In Addition… (Response #7)
Since the beginning, keeping web standards has become a difficult task. The introduction of the web has spawned the feeling of new found freedom. From novice users to web site designers, web standards have been forgotten and in some case completely hacked up. Even though, there is a great deal of well developed sites that do follow web standards. Among the most common abusers of web standards are graphic designers and new comers. These violators acknowledge the various ways a web site can be constructed yet ignore learning the standards. Within any field of study there are standards. Standards hold the glue to the basic foundation of why things work the way they do. To ignore these standards, especially when building web space, you also ignore the future of your web site.
Contributing to this web confusion is common sense. Of course you can hack a page up and still get it to function. But does that really insure its reliability down the road? By implementing standards, the designer, guarantees the site to be easily manipulated in the future and also set the tone for good design and functionality.
There is an abundance of web sites out there coded out of templates. This has caused a trend with designers to edit and change the front end code of these templates. By changing the templates through CSS, designers have “…confused the concept of independent structure and presentation” (Bowman, pg. 4). Not to mention, the usage of Gifs and tables on a grid to layout web pages. This may seem useful and functional for designers but left a big “HTML mishmash” (Itoh, pg.2) for the rest of us. Eventually, these sites became inoperable, not to mention unable to view in some browsers.
Another big reason why some designers strayed from standards has to do with creativity. For some reason, standards have become an excuse for lack of creative energy. Web standards don’t limit creative; they provide the structure for that creativity to take shape. Designers exist because of standards no matter how you look at it. Creative jobs are built upon limitations. The reason designers exist are to answer and solve these puzzles within the walls we are given. Web standards are no different. Therefore, establishing structure and presentation appropriately does not limit creativity. It should be embraced and encourage it. Above and beyond that there really are no limitations, especially with programs like Flash around. You can get as creative as you want as long as you consider the standards. They are there as an assistant to developing good functionality and usability.
To get a grip on web standards it is good practice to go over the fundamentals. One of the biggest pieces to the puzzle is the relationship between structure and presentation. The structure of a web page is contained within the markup language and is the foundation of a web document. A web document relies on how the page is constructed through the HTML code and semantics. The presentation of a web page is simply the style or look applied to the content. Contained within the HTML you will find the structure and content of the web document. The presentation of this structure and content should be controlled by CSS. Cascading Style Sheets adds tremendous functionality to a web document that can easily be administered throughout the web site. By using CSS, changing the structure of the web document is much easier and practical. You can not have structure without presentation nor presentation with out structure; the two go hand in hand. To effectively display your content you need to have well developed structure and without well developed structure your presentation will be nothing special. It is vital to web sites longevity to properly have these elements in place and understood.
Take XML as another contributing player in keeping content separate from structure and content. XML, extensible markup language, was designed to work with HTML. XML is responsible for describing data and HTML is responsible for displaying it. XML contributes to this separation by infusing itself as another element to keep content separate from structure and presentation. It helps keep data in its own tiny little box while the HTML focuses on showing how that tiny box of data is to appear in browsers. The tags used for XML are not predefined as are the ones in HTML. The tags used within XML are defined by the writer of the code allowing transmission of data to be transferred more effectively. The big advantage here is sending and receiving data over cross platforms. And since there is currently no standard for operating systems, XML serves as a valuable participant in keeping data accessible to all. This is a key in keeping structure and presentation separate.
Either way, web standards need to be enforced while the web is still fairly young. If this problem is not taken care of soon the future of the web may become an unsightly place. It is always important to do things the right way instead of having to do them over and over again. The first step in solving this problem is to educate people and use the web to spread the message.
Citations:
Makiko Itoh , A Brief History of Web Design
Bowman, Douglas, Stop Design: Are they really separated? 14 October 2003 http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2003/10/14/separated.html
Krug, Steve, Don’t Make Me Think (2006)
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