Buzz Archives for October 2004
What is a “web standard?”
The grand irony as we debate the importance of validation and what web standards are is this little bugaboo: Web "standards" aren't. The W3C provides specifications and recommendations which have been coined by practitioners as "standards" when they are not precisely standards, but de facto standards. ISO, for ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Committed to Sincere Progress, Not Perfection
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Last week a standards friendly redesign of the ABCNews site was announced, only to be met with criticism on the homepage of the Web Standards Project site. An obvious conflict emerges from what we see in the redesigned site under discussion, and in the point of the argument made ...
By WaSP Member | Filed in Opinion
- In Search of Validation…
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Last week was great for chatter — not just about history or U.S. politics, though there was plenty of chatter about those things as well. Yes, folks, it’s official: validation is a must-have, as explained with a few friendly caveats in the latest Web Standards Project Opinion. In summary, it appears ...
By Ben Henick | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Happy 10th Birthday, Netscape
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Netscape is 10 years old, and C|net is celebrating with a special section on the once-mighty brand. Their retrospective on the browser itself is especially good. While you're there, you might also want to read what nice things Netscape founder Marc Andreeson had to say about Firefox's potential to challenge ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- All That Glitters
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Mike Davidson, art director behind the now-legendary ESPN.com CSS redesign, announces the redesign of ABC News, touting it as a success of real-world web standards. While the site’s new design successfully incorporates Flash, JavaScript, and CSS into an appealing, well-reasoned layout, I’m not exactly sure what real-world web standards means. ...
By Ethan Marcotte | Filed in CSS, Validation
- Penn State Group
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To address a challenge, How to help others understand and use web standards, individuals at Pennsylvania State University have formed the Penn State Web Standards Users Group. Group membership includes people from various colleges within the university who meet monthly on campus to discuss topics and issues, share knowledge, and ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- ASP.Net & Standards Part II
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Wow. My post on ASP.Net and standards seems to have touched a nerve. I received a pile of feedback via email on that one, and with a currently crazed work schedule it's taken me until now to sort through all the good info provided. The upshot: yep, ASP.Net's built-in functions are ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Google Investor: New Browser War Coming, Google to Sit It Out
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C|net is reporting that Google board member and VC extraordinaire John Doerr said Google won't offer its own browser, contrary to recent speculation. Of course, Doerr also remarked that "that just because he was on the board of Google didn't necessarily mean he knew what they were doing." Doerr does, however, ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- It’s a standard world, after all
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Andy Clarke just announced the standards-based redesign of Disney Store UK — and yes, folks, the new site even validates right out of the gate. The site's yet another compelling argument for how easily it is to build a high level of standards compliance and accessibility into a well-established brand. ...
By Ethan Marcotte | Filed in CSS, HTML/XHTML, Web Standards (general)
- Zen of CSS
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WaSP Molly Holzschlag has posted an announcement for her new book, co-authored by fellow WaSP Dave Shea. Just what I need — one more reason to blow my milk money on books. Thanks a lot, Molly. ;-) Update: Dave Shea has added a very complete previewing the book.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in CSS
- Standard Slideshow System
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Eric Meyer has released a second beta of his web standards-based slideshow system. I haven't mucked about with it yet, but having developed a couple of slideshows myself I'm cognizant of the issues involved. This promises to be a valuable, lightweight alternative to the omnipresent PowerPoint slideshows we all know and ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Standards Frustration of an ASP.Net Newbie
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As I mentioned in my previous post, my employer has adopted Microsoft's ASP.Net as their server-side technology of choice. For the most part, this decision has only tangential impact on me: I spend most of my time on client-side development, project management, IA and the odd incursion into the worlds ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- C|net Discovers Browser Incompatibilities
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As part of a series on IE, C|net has an article on the problem of browser incompatibilities.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers, Web Standards (general)
- The Web as Platform
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In my last post, I observed that the action on the web in the next few years would be its development as a platform for developing and deploying applications. In fact, the fun has already started.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers, 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)