Re: CSS and Netscape

----- Original Message -----
From: "Austin Govella" <austin@desiremedia.com>
To: <Mike.Steckel@SEMATECH.Org>; "Thor Larholm"
<public-evangelist-w3@jscript.dk>
Cc: <public-evangelist@w3.org>; <list@webdesign-L.com>
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: CSS and Netscape


> If there is a conflict between your design and standards, you need to make
> a *business* decision as to what is more important: your current design
> *as is*, or designing with standards.
>
> I would suggest that when you add everything up, standards are more
> important.

From a business point of view I don't think this argument stands up. How can
alienating a portion of your audience and its spending power be alleviated
by following a standards-based approach?

The perception with a standards-based approach is that Netscape 4 users will
see a dull grey screen, while Internet Explorer 5 will see the perfect
layout (as long as the box-model isn't relied on). But at the moment, their
mainstream website looks very similar in Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 5,
and people with Netscape 4 are buying/investing in their site. From this
point of view, standards will prevent the business operating with their
Netscape 4 audience.

How can standards be more important when you're alienating a portion of your
target audience - isn't that discrimination? How can we offer the chance of
full accessibility, but at the same time discriminate against others?

Its not the value of standards I'm arguing against here, it is the way it is
being presented. If there isn't a feasible "upgrade" path offered from where
websites are now (tables based Netscape 4 friendly tag soup), and where we
want them to be (valid XHTML1.0 & CSS), you have no hope of attracting any
serious interest in producing mainstream standards-compliant websites.

Revenue or standards?

A business will go for revenue every single time while the standards are not
a mandatory requirement.

Received on Monday, 2 September 2002 05:21:17 UTC