Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
Markup Validator.
Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
think?
P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
the homepage locally, it failed too.
--
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Jul 23 '05
250  10499 
"Toby Inkster" <us**********@t obyinkster.co.u k> wrote in message
news:pa******** *************** ****@tobyinkste r.co.uk... c.thornquist wrote:
What if your top header or banner just won't work visually with anything
other than its width, say 650 pixels? Does CSS allow you to to keep that
width throughout the page w/o using tables?
Of course:
BODY { width:650px }
But that's the sort of inflexible design decision I'm arguing *against*.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
It's not CSS, I'm opposed to. As I've said earlier, CSS makes sense. It's
the insistence upon 100% width and using relative values (though I'm
dismayed to discover IE doesn't override my fixed font sizes in "style."
I'm sure my views stem from having to build sites for x amount of dollars.
I've attempted flexible sites in the past & they take too long to build. If
they are to look right in multiple browsers and resolutions, that is. But I
don't generally build sites which contain much text on the opening page. If
I did, I could fill the front page with "stuff." My sites are for small
business owners (IE a bakery, car dealership, bridal shop, restaurants,
etc.), so the front page is w/o much text. That said, how do you keep your
row of text links from spreading to 100% width?
Carla
c.thornquist wrote: Don't you think most people keep their browsers open to 100%?
I certainly don't think that. Personally, I keep my browser window at
~900px wide which is about 70% of my 1280×1024 screen, and at least two
others in my family don't maximise browser windows either.
I just asked my teenagers & they said "always" 100%.
Well, there's great population sample! Do you really think your
teenagers equate to most people? Add my result to the group (I'll take
a guess and say your sample was 2 teenagers plus yourself – exact
numbers aren't important), and that makes it 50% of the population that
don't keep browsers open to 100% :-).
There's probably research somewhere about it.
Does it really matter what the stats are for this? Screen sizes and
resolutions vary a great deal anyway, from 640×480 to 1600×1200 and
higher, and that's just for desktops. Since it's the viewport size that
matters, not the screen size, whether or not users keep the browser
maximised or not is meaningless.
--
Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox
Lachlan Hunt wrote: I just asked my teenagers & they said "always" 100%.
Well, there's great population sample! Do you really think your
teenagers equate to most people?
Most people? Probably not. Most "visitors", well depending on the
site, maybe so. Why is it so hard for some to see that something that
is good for one site may or may not be good for another. The rules
should be guidelines that guide the developer uses when developing a
site. But, you have to look at your likely (not all possible) visitors
and design around what THEY want. Because a site that sticks to the
"rules", just because they are rules, and ignores what the likely
visitors want, is doomed to failure.
But they can happily head into bankruptcy court knowing they followed
the rules...
--
-=tn=-
Travis Newbury wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote:
I just asked my teenagers & they said "always" 100%.
Well, there's great population sample! Do you really think your
teenagers equate to most people?
Most people? Probably not. Most "visitors", well depending on the
site, maybe so.
How can you possibly know this kind of information about your visitors,
as opposed to people in general; and what kind of site's target audience
(based on its content) would target a group of user's with specific
browser window size preferences?
The rules should be guidelines that guide the developer uses when
developing a site.
Yes, I agree with that.
But, you have to look at your likely (not all possible) visitors
and design around what THEY want.
Yes. But, again, how can you possibly determine users' browser window
preferences based on a site's target audience?
--
Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox
Lachlan Hunt wrote: Most people? Probably not. Most "visitors", well depending on the
site, maybe so.
How can you possibly know this kind of information about your visitors,
as opposed to people in general; and what kind of site's target audience
(based on its content) would target a group of user's with specific
browser window size preferences?
Gee, I don't know. Let me think... Ask?
--
-=tn=-
Travis Newbury wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote:
Most people? Probably not. Most "visitors", well depending on the
site, maybe so.
How can you possibly know this kind of information about your
visitors, as opposed to people in general; and what kind of site's
target audience (based on its content) would target a group of user's
with specific browser window size preferences?
Gee, I don't know. Let me think... Ask?
Right! And how many people would waste their time conducting a survey
for each and every site, when they could more easily create a flexible
site layout that doesn't depend on specific browser window preferences.
However, you didn't answer the second question:
... and what kind of site's target audience (based on its content)
would target a group of user's with specific browser window size
preferences?
--
Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005, Travis Newbury wrote: Gee, I don't know. Let me think... Ask?
So, who are you going to ask, and what question are you going to ask
them? Have you any idea what proportion of webnauts answer surveys,
and just how typical those are of the ones who don't answer? Now, as
to the question:
"With what will you be browsing my new web site next year when my site
is fully up and running? And how will that change over the following
6-12 months?"
Surely it'd be so much more effective (and, last-not-least, also
*cost-effective*) to design the site flexibly? That might even
persuade some new visitors to stay, who aren't yet on your survey
list, but who arrived with next year's latest and greatest browsing
toy, whatever that may turn out to be.
Lachlan Hunt wrote: However, you didn't answer the second question:
No I did answer it, you just didn't like the answer.
--
-=tn=-
Alan J. Flavell wrote: Gee, I don't know. Let me think... Ask? So, who are you going to ask, and what question are you going to ask
them? Have you any idea what proportion of webnauts answer surveys,
and just how typical those are of the ones who don't answer?
Ok, so you dont like to listen to your visitors. No biggy. In the web
application development arena customer feedback including information
about browsers is very important.
Surely it'd be so much more effective (and, last-not-least, also
*cost-effective*) to design the site flexibly?
It depends on the site. EVERYTHING depends on the site. You can design
Flexibly (read that as generic) if you like. Others take time to listen.
--
-=tn=-
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005, Travis Newbury wrote: Ok, so you dont like to listen to your visitors.
I presume you're already aware that I was going to resent that.
If one fraction of visitors tell me that I ought to take actions which
exclude some other fraction, then I'm afraid I don't want to know.
In the web application development arena customer feedback including
information about browsers is very important.
Sounds like a good principle, as a purely theoretical idea. Have you
been following the discussion of the commercial
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/planmyjourney/ versus the third-party
alternative gateway http://www.traintimes.org.uk/ ?
Surely it'd be so much more effective (and, last-not-least, also
*cost-effective*) to design the site flexibly?
It depends on the site.
You mean that deliberately excluding some fraction of your potential
readership is beneficial? Have you discussed this with TimBL at all?
EVERYTHING depends on the site. You can design Flexibly (read that
as generic) if you like. Others take time to listen.
Oh right, and so optimise the site for those who are already visiting
anyway, while continuing to exclude those who never got far enough to
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