Re: Some questions from CHI-WEB people

At 6:24 PM +0000 12/24/01, Vadim Plessky wrote:
>Separating "content" from "presentation" (which is necessary for web
>accessibility) requires *web page creater who starts with no background in
>accessibility guidelines* to learn (at least):
>* XHTML
>* CSS
>both of these tasks are rather complicated, and require *re-thinking* of
>traditionally used methods (for example, re-design of "copy-and-paste"
>process, and other important points raised by David Woolley in answer to your
>mail)

Neither of these are easy to learn, yep, not like learning mishmash
HTML pseudo-3.2-plus-frames as most web designers are taught.

Note, however, that the process can be simplified if the job duties
are reasonably split.  In the 21st century it's a bad idea to assume
that the person who handles the content will also be the person with
graphic design and user interface design skills, in any large
organization.

So really, you'd have:

* One person (content developer) who learns XHTML
* One person (graphic designer) who learns XHTML and CSS (plus
   graphics skills)
* One person (ui assembler) who learns XSLT, XHTML, and CSS

These could be one person, and may indeed be in a small web design
shop.  (At Idyll Mountain Internet, this is exactly what we've
got -- three people who fill those three roles.  I'm not any of
them myself.)

The content developer puts the content into properly marked up
XHTML, based entirely on the content structure and not on the
eventual presentation.

The graphic designer creates a lovely look and feel (and supporting
graphics and style sheets) for the visual display and perhaps
additional presentation for other possible displays.

The ui assembler knows how to create navigation mechanisms and
link the site together, and writes XSLT that merges the simple
"content" XHTML with the more complex, layout-and-presentation
oriented XHTML from the graphic designer.  This produces a web
interface (or multiple ones) which are usable by the end user.

On my own web site, this is a single person.  In a large
organization, this could be hundreds of people in each role.
(The content developer role is more likely to expand faster with
scaling than the others.)  Software can be used at all stages of
the process to automate and simplify tasks.

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                 http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain            http://idyllmtn.com
Web Accessibility Expert-for-hire          http://kynn.com/resume
January Web Accessibility eCourse           http://kynn.com/+d201

Received on Monday, 24 December 2001 14:53:44 UTC