Slashdot: "Designers Ignoring Standards"

I posted a summary[1] of what I understood to be the main points on alt.html
last night, maybe we can use it as a starting point to refine our position:

> Why developers don't develop with standards in mind:
> http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941926.html?tag=fd_lede

I've been trolling a bit on slashdot over this one, and what I can
gather there, and the reasons seem to be:
* The boss doesn't care
* They are not paid to deliver standards compliant sites
* The clients know better
* Who cares? It works in IE
* Netscape 4

The overriding impression I get is that web designers are reluctant to
correct misunderstandings their clients have about the web because it
will affect them getting the contract, which means no money to put food
on the table. They don't want to do the right thing because they don't
really understand what the right thing is, and they don't have the
confidence to explain the right thing to their clients.

The other important impression is that these websites seemed to be
designed on the whim of clients with requirements shaped to "impress
the VP". Consideration of the end-user never seems to be an important
part of the requirement.

The one gem of a comment I saw in the slashdot thread is a logfile
analysis of a leading e-commerce website found that Netscape users were
three times more likely to buy online than Internet Explorer users --
something I had a gut-feel about. Nice to see confirmation of it though.

> And why to disagree with the article:
> http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2002_07.html#a000056

Hmm, I am a little disappointed about the substance of this article.
Its a little too wishy-washy for me. I'm looking deeper into the
arguments put forward, and it is the underlying foundations which are
shaky.

Play 20 questions with this and see how far you can go without going
cyclical:

Why don't you support the minority that don't use IE5+?

1.) Because its too expensive, we'd have to write a separate website
per browser.

* Indicative that this designer doesn't understand what a standard
compliant-based approach to website design is about.

2.) Vast majority of our users use IE5+

* Number of reasons for this, but essentially a self-fulfilling
prophecies, just like the "If you pay peanuts, you are going to get
monkeys" scenario

3.) Because the boss/client said so

* Indicates a lack of confidence/knowledge on the web designer. Surely
they are better placed to recommend what works on the web and what
doesn't.

4.) Because we can't make the site look good on Netscape 4.

* Its the style versus substance. Big companies believe branding is
more important than content.


At least the webstandards.org group have decided to target the web
designer and developers this time around (I'll have to update my FAQ
entry for them soon *g*), and pursuing the educational angle is a good
approach. Its obvious that web designers have no confidence in the
business side of websites, so that will be a key area to tackle.

There's no point creating a standards compliant website if the designer
and the clients don't understand why its good to do so.



----
[1]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author:Isofarro&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-
8&as_qdr=d&selm=i8kfga.b32.ln%40sidious.isolani.co.uk&rnum=2

Received on Wednesday, 10 July 2002 12:20:18 UTC