Buzz Archives for March 2005
Interview with Håkon Wium Lie
Håkon Wium Lie is the CTO of Opera Software and in 1994 proposed the idea of CSS. Håkon is as deeply involved with the Web and with CSS as anyone can possibly be. Recently, he contacted WaSP to ask whether we could host the Acid2 test, which we agreed to ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Browsers, CSS, DOM
- Inspired by Accessibility.
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Accessibility and usability inspires innovation. Embracing and using standards and recommendations allows for more innovation. It's time to quit thinking that embracing accessibility stifles growth or causes limitations. Many years ago, I was inspired by accessibility and innovations. I began my work and advocacy of web standards and accessibility items well ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Accessibility, Usability
- What’s Up with WaSP
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Maybe we built a hive in your garage, or perhaps we stung you in an unsightly spot. We are truly sorry. We really had promised to be a kinder and gentler sort of WaSP. But then again some of my country's presidents promised the same thing. So let me wake up ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in WaSP Announcement
- Access Matters Quiz Blog
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Bob Easton is the man behind Access Matters, a weblog that offers up advice regarding web accessibility and best practises. Quiz items are presented as blog or journal entries and answers by others follow in the comments or replies often offering up additional key information. Thanks go to Gez Lemon of ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Accessibility
- The Acid2 Challenge
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In a public effort to encourage Microsoft to add as much CSS 2 support as possible as its developers embark on IE7, Håkon Wium Lie (CTO of Opera Software and the father of CSS) and the Web Standards Project have begun the development of a test suite, known as "Acid2." The ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Acid2, Browsers
- IE 7 Rumors
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Microsoft Watch has posted an article with rumored details on IE7. That the release will primarily be focused on security, and will include tabbed browsing come as no surprise. They say native (i.e., no Direct-X filters required) support for alpha transparency in PNG is also in the cards. The advance ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Welcome, Tantek
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The WaSP would like to officially welcome Tantek Çelik to its Steering Committee (pssst, someone update the bio page thanks for the quick work, Ben). I was wondering why I was reading about it here and here but not on this site, and then I realized that it's probably because ...
By Dori Smith | Filed in General
- MS Commits to Better Standards Support in IE 7
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Lead program manager for IE Chris Wilson has committed to improving standards support in Internet Explorer 7. While Chris doesn't provide many details about what improvements will be made just yet, he does say that IE's rendering in 'quirks mode' won't see any changes that might 'break' legacy sites. He expressly ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Handheld Styling
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Jim Wilkinson authored a CSS Wiki page of useful information for those interested in styling content for the small screen, found at: Handheld Stylesheets - css discuss. If you are developing or styling content for handheld or mobile devices this page looks like it would be a very useful bookmark. Jim ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in CSS, Mobile
- All About Firefox
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Perhaps this is something that should be added to BrowseHappy, but for now I wanted to draw your collective attention to a page I stumbled upon this morning. It's on one of my favorite web sites, How Stuff Works, and this time Firefox gets the treatment. The chances are, you're ...
- Netscape 8 Beta goes live
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Slashot notes that the Netscape 8 Beta has been released to the public. Ironically, though the release is said to focus on security and protecting user privacy it still uses Firefox 1.0 as its foundation, rather than the more-secure 1.0.1 release. As well, the new Netscape is only available for Microsoft ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Because the web is only one facet of the Internet
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Those of you who don't check Slashdot might be interested in something posted there several minutes ago: A Concise Guide to the Major Internet Bodies. In addition to our favorite, the World Wide Web Consortium, other organizations focused on infrastructure and policy, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force and ...
By Ben Henick | 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)