Re: Why no figures to illustrate web developments?

Sandor Spruit wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am collecting and structuring my own personal notes on developing
> distributed applications using Web technologies. So, I'm interested
> in past and future W3C developments. What struck me this morning was
> the complete absence of figures. There's a site index, but no map.
> 
> Why are there no diagrams showing the relationships between W3C
> projects? With, say, arrows between HTML and XHTML, or the various
> XML-related initiatives ? That would certainly make it a whole lot
> easier to see what's happening ! Or is this left as an exercise to
> the reader ? :)

The short answer is that W3C hasn't been very good (with few exceptions) 
at graphical communications on the Web. We have technologies for doing 
so (PNG, SVG, etc.) and some talented designers, but it's not been a 
high priority generally. I agree with you that pictures of how things
fit together would spruce up the site a lot, and a number of people
have been urging the W3C to be more graphical (Note: accessible
graphics include text descriptions.)

Many of the talks [1] that have been given include graphics,
but these have not made to the Activity pages (in any notable
way, though I haven't looked at all of them lately).

Here's an idea: if you (or anyone) wishes to contribute graphics
to our Web site, I think we could consider them. This could
be done on a volunteer basis (like translations). I don't know
how copyright would work for these graphics, however. Ideally
W3C would keep the copyright and acknowledge (somehow, I don't
know where) the work of the artist.

Suggestions on this idea, or graphics, welcome.
 
 - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/Talks/
 
> Regards,
> Sandor
> 
> --
> ir A.G.L. Spruit, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
> Institute of information and computing sciences
> "There is a bit of magic in everything, and then some
> loss to even things out" (from: Lou Reed, "Magic and Loss")

-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                    +1 917 450-8783

Received on Wednesday, 27 June 2001 10:53:09 UTC