Standards Archives
29 entries
Decision or Bug?
Posted at 10:58 AM
I just logged a bug report after doing a little testing with the IE8 Beta. Overall, the progress and standards commitment in the latest effort is fantastic and exciting. Hats off to the Internet Explorer Team.
There’s one lingering decision that appears to have carried over though, and it’s an important one. I say “decision” since, by now, there clearly must be a reason why it’s still there. I’m also reminding myself that this is still a beta release. But the earlier we chime in on things, the better, right?
Here’s what I logged:
As with previous versions of Internet Explorer, the IE8 Beta also fails to resize text using the “Text Size” tool when fonts are sized in pixels. Most would consider this a bug, where the user should be able to trump any size specified by the page author, regardless of the unit specified. I remained boggled as to why this has been a consistent design decision.
It creates an accessibility issue for readers with poor or low vision, while making pixels a less than desirable choice for the page designer. In an ideal world, the designer should be able to specify fonts in any unit he or she desires (px, em, percentage, etc.) while the reader should have ultimate control over the size, using the browser’s controls. IE’s “Text Size” tool would appear to be broken when a reader attempts to adjust fonts on a page where fonts are sized in pixels. Surely confusing.
Thanks for listening, and keep up the excellent progress!
Disagree? I’d love to hear it :)
Dagen H
Posted at 5:20 PM
Inspired by a tweet from Mikipedia, I did a little Googling for “Dagen H”, the day that Sweden reversed its traffic from the left side of the road to the right side, 40 years ago:
On September 3, 1967, at 04.50 in the morning, the traffic everywhere in Sweden was directed over to the right side of the road and stopped. Everything stood absolutely still for 10 minutes, and at 05.00, when it started again, all road users in Sweden from heavy trucks to cyclists were already on the right side of the road, and they have stayed there since.
What’s even more amazing is that there were actually less fatalities and accidents during that September than in previous Septembers (although a possible result of people being more alert just after the switch).
But it could be proof that, even the most rigid and essential standards can be reversed if the warning is long enough and well-organized.
Markup & Style Society
Posted at 4:53 PM
Ethan and I are pleased to announce another meeting of The Markup & Style Society next month. It’s a semi-regular, casual meetup for New England area web geeks. This time, things are a little more interesting, and even more secretive. Here are the details:
We need to limit the number of guests due to space, and we’ll be keeping track of first 50 people who RSVP via Upcoming. Unfortunately only those folks will be able to attend, so mark your calendars early.
A fun and interesting evening is promised, with after-meetup drinks at a local pub to follow (that’s really the best part, isn’t it?). We’re also looking for a friendly sponsor to cover pizza during the event. Interested? Let us know and you’ll be forever remembered as “that awesome company that gave us pizza that one time at that thing a while back”.
404 Hunt
Posted at 3:03 PM
In doing some research for a newish presentation, I’m on the hunt for cool, funny, well-designed and/or useful custom 404 pages. Stumbled across anyone that gets this right? I’d love to see it.
Bulletproof Web Design, Second Edition
Posted at 10:04 AM
On bookstore shelves today (I hope) is something I’ve been toiling over for the past few months. Bulletproof Web Design, Second Edition is a refresh of the book I wrote for New Riders in 2005. I’ve been humbled by the response of the first edition, and have enjoyed talking about the principles described in the book at conferences and workshops over the last few years. So it was only fitting to give this little blue book a tune-up under the hood.
This isn’t a giant update nor a new book entirely. Rather, it brings the examples in line with Internet Explorer 7 (which wasn’t released when the first ed. was published) and adds several more examples based on ems (which were sorely lacking from the original book). There are of course errata fixes and nips and tucks throughout as well, and about 30 additional pages were added in total. All in all, I’m happy to have the book be all the more solid and relevant.
On the surface, writing a second edition of a book seems like an easy little project. One that won’t be too much work, won’t take long, and can easily fit in between other activities. But it’s not like that. It’s like writing another book all over again (even though it’s not another book and a large portion of the text is the same).
I find the actual writing of a book the easiest of all stages. It’s the editing, the back-and-forth, the endless checking and double-checking of Word docs (Word!) and then PDF files. Reading comments, checking comments, adding your own comments. “Should this be bold or code font?”. All of this is necessary of course. But my goodness it’s just as time consuming as the first go-around.
But like anything that takes time and effort in life, you quickly forget the pain and maybe even someday agree to do it all over again.
While today is the official publication date, Amazon is still taking pre-orders only. I’ve yet to see an actual copy myself, so there could very well be a slight delay.
AIGA Redesign
Posted at 11:09 AM
This morning, AIGA (the professional association for design) relaunched with a shiny new design by Happy Cog. I had the pleasure of taking Jason Santa Maria’s brilliant designs and turning them into semantic XHTML and CSS templates that could be plugged into a custom CMS built by Thirdwave (AIGA’s technical partner). Magic and fun ensued.
Every project is a learning experience. But working with Jeffrey and Jason for a client like AIGA, well that’s a whole new level of awesomeness. One could (and should) study Jason’s molecule-level of detail in typography (using just two web fonts and a splash of Interstate via the venerable sIFR). It was a fun challenge getting things right using CSS. I hope I’ve come close.
Congrats to AIGA for renewing their digs with a smart, readable, beautiful design — and a big thank you to Jeffrey, Jason and Happy Cog for allowing me to pitch in and help with this.
Read more about the redesign:
- Jeffrey Zeldman: Happy Cog redesigns AIGA
- Jason Santa Maria: AIGA Redesign
- Happy Cog: AIGA Website Redesign
And a special geek note: events listed on AIGA’s homepage are marked up with hCalendar.
Way #24
Posted at 9:23 AM
For the second year in-a-row, Drew McLellan has put together another excellent 24 Ways — an advent calendar of helpful web articles written by fine folks from all over the web.
To cap off this year’s set, I’ve contributed Gravity-Defying Page Corners, a simple little trick for adding dimension to a plain ol’ box. It also might the first (and after reading you’ll probably be thinking “hopefully last”) web tutorial written in verse. It’s corny for sure, but fun to write and hopefully read. Many thanks to Drew for wrapping up 48 presents to us all.
Microformats for Designers
Posted at 10:57 PM
In a little less than two months, I’ll be heading to Vancouver to speak about “microformats for designers” at Web Directions North. It’ll be a fun topic, and I’m starting to put together the material. I’m looking forward to talking about microformats from a designer’s perspective, including a little bit about the logo development, the implementations over at Cork’d (and the unexpected cool things that came out of that), as well as applying CSS to microformats.
But I’m also looking for help. What are some interesting things happening with microformats and design? Know of any great examples, visual experiments, etc.? Here are a few to get started:
I know there’s a lot happening out there, so let’s hear about it. And thanks!
Educated
Posted at 10:43 AM
There’s a myth that colleges and universities are teaching antiquated web design skills: table-and -spacer-gif-ness, FrontPage 98, etc. Actually, I don’t think it’s a myth — it’s actually happening out there. So after touring Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts yesterday, I was completely surprised. CDIA offers an interactive design program with an emphasis on CSS, web standards and hand-coding — and it’s right in my own backyard.
Jeremy Osborn, the program’s Director, mentioned that, while BU offers the resources and infastructure of a large university, CDIA is largely independent and run much like a startup — adapting and changing the curriculum as the techniques and methods out in the real world do. I found this approach pretty fascinating, and it’ll be interesting to see how their program evolves along with the web itself.
I’m hopeful there are other programs out there in other states and countries that are offering modern skills for budding designers of the web. Leave a comment if you know of any.
Also, if you’re in (or planning to be in) the Boston area, have an interest in teaching web design, and have the skills to guide the next generation of standardistas, contact jeremy [at] cdiabu dot com. They’re expanding fast.
Introducing Cork'd
Posted at 9:59 AM
I like wine. I’ve even touted it’s ability to act as a design enhancer. The problem with wine (for me, and for many) is knowing what’s good. There are infinite choices out there. It’s overwhelming. Oftentimes, I lean on the suggestions from friends — people that probably know more about wine than I do.
When I finally find a wine that I like, it’s always impossible to remember it for the next trip to the store. Some people keep a journal, writing down what they thought about the wine in a notebook. But wouldn’t it be great if you could do this online? And wouldn’t it be also great if we could share those lists with our friends through a simple, free interface? And while we’re at it, wouldn’t it be the bomb.com if this same interface allowed you to review the wine, tag it, and set up lists for wines that you want to buy or that you own in your cellar?
Introducing Cork’d. A brand-spanking new site devoted to reviewing and sharing wine created by Dan Benjamin and myself. We’ve been working on this for quite some time. Just the two of us. Call us the Bartles & Jaymes of the wine web world (wait, no, don’t do that).
What is Cork’d?
The basic gist of Cork’d is this: after painlessly creating a free account, you’re able to keep track of wines you’ve tried in your Wine Jounal. You can rate, review and tag wines (more on that below), and these “tasting notes” end up attatched as comments to each wine in our database. You can also build a Shopping List of wines you’d like to buy (think of this like you would a Netflix queue), and a Wine Cellar for wines that you own. Keeping track of what your friends are tasting is as easy as adding them as a Drinking Buddy. You can also recommend wines to your buddies after you’ve rated and reviewed a bottle.
We have a partnership set up through wine.com, where a selection of their bottles have seeded the Cork’d database with about 1200 wines (which will grow as members add their own bottles), each with a link to buy that wine right away. But we can also see other cross-promotional opportunities by getting involved in the meat-space wine community. There are endless ideas flowing about connecting with wineries and vineyards, other wine blogs and podcasts. We’re really looking forward to watching it all grow.
Tasting Tags
The idea of tagging a wine may sound absurd — but when we started to realize the benefits, it became a must-have. We call them tasting tags, and by applying keywords like “oak, pepper, vanilla, berry” to a wine, we’re then making it easy to find similar wines based on those flavors. If you like oaky wines, for instance, then it should be easy to find them.
Why and How
What’s funny about Cork’d when looking at it for the first time, is that it’s pulling in many of the current technologies that have been brewing out there, and applies them to… wine. And why not? This is something Dan B. and I built quite simply because we wanted to use it. We’d been trading favorite bottles, realizing there would be an incredible benefit to keep track of things through a web interface, building a community around it, and making it easy to subscribe to buddies and wine lists. It had to be.
It’ll also be interesting to continue to talk about what we learned by building a web application with a team of 2. Working with Dan B. is a natural fit, as our areas of expertise overlap only slightly (design/ui/development), and where they do overlap actually made things run all the smoother. I was continually amazed by the way Dan approached building the app in Ruby on Rails, the speed, the structure, the way he thinks about a problem for a while, then takes all of about 3 minutes to write the working code — he’s a developer who designs in code. And I’m sure he’ll have much to write about regarding the process, including his already-published thoughts on the launch over at Hivelogic (far more thorough than mine).
This was a giant learning experience for me in terms of dipping my toes in Rails, becoming more familiar with Subversion (more on this later), and in using these tools as a collaborative and iterative way of building a web application. It’s a gratifying way for a designer to work on a large project, chipping away at things in real time, using real data — it’s a bit like sculpting. An evolution.
Go Forth and Uncork
I’m excited to share much more about the site over the coming weeks and months, and we’ll be rolling out some additional features and tweaks. But until then, if you dig wine (or want to start digging wine), then head on over and, um … uncork — Cork’d.
Inside the Net Interview
Posted at 11:55 AM
Chatted with Amber Mac and Leo Laporte last evening, and the resulting conversation (roughly 40 minutes) is now up and ready for consumption in the form of Inside the Net Episode 19.
It was an honor to be on the show, where topics included SimpleBits, web standards, books, current stuff that’s happening, iterative app building and other hopefully interesting things.
Fence Riding Once Again
Posted at 2:07 PM
Apparently the fixed/fluid-width toggle feature here at SimpleBits was a popular one. The latest realign bid farewell to the option, instead settling on a centered, fluid-width layout with a conservative max-width applied. For those that requested it, the ability to toggle between fixed and fluid is now back. There are a few reasons I decided to add it back in:
- Well, you asked. Actually, I don’t usually cave in to reader demands, hence my recent useless-but-riveting articles regarding oatmeal cookies and (of all things) the weather.
- It’s so dead-simple to implement. Well, after reading this it should be.
- Choice can be nice. Since
max-widthisn’t currently supported by all browsers, giving those readers an easy option for readable line-length seems to me a Good Thing. - It’s fun to play with. Along the same lines as twirling a pencil in your fingers like the drumstick of a spandex-wearing drummer from the 80s.
Seven
Posted at 9:22 PM
I have yet to download and install an IE7 beta, but it sounds like it’s actually time to start paying attention to the latest release (Beta 2 Preview). We’re hearing reports from MIX 06 that the browser is essentially done in terms of CSS implementation:
Really interesting stuff from the above links. I’m impressed with what we’ve heard regarding the now-standards-aware IE team. On the flip-side, Roger Johansson brings up an excellent point: whether we’ll need a new way to self-clear floats in IE7.
Wow, this is a bit frightening, as I’ve been using the easy clearing method extensively, finding it to be pretty rock solid and predictable. It’s especially handy to use this to group components that use complicated floats and most importantly keeping them independent as self-contained, bulletproof “modules”. Being self-contained means they’re not dependent on subsequent elements in order to clear, and can then be moved around at will. Handy stuff.
So, it appears we’ll need a way to self-clear floats in IE7 that doesn’t use the still unsupported :after pseudo-element and the now fixed height: 1%; trick that previous versions of IE/Win so lovingly accepted. Here’s hoping there’s an alternative out there (aside from floating the container among others). I’m sure there will be, but even then this particular method would now feature 3 different declarations in order to work across browsers (actually add a few more in if you’d like IE5/Mac to work).
Update: Roger has posted an update, where a solution using display: inline-block; instead of display: inline-table; seems to do the trick for IE7. It’s a tad more complicated as to why this works, so be sure to read Claire Campbell’s informative write-up.
CSS Patches
Posted at 10:47 PM
The term “hack” implies that a legitimate solution to the problem exists. Yet, in order to save time, or perhaps due to lack of knowledge, a sloppy fix is applied to just get the job done. “Let’s hack at it, ‘till it works”. But is this the case in terms of CSS hacks? Sure, we call them “hacks”, when in reality they’re really patches. Patches that fix known, documented problems in certain browsers.
I know it’s really just a term, but the problem is this: by using “hack” to describe often necessary code, a negative connotation can be attached, even if what we’re really doing is compensating for a browser’s shortcomings. When you hear someone say: “I avoid all hacks”, you’ve witnessed this negative connotation. Heck, we’d all love to avoid hacks — but we’re also realistic, living in the real world, and designing in 2005.
Now think about the term “patch”. It brings to mind, mending something that’s broken. It’s rip or tear is clearly visible — we know it’s broken, and we know what we need to do to make it look better. We’re not cutting corners, we’re applying a fix.
Perhaps from now on, I’ll refer to fixes for gems like the double float margin bug, or the three-pixel text jog as, well… patches.
A Weblog Entry About Weblog Entries
Posted at 4:15 PM
I’ve been thinking lately about weblog format standards, and what readers come to expect. This quote from Jason Kottke regarding a change in the way he handles his “remaindered links” sums up my frustration with current trends:
Odeo Opens its Doors
Posted at 10:55 AM
Discover, create, and subscribe to original audio content for your iPod or MP3 player. Earlier this month, Odeo opended its doors to the public, with a site design from SimpleBits.
When Floated Figures Attack!
Posted at 8:45 AM
I recently began publishing full entries in the RSS feed for SimpleBits, figuring that if people would rather read the entire Notebook post in the comfort of their aggregator, they could go ahead and do so. Personally, I enjoy reading content in its intended environment, with all the site design around it, and find myself skimming NetNewsWire for interesting articles to pull up in a browser later on.
microformats.org Launched
Posted at 10:28 AM
Officially announced at Supernova2005 earlier this week, a new community-based site has been launched to be the official home for microformats — with a logo and simple site design from SimpleBits.
Boston-Area Web Standards Job
Posted at 2:28 PM
My friend and former boss is trying to find you. EH Publishing (a Boston-based publisher of magazines and trade shows covering the connected home industry) is seeking a Web Standards Expert/Production Manager to join their team. And I quote the description verbatim:
EH Publishing is looking for an outstanding person to fill a crucial role. As the Production Manager you’ll be handling the constant production work flow for all of our sites, as well as building and designing new sites and sections. Working with all departments within EH, this is a key role that requires both the right skills and the right attitude. You’ve got to love web standards and be fully committed to delivering the best code and UI possible. You need to be able to juggle multiple sites, projects, and handle any type of personality that comes your way. Finally, you need to be willing to accept change and new challenges without missing a beat. My order of preference for skills? 1. attitude, 2. project management/production skills, 3. standards knowledge and ability, and 4. design. Preferably you’ll have a good mix of it all.
What can we offer you? A chance to work with an organization that is growing fast and is totally committed to building first class web sites to match their award winning magazines and trade shows. You’ll be one of the first members of a new team that will retool and grow the web offerings of EH Publishing. We’ve been in business for 10 years, we’re privately held, very profitable, and currently at about 50 employees. This is a great opportunity to build sites which will be highly visible and very important to all aspects of our business.
If you’re interested, I’d love to hear from you. Email Rob Roesler: rob [at] ehpub dot com.
This is a great opportunity for someone who is looking to hone their web standards skills on a variety of cool sites. If you’re in the market for a new job, be sure to check it out.
Televised Backward Compatibility
Posted at 2:16 PM
Having only had HDTV in the house for roughly 48 hours, I’ve already found something interesting to note. While watching “the game” last night (the second in a series I won’t talk about until we have some good news) I was amused by the little tricks that the designers use while serving screen elements that’ll work with both normal television and HDTV screen widths. Sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it?
When FOX needed to show an informational banner across the bottom of the screen (see figure), the sides would fade out in a gradient while watching in HD. My guess (and I didn’t check) is that normal TV viewers don’t see the gradient at all, rather the banner just flows across the entire screen. The gradient edges are probably there — but only appear if you have a widescreen HDTV.
The parallels here to web design are obvious: that steps are taken to ensure a usable experience, regardless of screen size. Now aren’t the television designers lucky to have just two, predictable widths to deal with?
I’m also beginning to notice other design choices that reflect the growing number of HDTV customers. Many commericals are presented in 16:9 format, and some add colored bars on top and bottom that seem to purposely mesh visually with the black bars on left and right that appear when a square image is shown on a widescreen.
Having to support two viewport sizes must be challenging — but like the web, designers are finding creative ways to make both experiences work.
Accessibility Progress
Posted at 2:53 PM
Chip Adams was kind enough to point me (along with several other colleagues) to some pretty interesting (and positive) news.
Reported in an article at Excite News, titled Web Sites Agree to Be Accessible to Blind: Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Priceline.com and Ramada.com have agreed to make significant changes to their sites specifically for those browsing with screen reading software and other assistive technology.
That’s of course great news. And I also found this quote rather interesting:
We hope it’s going to be influencing other companies throughout the United States so that the 10 million blind and visually impaired people can fully participate in our society at all levels. —Carl Augusto, president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind.
10 million. For anyone who wonders if the accessibility of a site is important, or whether or not people browse your site with screen reading software—it’s an awfully large number of people to ignore. And that’s just in the U.S. alone.
Without extra effort, building on a foundation of lean, structured markup can do wonders for a site’s accessibility, and it appears that with Priceline and Ramada publicly acknowledging the importance—things are headed in the right direction.
Bulletproof Slants
Posted at 10:27 AM
While working on the navigation for a project recently, I had the want/need to do something like this:
Nothing ground-breaking or cutting edge here (and certainly not meant to solicit ooohs and ahhhs from the gallery), yet when faced with a little challenge such as the design above, I do my best to make things as bulletproof as possible.
Humor me, while I elaborate.
Subscribable Validation
Posted at 12:39 PM
Ben Hammersley has just built something brilliant. There’s been lots of talk lately about validation. It’s hard. Maintaining validation is harder.
To make things easier on yourself, check out Ben’s fantastic XHTML Validator to RSS widget. Append a URL to the script, and subscribe to it using your favorite newsreader. Woilla! An RSS feed for validation errors. Updated whenever you’d like of course. You don’t even need to think about checking for validation errors manually anymore.
This is instantly useful. Bravo, Ben.
A Validation Tale
Posted at 10:37 AM
While I nod my head in agreement to recent thoughts on validation and it’s place as a piece of the web design puzzle, I’m reminded of where and when I personally think that it can make the difference.
Why the heck is the footer crammed all the way over in the right column?
A mildly ficticious scenario, but one that is certainly plausible. The display issue could be anything really. You’ve poured over every last CSS declaration, searching for the key that’s throwing off the entire design. Hours may go by after trial and error, removing code, adding it back it, etc.
Then you throw it through the validator.
Line 326, column 6: end tag for “div” omitted…
Of course. All better now.
I’m merely illustrating a point — that (for me personally) validation is key as part of the building process. Checking to make sure my “i”s are dotted and “t”s are crossed eliminates several possible culprits if I’m running into display issues. If I know the code is plumb and square, I can at least move on to other investigations. It doesn’t solve everything, but a solid foundation keeps some of the guesswork at bay.
There are other reasons for validation of course — reasons that may or may not make 100% sense depending on the (approximately) 6,593 factors that go into an average web site. A singular person may not have complete control over all of the code that makes up an entire site. If a team is involved — it takes everyone to want validation in order to make it happen. Tools and feeds and software must be part of the game. Editors, managers and developers have have to understand the importance of forward compatibility and a higher threshold of consistent device and browser support. But oftentimes, these things (or people) are out of our direct control. This is what makes validation hard.
So I try to stay valid as much as possible — and the building process is certainly a convenient time and place where it happens the most.
Inconsistent Consistency
It also relates to another topic that I’ve been thinking about lately. That basic validation appears to be more important when using CSS layouts, as opposed to old-school methods. I don’t have any solid research to back any of this up right now, but hear me out.
In the past, when all of the presentation was tied in directly with the content (read: nested table layouts), browsers were extremely forgiving. Forget (perhaps purposely) to close those <td> elements? Most browsers wouldn’t care and would render your intentions without any problems. This led to all sorts of bad habits. I guess we could place part of the blame on the browser…
Anyhow, forget to close <div> or <ul> elements while implementing a complex CSS-based layout and I believe most browsers won’t be as forgiving. More importantly I think the results will be extemely varied depending on the browser.
I’m certainly not referring to unescaped ampersands or other small details that could be out of the site builder’s control — but I believe basic validation on the framework of a site is crucial when working heavily in CSS.
Web Standards Link Bonanza
Posted at 11:38 AM
As a result of the Great Book Giveaway Contest, 485 comments were collected, each with a link to a favorite article, web site or weblog entry relating to web standards.
Steve Smith has kindly formatted these comments into a nice, neat, easily digestible list of links, complete with titles.
Shaun Inman put together a similar list (coming soon) which lists every URL posted, along with a tally of how many folks shared the same article.
Both Shaun and Steve deserve a pat on the back for all of their hard work. This is a great collection of links — so thank you once again to all who entered.
Ten Questions for Me
Posted at 10:48 PM
The incomparable Russ Weakley of the Web Standards Group had asked me ten questions as part of an ongoing series. I answered them. And now they are published for all to read.
In the interview, I talk about “web design, standards, semantically correct markup, SimpleQuiz and [my] hot-off-the-presses book.”
Standards Around the House
Posted at 10:32 AM
I bought a window shade yesterday. I measured the window. I went to the store (yes that store). I pulled a 23” shade off the shelf and brought it home. It fits perfectly.
Last year, we bought a new dishwasher. We pulled the old one out and ordered a new one. When the new model arrived, it fit — perfectly.
NOTE: I promise this site will not turn into HomeImprovementBits.
I’m merely making a point here. That home improvement is made easier by standards. Someone like myself can walk into a store, buy a garbage disposal hose, and more than likely it’ll fit just right. I can also purchase a new doorknob and nine times out of ten it’ll fit the door without any major adjustments.
Predetermined, standard measurements make life easy for people who build and maintain houses. When a new owner needs to update or maintain their home, standards make it easier to fix or improve it.
This wasn’t always the case, of course. Not all houses built prior to the twentieth century utilized standards. This didn’t mean that houses built without standards were bad houses — it just meant that updating, fixing or maintaining these houses required extra work.
Oftentimes, people buy old houses and renovate them. Once the hard work in renovating a house is complete, the owner can take advantage of standard sizes and measurements to make maintaining the house easier.
There is a list a mile long of improvements that my wife and I would like to make to our old house. But making those improvements takes time — and money. We’re just trying to check off one item at a time knowing that, once the work is done, things will get easier.
WaSP Interviews Dan Cederholm
Posted at 9:35 AM
Dave Shea of the Web Standards Project and mezzoblue was kind enough to ask me a few questions regarding the Fast Company and Inc. redesigns.
The interview is the first of a new series that Dave is launching over at WaSP.
SprintPCS Redesigns With XHTML/CSS
Posted at 11:44 AM
Congratulations to France Rupert and team on launching a newly redesigned SprintPCS.com this past weekend.
The site was completely rebuilt, with web standards in mind, using a CSS-based layout on top of clean markup. Aside from a few known rendering issues, the site looks excellent and the home page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. More details are provided in a brief explanation linked from the index page.
It’s an exciting time. Even large companies are now beginning to see the benefits of building sites a better way and internal web teams are learning the advantages of designing pages that load fast, are more accessible, and easier to maintain. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more and more of these relaunches announced. It’s a great thing.
So, bravo to France and company on a job well done. Read more about the redesign with some notes from France’s personal site.
A tiny web design studio founded by designer and author Dan Cederholm. We deliver hand-crafted pixels & text from Massachusetts, USA. Learn more
Bulletproof Web Design Second Edition New Riders
Web Standards Solutions The Markup and Style Handbook Friends of Ed