Re: Three design-related (HTML or CSS) elements for your consideration

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christoph Päper" <christoph.paeper@tu-clausthal.de>
To: <www-html@w3.org>
Cc: "Rob Larsen" <rob@drunkenfist.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: Three design-related (HTML or CSS) elements for your
consideration


> *Rob* to <www-html@w3.org> [Wed, 15 Jan 2003 12:34:27 -0500]:
>
> > A "problem?" I hate to be the one to step on your utopian vision of the
> > secret life of _professional_ web designers and developers, but, in the
> > real world "how it looks" is a mighty large percentage of how
> > successful you are.
>
> The importance of looks is overestimated. Nevertheless that's what W3C
> introduced CSS for.

Yes. The importance of looks on the web is, in fact, overestimated. That,
however, is not the point.

Millions of designers, marketing execs, CEOs and the like are under the
impression that looks are supremely important. We can wish that idea away,
but it will (unfortunately) still be there. The w3c and its evangelists
would do well to remember that idea (unless, of course, widespread
acceptance of the w3c's work is unimportant.)

To most people's minds it is not "bad" to think about the way a site looks.
To many people the way a site looks is actually of overriding importance.
Treating people that think that way like second class citizens is
counter-productive.

Rob

Received on Wednesday, 15 January 2003 14:14:58 UTC