10 Things They Don’t Teach You in Design School. Via Designmeme. (Sorry for lazy post, but I’m at SXSW Interactive.)
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Year: 2009
While working on the third edition of Designing With Web Standards, I decided to visit Alexa’s Top 100 US Sites to see how many of the top 100 use valid markup, how many nearly validate (i.e. would validate if not for an error or two), and which DOCTYPEs predominate. Even with a fistful of porn sites in the mix, it was dull work: click a link, load the home page, run a validation bookmarklet, record the result.
I had no expectations. I made no assumptions. I just clicked and tested.
Such tests tell us little
I make no claims about what I found. If all the home pages of the top 100 sites were valid, it would not mean that the pages beneath the home page level were valid, nor would it prove that the sites were authored semantically. (An HTML 4.0 table layout with no semantics can validate; so can a site composed entirely of non-semantic divs with presentational labels.)
Validation is not the be-all of standards-based design; it merely indicates that the markup, whatever its semantic quality may be, complies with the requirements of a particular standard. Conversely, lack of validation does not prove lack of interest in web standards: ads and other third-party content can wreck a once-valid template, as can later third-party development work.
Moreover, nothing causal or predictive can be determined from these results. If 25% of the top 100 sites validated in my test, it would not mean that 25% of all sites on the web validate.
And I got nothing like 25%.
Enough disclaimers. On with the test.
Seven percent validate
On this day, in this test, seven out of 100 “top US” sites validated:
- MSN (#7 in Alexa’s list) validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Who’d a thunk it? (Validation link)
- Craigslist (#10) validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional. I’ll buy that! (Validation link)
- WordPress (#22) validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. The power of the press, baby! (Validation link)
- Time Warner RoadRunner (#39) validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Meep-Meep! (Validation link)
- BBC Newsline Ticker (#50) validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Cheers, mates! (Validation link)
- The US Internal Revenue Service (#58) validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional. Our tax dollars at work! (Validation link)
- TinyPic (#73) (“Free Image Hosting”), coded by ZURB, validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. (Validation link)
Also-rans (one or two errors)
- Wikipedia (#8) almost validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict (two errors).
- Apple (#29) almost validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional (two errors).
- Linkedin.com (#45) almost validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional (one error).
- AWeber Communications (#83) almost validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional (one error: an onClick element)
Suis generis
The Pirate Bay (#68), “the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker,” goes in and out of validation. When it validates, it’s a beautiful thing, and it belongs on the list. But when it goes out of validation, it can quickly stack up ten errors or more. (Validation Link)
No-shows
Google (#1) does not validate or declare a DOCTYPE.
Yahoo (#2) does not validate or declare a DOCTYPE.
YouTube (#3) does not validate but at least declares that it is HTML 4.01 Transitional. Progress!
A surprising number of sites that do not come close to validating declare a DOCTYPE of XHTML 1.0 Strict. For instance, Twitter (#93) is authored in XHTML 1.0 Strict, although it contains seven errors.
This preference for Strict among non-validating sites suggests that at one point these sites were made over by standards-aware developers; but that any standards improvements made to these sites were lost by subsequent developers. (It doesn’t prove this; it merely suggests.) Another possibility is that some developers use tools that are more standards-aware than they are. (For instance, a developer with little to no knowledge of web standards might use a tool that defaults to the XHTML 1.0 Strict DOCTYPE.)
Some sites that used to validate (such as Blogger.com, previously designed by Douglas Bowman, and Reference.com, previously designed by Happy Cog) no longer do so; maintaining standards or design compliance may not have been important to new owners or new directors.
[tags]validation, webstandards, alexa, test[/tags]
Categories
There goes your afternoon
In the OUR FILMS ONLINE section of A/V Geeks, you can enjoy films like Condoms: A Responsible Option (1987), which dramatizes the proposition that having sex with someone means having sex with all their previous partners, and Let’s Make a Sandwich (1950) sponsored by Your Gas Company. (Hat tip: Pete Z.)
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[tags]film, video, training, psychotronic, proganda, a/v, geeks, avgeeks, sex ed[/tags]
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Happy birthday, Pete Zeldman!
- Pete Zeldman, impromptu polyrhythmic drum solo
- Captured by the Drum Institute, London (video)
- Pete Zeldman, Drum Wizard
- Interview at drums.com.
- Pete Zeldman on Facebook
- Like it says.
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[tags]petezeldman, drums, drumming, polyrthmic[/tags]
Anger is the Swiss Army Knife of Emotions T-shirt at Flickr is the greatest series of web pages ever. Scroll through all comments (currently three pages of them). May offend sensitive viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Kind of Blue: Fifty years ago, Miles Davis released an album of pure modal improvisation. It changed not only jazz but all music that came after. Wikipedia’s write-up explains, although their fact-filled prose misses all the poetry. Better still, just listen. Thanks for the nudge: Ray.
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Categories
DWWS 3e
Sorry I haven’t written much here, lately, but I’ve been working on the third edition of a book you may know.
Questions?
[tags]dwws, designingwithwebstandards, 3rdedition, 3e, DWWS3e, newriders, peachpit, zeldman[/tags]
In Issue No. 279 of A List Apart, for people who make websites: Liquefy your grids and socialize your web apps.
Fluid Grids
by ETHAN MARCOTTE
How awesome would it be if you could combine the aesthetic rigor and clarity of fixed-width, grid-based layouts with the device- and screen size independence and user-focused flexibility of fluid layouts? Completely awesome, that’s how awesome. And with a little cunning and a tad of easy math, ALA’s Ethan Marcotte gets it done. We smell a trend in the offing.
The Elements of Social Architecture
by CHRISTINA WODTKE
While our designs can never control people, they can encourage good behavior and discourage bad. In this excerpt from Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web 2nd Edition, Christina Wodtke tells us how to make products that delight people and change their lives by remembering the social in social architecture.
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[tags]christinawodtke, ethanmarcotte, grids, gridbaseddesign, design, socialnetworking, webapps, alistapart[/tags]
Categories
Logos-a-go-go
Typographic Lock-ups & Enclosures | Type Theory. Gorgeous logos by Brian Miller (with Bill Gardner) of Gardner Design. Via Mr Messina.
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[tags]design, graphicdesign, identity, typography, logos, gardnerdesign[/tags]
Categories
Buy Books for Kids
Once more, Coudal Partners has handicapped the Fifth Annual Morning News Tournament of Books. “Place your $20 bet and help us buy a truckload of new books for underprivileged kids.”
Each bet costs $20 and all the money bet will go to First Book, “a nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.” Last year we bought 5076 new books for kids and we want to smash that record this year.
Happy Cog, Crush + Lovely, Metafilter, 37signals, and Field Notes are proud matching sponsors. Shouldn’t your super-cool company be on this list?
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[tags]firstbook, coudal, happycog, themorningnews[/tags]
Categories
Coming to a theater near you
Even a down-home family man has to sometimes get up and go talk about design, web standards, and other hot topics. Here (and in the sidebar) are the places I’ll go this year—starting with Princeton University, where I lecture this very Saturday.
- Better: Design For Social Causes – Princeton
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DESIGN AS PARTNERSHIP
Feb. 28, Princeton University, Betts Auditorium
Good web design is not principally concerned with the decoration of screen space. Rather, like all design, good web design concerns itself with understanding and solving problems. Learn techniques and processes that turn nonprofit (and other) clients into partners and ensure that work is focused on audience needs, not the whims of powerful committee members.
- SXSW Interactive – Austin
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FROM FREELANCE TO AGENCY: Start Small, Stay Small
Moderator. Panel with Roger Black, Kristina Halvorson, Whitney Hess, Mar. 14, SXSW Interactive, Austin Convention Center, Sat. Mar. 14, 3:30–4:30 PM
The web has always attracted mavericks and entrepreneurs, and a rocky economy makes the freelance life more desirable (or at least more inevitable) than ever. So what happens when your freelance business starts to grow? How big can you get without getting bad? How can freelancers and small teams compete with traditional agencies? Hip freelancers and cool agency heads will answer questions, compare experiences, and tell their stories.
BOOK SIGNING
South by Bookstore, Austin Convention Center, Sun. Mar. 15, 3:30–4:00 PM. I’ll be signing copies of Designing With Web Standards, 2nd Edition.
- An Event Apart, 2009
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An Event Apart Seattle
May 4–5, Bell Harbor Conf. Center, Seattle
An Event Apart Boston
June 22–23, Boston Marriott Copley Place
An Event Apart Chicago
Oct. 12–13, Sheraton Towers
An Event Apart San Francisco
Dec. 7–8, The Palace Hotel
- Besides emceeing with Eric Meyer, I’ll cover the following topics:
A Site Redesign
When and why should you redesign? How can you change the way a site looks, while preserving the way its brand feels? How can “listening to your content” help you retool a design to more effectively (and more excitingly) meet your users’ needs? To uncover these lessons and more, I’ll review the thinking behind my recent redesign of a site you know well.
The Survey, Year Two
Web design is practically the only business in the global economy that is still going at least somewhat strong. Yet, as in years past, not much is known about web designers and developers except what we find out for ourselves. Slice, dice, and digest the data from the second A List Apart survey for people who make websites.
For easy access to these and other events, follow me on Upcoming.
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[tags]zeldman, speaking, appearances, calendar, schedule[/tags]
For a childhood fever, the doctor gave me Tetracycline. As a side effect, my adult teeth came in with almost no enamel. Enamel is the shiny, white, smooth, sexy part of the tooth. It would be nice to have some. Dentin, which I have in abundance, is yellow like old bones and permeable like shale, given to breakage and to deep grooves that attract stains. Imagine Keith Richards swilling a blend of coffee and urine and you have an idea of what my teeth came in looking like.
To the normal agonies of adolescence, add teeth that put the viewer in mind of pirates and mummies. (On top of which, I was short, very skinny, afraid of everything, and had blackheads.) As a boy I learned to smile with my lips closed, and I still do so without thinking about it. In photographs, even when I am content, I often appear to be frowning or pondering or merely pretending to smile because of this now conditioned muscular behavior.
I am a public speaker and appearance matters, but there is nothing I can do about the look of my smile. Whitening won’t work because whitening requires enamel. Crowning all my teeth would take at least $40,000, and I never seem to have $40,000 lying around.
Then in my 40s, I developed serious gum disease, complete with rapid bone loss. Left untreated, it would certainly cause me to lose my teeth. It would also, for medical reasons I’m not qualified to summarize, greatly increase the chance of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, and subject me to constant infection (and thereby, as well, to diseases that take advantage of a continually overtaxed immune system). The bone loss means the teeth are not strong enough to support crowns, so even if someone handed me $40,000, I couldn’t use it to build a pretty smile.
I have other health problems but they don’t bug me like the mouth business.
The other thing that pulverizes my self esteem is these Michael Douglas jowls that have somehow attached themselves to my head. They say to me what her spreading hips say to a woman. To make these jowls disappear, I would need to lose all the other fat on my body first. Like the hips, that’s just how it works. Even Steve Jobs has some middle-aged jowl on his otherwise starved frame.
I’m sure even Brad Pitt has something he hates about his body. An elbow that sometimes chafes, for instance. But is he man enough to tell you about it?
[tags]glamorous, myglamorouslife, zeldman, dentin, enamel, jowls, hips, aging, selfimage, selfesteem, body[/tags]
In Issue No. 278 of A List Apart, For People Who Make Websites:
In Defense of Readers
by MANDY BROWN
As web designers, we concern ourselves with how users move from page to page, but forget the needs of those whose purpose is to be still. Learn the design techniques that create a mental space for reading. Use typographic signals to help users shift from looking to reading, from skimming along to concentrating. Limit distractions; pay attention to the details that make text readable; and consider chronology by providing transitions for each of the three phases of the online reading experience.
Filling Your Dance Card in Hard Economic Times
by PEPI RONALDS
In space no one can hear you scream, and in a global economic meltdown, no industry—not even web design—is safe. But as a web designer, your skills and products are suited to ride out hard times, as long as you stay busy. Learn the seven steps to (relative) security in good times or bad: 1. Keep clients happy. 2. Know your goals. 3. Use your initiative wisely. 4. Communicate. 5. Put in a full day’s work. 6. Do it right. 7. Find the love.
[tags]mandibrown, pepironalds, design, readers, designforreaders, business, webbusiness, stayinbusiness, recession, tips[/tags]
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This spicy vegetarian soup is perfect when you have a head cold, or just to warm up a winter day.
- 2 TBSP butter
- 1 cauliflower, cut into florets
- TSP ground ginger
- TSP ground Cloves
- Large dash toasted sesame oil
- 6 pitted black Kalamata olives
- 3 or 4 large mushrooms, sliced in big pieces
- 2 or 3 fresh scallions, sliced in big pieces
- 3 large cloves garlic, chopped in a few large pieces
- Vegetable broth to cover, 30 oz. or more, preferably organic
- 1 large carrot or 6 baby carrots, sliced
In a large pot, melt the butter over high heat, and add at least half the cauliflower pieces. Let sauté for about a minute, stirring once.
Sprinkle ginger and cloves on top. After another minute, shake sesame oil on top.
Add the garlic pieces and wait. After a little while, add the black olives and the rest of the cauliflower. Let it continue to sauté for another minute or so, stirring once or twice.
Pour in the vegetable broth. Add the mushrooms and scallions. Let it approach boiling, then cut the flame to a very low simmer. Let the soup simmer for at least 10 minutes.
Add carrots.
Using a large spoon, remove at least half of the cauliflower and other vegetables and at least four ounces of broth and put them in a blender.
Blend to a creamy consistency. Pour the blended mixture back into the pot and stir.
Let simmer until ready to serve, stirring occasionally.
Before serving, optionally place a couple of spoonfuls of leftover rice in each bowl, then pour the soup on top.
[tags]recipes, vegetarian[/tags]
Web designers and developers power the global economy, but almost nothing is known about who we are, where we live, how we work, what tools we use.
The A List Apart survey (2007 survey, 2007 detailed findings, 2008 survey) of over 32,000 full-time, part-time, and freelance web designers, developers, and related user experience professionals began answering questions about who works in this field, where we are located, which kinds of businesses and organizations employ us, under which titles we work, what we earn, how satisfied and secure we are, and so on.
Complementing this information, in 2008 Web Directions North conducted a State of the Web 2008 survey of designers, developers, and other web professionals to find out more about our philosophies, technologies, and best practices. The findings include details and analysis of all responses to over 50 questions. You can read all the questions, download the complete (anonymized) set of responses, read detailed analysis, and more.
What percentage of your peers who took the survey use JavaScript for Ajax communication with the server? What percentage don’t use JavaScript at all? How many still test their sites in IE 5.0? The answers to dozens of questions like these await you.
[tags]webdirections, survey, webdesign, webdevelopment[/tags]