Learn from the pioneers- Trying to do it right

• Trying to do it right
  • Making your pages worthwhile
    • It's the content
    • Dodging the browser wars
    • Writing clean html
    • My perspective on good and bad
    • Maintenance is hell
• Just how do we do it right?

Trying to do it right

The heart of the Web is not Netscape, nor Amazon's closing price, nor Yahoo's ads, but grassroots 'zine culture going global with personal insights, and opinion sharing, and expressed consideration of others sharing mutual interests. There's no point in just whining about the problem. You, yes you, can contribute something worthwhile to the World-Wide Web. You can make it better. I can make it better. Let's do something.

Make your Web pages worthwhile

Here's some ways to help make your Web pages worthwhile. It's certainly not the definitive guide, and is fact only my opinions; it's more a set of hints about how to be interesting and readable while still encouraging creativity.

It's the content

The rest of it is window-dressing. You can make your pages look absolutely fabulous but if they don't say anything, nobody's going to care. Don't give the world another list of links, with no guidance on why you find them interesting. Give the world your art, your music, your poetry, your political rants, your short stories, your first grade photos, your shareware and freeware, your archives of hobby stuff, your hints about how to make great tie-dye, your really handy JavaScripts, your list of the ten best bookstores in the Greater Podunk area. You know something that nobody else knows. You can do something that nobody else can do quite the same way. You've made something that the rest of the world has never seen.

Share it. Put it in your Web page.

Dodging the browser wars

I complained about browser-Hell earlier. I said that you couldn't predict what your page would look like. You can make some shrewd guesses, though. About 95% of the people who view your document will look at it with Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Millions use AOL with theri own adaptaion of MSIE. Most are on a PC, some a Mac, and a few people will view it on a terminal emulator with Lynx. An insignificant number of people will be using some also-ran browsers. Unfortunately, the browser version is much more important to us designers than which software product or which platform.

If any one company had a total lock on the browser market, and if everyone installed the latest version Web publishing would be easier. Innovation would suffer, and the Feds would be after some monopoly (but then again we are seeing that). We could write pages using all the browser enhancements, and have faith that standards would soon follow. Everyone could enjoy the features of our pages like we intended. However, there is REALITY, and it is not virtual. Browsers are developed by the big guys to not only depart from the "standard", but to be different (they say better) than the competition.

Be browser-independent as much as you can. HTML 3.2 and 4.02 is a safe bet these days. Keep up with developing standards, and begin to use XHTML features intelligently. You can structure using tables and not worry about excluding much of your audience. But Cascading Style Sheets are really an advanatage most of the time. Extensions and requirements for plug-ins need to be avoided for most presentations, but often some intereactive and dynamic content of Flash is compelling. Some forms of dynamic HTML can be judiciously designed in a site, however, the the content should enhance while not being an intgral part of the content so that the non-able browser does not lose yourmessage. JavaScript and Java can enhance the usability of your interface, but care must be taken. Check documents with older browsers, and differing environments (maybe on something like Web TV). What does it look like with images turned off? What does it look like from a minimal browser like some of the early AOL? What does it look like from a browser that doesn't support transparent gifs?

There's an additional issue to consider for graphics. Be aware of the monitor gamma differences between PCs and Macintoshes, and saturated color flaring on Web TV. Colors that look great on the Mac may look horrible on PCs or vice versa. You can't do anything for people who bought really cheap cheesy graphics cards-- they need to understand that there's a tradeoff they made (graphics quality for money). So what can you assume that people have?  You are probably safe assuming at least 8-bit color with a minimum resolution of 640x480. Of course, the new display standard is 16-bit or 24-bit color and 1024x768 or larger, but if you design for that you'll be eliminating too much of your audience. Your viewers may even use the browser in a small resized window with even less resolution. Only occasionally do you get the luxury of working for a known audience such as what may be captive on an Intranet.

Writing clean HTML

The basics of html are very easy. Anybody can tag paragraphs and write links. Anybody can also have typos. Given that you're going to forget the occasional close-quote, there are  tools to help you find your oopsies. Checkout your code against a validation tool. Check out the links, and monitor periodically.

My perspective on good and bad

Even though "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," I will offer my perspective on what I perceive as functional and compelling content. This list covers mostly points of style. Much of the content is even further waste, but that is to be expected given the general sad state of expository writing seen today.

• Don't put your links on the meaningless word "here". Use anchor text that says something about the content of the linked-to page. If you can, give some clues about where the link will be sending your reader.
• Unless you are certain that your page "needs" a particular browser, omit the "Best viewed with..." Why would you want to limit your audience anyway. At least make sure that you know your audience's requirements.
• Use plug-ins only for some compelling content. Users are not inclined to download special bells for your whistle. (this type of bad mixed metaphor is addressed in my guidance for RitingWrite.
• Don't gobble more bandwidth than you really need. Don't use huge graphics to display text. HTML is there so you don't need graphics to display text. (I'm guilty of putting text in graphics. I excuse myself by rationalizing that at least I made them small graphics. It's this urge for good graphic design. Remember that when you're designing your pages, they're local to your system. Your browser loads them very quickly, and everything seems fast. Your audience is going to have an assortment of connections that range from 14.4 PPP accounts to T3s to 2400 baud terminal connections. Be nice to as many of them as you can and avoid huge inline images. If the images are the whole point of your page, obviously you can't avoid them. But maybe you can use thumbnails, or warn your readers in advance.
• Keep your documents alive. Add to them. Change them. List your recent changes somewhere visible. People won't keep revisiting pages that don't change.
• Don't tell the world that your page is under construction. We know that your document is a living document. We know that you'll make it better when you have the time. Everybody is always tweaking their pages. The world doesn't need to see yet another yellow construction icon.
• Don't use <blink>. Blink is evil. People who use it are marked for a special punishment.
• Take advantage of HTML's strong points. It's as close to platform- independence as we get these days. Don't get all worried about exactly where things are on the page, because you can't control it and it doesn't matter. Well, most of the time it doesn't. Sometimes we use 1x1 pixel transparent gifs to space things just so. Can you imagine what these pages look like in lynx?
• Things are getting better, and we can look forward to really useful features like Cascading Style Sheets. Unfortunately standards, technical capability, and marketing one-upmanship do not usually coincide. Some of the features we would like to adopt just will not work the same for everyone.
• If it's in a PDF file or a postscript file, it's not really Web content. You're just using the Web to distribute an off-line document. If it's important information, don't hide it in an off-line file. Put it in an html file. But then again, sometimes a precise image of a document is warranted (e.g., copy of a land plat or signed document).
• Use horizontal bars sparingly, and extra-sparingly if you're using custom graphics.

Maintenance is hell

But you have to do it. One of the worst tasks is keeping links up to date. Other people move their pages at will. They just have no consideration. If you don't follow all the links on your pages regularly, you'll find that they vanish from under your nose. Fortunately, there are tools to help mitigate this problem, and other global site management chores.

• Fix reported problems promptly. Your readers are going to be your best testers.
• Use link checker scripts to automate some of your testing.
• Use Html validation sites.
• Update your content to keep it fresh.
• Put a last-modified date on your pages. A date will tell your readers whether a page is stale or fresh.

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There are ways to realize the visual style you propose without frustrating users, and that is the challenge of designing for the Web. While content remains key, having a visually appealing site is definitely important, and you can usually design around pragmatic technical limitations.