportunity here and I think it’s a shame to see it wasted.

• Digital Web Magazine: Beyond the A-List, Diversity in the Web Community

  I am going to go out on a limb here and use smart mob mentality here. If you know of a web professional who is talented, has done some remarkable things, and should be speaking at some web design conferences by all means let us know…

• Meri Williams: Conference Diversity .. the Permathread Returns

  You never know, we might just change the world.

• Diverse Links was published on Monday, February 26th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Culture and Web categories.
• There have been twenty-two replies.

I had most of a followup to yesterday’s post written, all reasonable and spiked with some humor and maybe a little dry, which I suppose is what most people have come to expect from me in general, and then it fell apart in concert with my inner stability.

I’ve definitely incurred a lesson in “post in haste, repent in leisure”.  The internal aftereffects of the post have been extensive and unexpected.  I don’t have them all sorted out yet; it may take months.  I don’t even have names for all the things that have roiled up.  I may be undergoing a drastic phase change in my thinking, or I may just be grieving something I didn’t know I mourned, or perhaps I’m raging against a world I sometimes feel powerless to alter.  I don’t know.  I do know that if I’d known this would be the effect of posting, I’d never have done it—which is one of the best arguments in the world for having done it.

I’ll not mince words: I screwed up pretty badly yesterday.  The real question is how.  I’m not sure I’ll know the answer for a long time.  Was my mistake in speaking honestly?  Was it in how I wrote it all down?  Was it in the rhetorical approach I took?  Was (is) the flaw intrinsic to me?  Am I the very problem I so much want to eliminate?

If I have erred and caused harm by that error I apologize.  I am as ever human, mistakes and all, flaws aplenty, and while that’s an explanation, it’s not an excuse.  It is never, ever an excuse.

I am deeply sorry today, but not for what I was trying to say.  I might be sorry for how I said it, or for a number of other things.  I know I’m sorry for causing hurt in others.  That was the last thing I wanted.  I was trying to make a positive statement, trying to detail what I find to be an empowering concept.  A lot of people were supportive, but a number of people, many of whom I respect and some that I care for and a few that I love, were disappointed by what I had to say.  I disappointed them, some very badly, which means I’ve let them down.  And I really, really hate letting people down.

And here’s the worst part, the absolutely darkest most awful painful part of the entire situation: I let them down by being myself.

That tears.  It rips ragged claws of paradox across my throat, up my jawline, through my brow.

In my head, I know that the recipe for failure is trying to please everyone, but my heart doesn’t buy it.  I’m human, and no matter how impossible the task I want to be what everyone wants me to be.  Which I can’t be.  I can only be myself.  I can only hope to improve myself.  And I can only do that according to what I truly believe, down at my core, because one person’s improvement is another person’s step backward, and changing oneself to meet the expectations of others is a fool’s game at best.

I am who I am, and it will not be to everyone’s liking.  I will never see the world in the ways that everyone wishes me to see it.  This is an essential truth, something that should be obvious to anyone, the sort of thing one should never think of trying to contradict.

And yet.

I know that there were a number of people who understood what I was saying and agreed with me, who in some cases were proud of me, and that they are no less important than those who didn’t understand or who did understand and were disappointed.  I should concentrate on that balance, see the whole mixture, but I’m just not wired that way.  For whatever reason, my genetics or my upbringing or whatever it is, I can’t help but focus on the negatives.  In this case, on those I let down.

There’s no reason for sympathy here.  I knew the third rail was fully electrified, and I chose to tap dance upon it.  The outcomes of that choice will serve to teach me, if I listen—but what I will learn is still very much an unknown.  I only hope that, in the end, it confers a net positive effect on me and the world around me.

• Diverse Reactions was published on Saturday, February 24th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Culture and Web categories.
• There have been no replies.

Here’s a fun Friday question for everyone: what do you consider to be some of the most important events in the history of CSS and web design?  How about some of the most overlooked events in that same history?  (And yes, an event can be both.)  I’m not looking for the “best” answers—I want to know what you regard as important, overlooked, or otherwise worthy of mention.  So tell!

• Events in CSS and Web Design History was published on Friday, February 9th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Web categories.
• There have been eighty-one replies.