Buzz Archives for January 2004
XML Basics
Starting last month, Intranet Journal (intranetjournal.com) began hosting a series of articles on the topic of XML. These short articles help to demystify XML. A document authored with XML allows for the transformation and sharing of data or content between various devices and people. The first article, XML Basics and Benefits ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Definition Lists
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Definition Lists: misused or misunderstood? “There are two points of view about the use of definition lists. Some people believe that definition lists should only be used for terms and definitions. Others believe that definition lists can be used to tie together any items that have a direct relationship with each ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in HTML/XHTML
- The Business Case for Web Accessibility
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Continuing the subject of accessibility, Andy Budd wrote a good article last week that makes the business case for catering to the widest audience possible. Andy identifies groups of people who have problems accessing the web, and explains how building web sites they are able to use can positively impact ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Accessibility
- Accessibility: Looking Good
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Still not convinced that good design can be accessible? Canada has no specific accessibility laws, per se, but that hasn't stopped my fellow countrymen Scott Baldwin and Michael Clarke from leading the way. Announced by Scott last year, a recent press release outlines the Vancouver-based North Shore Credit Union's push for ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Accessibility
- Online Event: IT Accessibility
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The Information Technology Technical Assistance & Training Center (ITTATC) Announces An Audio Conference on January 26, 2004 from 2-4 PM ET. ITTATC provides accessibility training and technical assistance related to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act for industry, state officials, trainers, and consumers.
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Accessibility, Training
- XHTML Print
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W3C has promoted the XHTML Print module to Candidate Recommendation status today. Aimed at low-end printers and sub-optimal printing conditions, the design objective of XHTML-Print is to provide a relatively simple, broadly supportable page description format where content preservation and reproduction are the goal.
By Dave Shea | Filed in HTML/XHTML
- CSS Filters
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A time will come when you simply can't get a CSS-based design working well across the browsers. While there is still debate on the potential side effects of using them, CSS hacks and filters will frequently get you out of a jam. When used wisely and judiciously, they can be ...
- W3C sets recommendations for mobile Web standards
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W3C pushes handheld devices forward with its approved technical specs for mobile Web standards. The spec, Composite Capability / Preference Profiles (CC/PP): Structures and Vocabularies 1.0, enables mobiles phones and PDAs to communicate with Web servers. The CC/PP 1.0 spec uses RDF (Resource Description Framework).
By Meryl K. Evans | Filed in W3C/Standards Documentation
- Lunch, Internet Explorer, and You
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Robert Scoble, a Microsoft employee and prominent weblogger, recently had lunch with Microsoft's Internet Explorer team. You read that correctly: there is an IE team, and they're apparently hard at work. After providing some insight into how the development team operates, Robert asks his readers what they'd like to ...
By Ethan Marcotte | Filed in Browsers
- Developer Toolbars
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Wouldn't it be nice to have one-click access to the validators? And surely there's an easier way to snap your browser window to a specific resolution without manually dragging a corner? Wouldn't the world be a better place if you could turn CSS off at any time, and back on ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Authoring Tools
- WaSP Interviews: Ryan Carver
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This third edition of WaSP Interviews talks to Ryan Carver about the standards-based redesign of Lee Jeans' onetruefit.com. Ryan discusses the Google boost for the site thanks to his clean markup, the heartache of flicker, the heartbreak of licensing creative work, and a brilliant technique for using the cascade part of ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in WaSP Announcement
- Nice Menus!
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Better late than never. Posted last month, SuperfluousBanter's Didier Hilhorst explores some smokin' menu effects in The Art of Navigation. As noted in the text, some usability and accessibility best practices were harmed in the making of these menus. Proceed with caution (but be prepared to drool).
- Standards On Your Bookshelf
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As though you needed more proof that 2003 was a great year for standards, check out the Best Books for 2003 compiled by The Designer's Bookshelf. Surrounded by a trove of excellent titles, the only two books listed under "Best in Web Design" are Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing With Web Standards ...
By Ethan Marcotte | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Centering
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Horizontal and vertical centering, together at last. Joe Gillespie shows us how at Web Page Design For Designers.
- PHP and Web Standards Conference
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PaWS is the PHP and Web Standards conference, scheduled to take place from February 20th to 24th in Manchester, England. The call for papers has gone out, with a deadline for submissions of January 17th. The dual focus on PHP and standards based web development should make for some interesting ...
By Simon Willison | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- :hover in MSIE
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You may have seen the Pure CSS Menus demo on Eric Meyer's css/edge, it has been around for a while. The premise: pure CSS menus, no scripting necessary. The catch: they don't work in Internet Explorer. Well, not so fast. Thanks to Peter Nederlof, with a slight bit of script-based tweaking ...
- Standards ‘03
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We're back, and we brought presents! The holidays have kept most of us at WaSP away from the nest, but rest assured that 2004 will ring in some big new developments around here. For now, let's look back on the year that was. Here are some highlights (and a few inevitable ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Web Standards (general)
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
A New Direction and a New Project
By Aaron Gustafson | February 2nd, 2010
In an effort to increase adoption of web standards, we’re going to try something new.
A lot of you are probably wondering where the WaSP of the late ’90s or even the early ’00s has gone. Where are the actions? Where is the advocacy? Who should we be mad at today?
The truth is that this organization is evolving. For the last two years, a large amount of our focus has been placed on education, realized in our creation of the InterAct curriculum framework and the birth of the Open Web Education Alliance. With the lion’s share of our talent and energy devoted to these efforts, things have been noticeably quiet on this blog, but that’s not an excuse…we can and should be doing more to promote the understanding and use of web standards. After all that’s what we were formed to do.
For the last two or three years, WaSP’s relevance has definitely diminished. With a few exceptions, browsers are doing a darn good job of promoting standards. Techniques we championed, such as Unobtrusive JavaScript and Progressive Enhancement, have become engrained in the methodology of many great web agencies and in-house web teams. In many ways, it seems WaSP has won the war for web standards, but has it really? There are still a ton of small web companies and small to mid-sized businesses building websites with little or no regard for cross-browser /cross-device compatibility. Inaccessible sites and applications, especially in this age of Ajax, seem to pop up every few seconds.
These projects have been put together by web designers and developers we’ve never reached and, for the last few years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to change that. Sure, our education effort is a logical means of teaching the next generation of web designers and developers to do things the Right Way™, but what of the practicing professionals who either have not been exposed to web standards or have been reluctant to upgrade their skill set? How do we reach them?
One way we hope to move this group in the right direction is by doing an end-run around them in reaching out to small businesses.
Small businesses drive our national economies and are responsible for millions of websites worldwide. Of course, most small businesses don’t know (or even want to know) about the technical aspects of web standards, but they do want to know what will save them money and help them run their businesses more efficiently.
As the first project in our small business outreach effort, WaSP will be developing a resource to be used when interviewing individuals and teams to do web work. The focus of this effort will be a series of questions that, when asked of applicants, will help a small business determine whether or not they have the skills necessary to build a modern website. Each question be coupled with background on the associated topic that outlines why it is important and tips for determining how well the question was answered.
Our goals for this project are two-fold:
- To support small businesses by protecting them from bad developers and making sure they get the best websites possible; and
- To expose individual designers and small web shops to web standards when they go out to bid on projects in hopes that they will choose to upgrading their skills in order to continue getting work.
In order to make this project a success, we need your help. Whether you are interested in helping us collect and organize the content or are keen to promote the resource once it’s complete, we want you to be involved. If you can lend a hand, please say so in a comment on this message and I will be in touch at the beginning of next week.
Filed in Education, Outreach, Training, WaSP Announcement | Comments (38)