RE: Best Practices document - not best practices

'What is good design' is a very interesting topic and one that most
people seem to get wrong. 
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-bpwg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-bpwg-request@w3.org]
On
> Behalf Of Tim Moss
> Sent: 31 July 2005 09:59
> To: Daniel Barclay; public-bpwg@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Best Practices document - not best practices
> 
> 
> Daniel wrote:
> > If you're talking about the typically large amount of mostly
> > redundant "branding" and navigation information that
> > typically appears at the top (and frequently left) of pages:
> > That's not a tool issue, that's a page design issue (or
> > possibly a page implementation issue).
> 
> To many organisations the branding and design of their web information
> is extremely important, and they spend a lot of time, money and other
> resource on these areas of content development.
> 
> Some regard the design of a site as irrelevant and sometimes slight
> 'design' driven sites as suffering from the flaw of valuing 'style
over
> content'
[PW] Those who regard 'the design of a site as irrelevant' don't know
what they're talking about when it comes to creating an online presence
that will attract and encourage visitors to return. These people need to
be brought into a classroom and taught the basics of how to build a
meaningful online presence. Tim, I don't disagree with you; these people
do unfortunately exist. However, we certainly shouldn't incorporate this
thought process when creating a best practise unless we use them as case
studies for 'what not to do' or 'how not to do it'. 
 
Look at the Web <mailto:http://www.w3.org/WAI/>  Accessibility
Initiative - this is a perfect example of another W3C initiative with a
huge mountain to climb in terms of changing the mindset of web designers
(aka content authors) and online decision makers. I feel a lot of the
foundation work has already been done by this group; designers are
already starting to rethink and incorporate these best practises. 
 
Most large corporate websites are driven by marketers/brand owners who
want a 'funky', 'state of the art', 'all singing all dancing' website
because they think it's necessary to attract visitors and stand out from
their competitors. In fact, when you ask these same marketers what their
favourite site is, their answer is usually 'Google'! Why? Because it's
clean, friendly and easy to get the information you require.
It has never been proven that lots of fantastic artwork has been the
deciding factor for a visitor to buy from a site. BTW, this is a real
life example of an Operator Portal in the UK. This same Operator is
completely redesigning their Portal from the ground up as they realise
the importance to make it accessible and user friendly. 
 
Unfortunately creative design agencies are constantly trying to create
something 'different' using technology that they don't fully understand,
and they sometimes loose sight of what the customer actually wants.
 
> However, in recent years where digital media has been embraced by the
> artistic community, there are many examples of sites where the
> style/design *is* the content.
[PW] Only if visitors aren't prohibited from reaching the content
because of poor design! Don't fall into the trap of thinking you can
just resize or adapt the 'content' and all will be ok. This is not true
- Web design principles such as logically constructed information
architecture, ease of navigation, readability, consistency, load time,
and look and feel are the most important factors when building an online
presence.
> 
> Why shouldn't these sites be accessible on mobile devices, by those
> users who appreciate that particular art form.
[PW] I'm not sure what you mean by 'particular art form'. But let me
point out again that people don't buy from websites because they like
the 'art'. The only people who enjoy browsing websites for their
ascetics are 'creative' people who are visiting those sites for that
reason alone. NB. Websites that have been created specifically for
people who appreciate 'art form' could also potentially discriminate
against people who need to use assistive technologies such as screen
readers. This is relevant as we're trying to create 'one web' (where
possible).  
 
> 
> 
> > Designers apparently think users need a link to everywhere
> > from every single page (yes, okay, I exaggerate a bit),
> > instead of just some "breadcrumbs" to show where you are
> > within the site (and/or larger
> > document) and a link or two up toward higher-level pages that
> > provide downward (and sideways) navigation links.
> 
> Maybe a solution to this is to include (semi-automatically if using a
> tool) metadata in the markup that denotes these parts of the page as
> being navigation blocks.  This could allow the browser software to
> choose not to display them with the meat/content.  The browser could
> perhaps implement some hotkey or shortcut mechanism to allow the user
to
> quickly jump between the navigation and content elements of a page.
> 
> Hopefully the site would then still be usable on a mobile device, and
> wouldn't require a complete redesign.
> 
> 
> One of the MWI's success criteria is:
> "User community and Industry adoption of the deliverables."
> 
> I believe that the content industry (mobile or otherwise) is unlikely
> adopt the deliverables if it feels that huge amount of redesign effort
> is required to comply with the Best Practices, when the end result is
> design and branding free sites like websites were back in 1996
[PW] Let's not forget that we are not just creating a best practise for
current websites, we are creating a best practise for future content
authoring. We need to assume that some element of redesign of current
websites will be required; otherwise the best practises won't encourage
any form of design improvements. Most websites are not built with the
small screen in mind, so a redesign of most websites will be required
'today'. In future, content authors will not make assumptions about the
size of the screen and hopefully make the necessary design consideration
right from the start.
 
Re 'design and branding free sites back 1996' - this is because the
potential of the Web wasn't realised back then. I had to self learn how
to build websites in '95 so I could teach the trainers at AOL in the UK
and there wasn't a great deal of technology that created barriers to
usability and most people were sceptical about online marketing.
 
It's important to note that the MWI is about encouraging a best practise
for content authoring where design is at the heart of it all. It's not
about how to best squeeze or adapt content specifically for a mobile
phone. 
 
Kind regards,
Paul
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> Tim Moss
> CTO
> Bango
> 
> e: tim@bango.com
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> w: http://www.bango.com
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