Webifesto

Last Updated July 6, 2000

Webifesto

Possible Titles

  • Understanding the Web
  • The Web: the message is the medium
  • Unweaving the Web: Silence, Confusion, and the Appetite for Blunder
  • The Web: do you get it?
  • Solving the mystery of the Web

Objectives

  • To make people know that, and how, the Web is an entirely different and new medium.
  • To give clients a good idea of what can be done with the Web right now and what can’t.
  • To tell Web designers what they’re doing wrong, that one should design not for the client or for themselves, but the user (the client’s client)–unless they’re the only user.
  • To show what the Web is and what it isn’t.
  • To dispel misconceptions about the Web.
  • To be definitive as possible.

Document considerations

  • FAQ format (?) (Either all of, just a part of, or different parts of it)
  • written in HTML 4 Strict + CSS2 or use presentational markup (i.e. <FONT>)?
  • one long document or (most likely) different pages
  • relevant quotation after (all) sections
  • using graphics anywhere if beneficial in some way
  • use server-side scripting for selectively serving version depending on client
  • magazine-article-type (usually colored) sidebars
  • nonlinear structure (certain sections can be part of more than one topic, so each section index links to that topic and the topic links back to all sections that link directly to it, i.e. issues of design, standards, and content have topics in common)
  • different versions of introduction plus maybe some or all of the other sections for various audiences (clients, designers, end-users, etc.)

Outline (not all in order yet)

Introduction

  • (the web is not TV, newspaper, CD-ROM, etc.)
  • link: A Brief Theory of the Internet, by Roberto Hern·ndez-Montoya
  • (the medium is still evolving and being defined)
  • distinction between WWW and the Internet (the former being a subset of the latter???)

  • clients/designers should (or must) know what is (and isn’t) possible beforehand

What the Web is good for

  • Archives
  • Databases
  • Search
  • Community

What the Web isn’t good for (right now)

  • full-size, full-length movies
  • interactive 3-D environments

Usability

  • usability vs. design/aesthetics
  • importance of usability testing
  • Desktop software interface standards don’t necessarily apply to the Web
  • navigation (within and between sites)
  • possible navigation elements that should be considered standard

    • sidebar (?)
    • "Back to Top" links
    • back/forward arrow graphic links
    • consistent links so the user can easily know where each navigation link always is
    • contextually omnipresent links, meaning that main site links being on every page of the site and section links being on every page of the section, including links to every page on the same hierarchal level of the current page, so users don’t have to go back a page to go somewhere else
    • always indicate where in the site (part of the hierarchy) the user is
    • search field on home page for sites that are moderately large or bigger
  • using visual feedback (e.g. rollover effects, tool tips)

Content

  • Linkrot/content-gardening
  • "Content is King"
  • Separating content/structure from presentation
  • "Semantics"(????)
  • Writing for the web/how people read
  • Metadata (describing content)
    • Resource Description Format
    • how it will help with searching for information
    • Dublin Group

Design

  • typography, and how it applies to the Web
  • fixed width vs. variable width
  • Tables
  • many designer’s apparent distaste/distrust of the natural "flow" of HTML documents and how they feel the need to control every aspect of layout, to the point of, say, redundantly putting everything in its own table or table cell (e.g. using a table row for one graphic each when a line break will do)
  • giving up at least some control over presentation to the user (via user preferences, i.e. user’s stylesheets)

  • traditional graphic designers/advertisers vs. "proper" web designers
  • frames

    • pros/cons
    • HTML/CSS fixed positioning
  • accessibility (why it’s important)
  • bandwidth considerations
  • problem with single-pixel spacer GIF’s
  • splash pages (almost always unnecessary)
  • pages don’t have to look exactly the same on every browser
  • designing pages for the highest common denominator that degrade gracefully to lesser-capable browsers
  • square boxes vs. rounded corners (round corners using tables and GIF’s too klugey and better to stick with rectangles until rounded corners in stylesheets or SVG)
  • designing pages with newest standards early will speed up progress of Web
  • graphic designers should care about support for latest standards–even with all the visual effects they can achieve by perverting HTML 3.2, there are still things they can’t do effectively, if at all, that are possible with CSS (leading, first-line, selective borders, etc.)

Standards

Hypertext

  • link: Style Guide for online hypertext (WC3)
  • why the phrase "click here" sucks
  • it’s okay/good to link to other sites (even competitors)
  • not necessarily good to try to keep users trapped on the same site
  • better to link to others than to try to accomplish everything
  • Link colors: when and why to keep them blue (and/or underlined), when it’s better for them to be less obvious, etc.

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URL’s & URN’s)

  • Keeping URI’s permanently available (using redirect, etc.)

  • "www" isn’t that necessary (at least have just http://domain.com)

  • When at least two different URL’s point to the exact same resource, make one URL redirect to the other to avoid caching duplication

Information Architecture

Electronic Commerce

  • more than just an order form
  • customer support
  • open 24/7/365
  • internationalization
  • outsourcing services (credit card verification, etc.)
  • microtransactions
  • profitability of niche markets/audiences
  • privacy/trust/security issues

Miscellaneous

  • "Internet Philosophy" (strict standards, forgiving implementations): Problems with that and the goodness of XML’s strictness.
  • Structural markup and purism vs. presentational markup, etc. (refutation of Jorn Berger’s stance)
  • ALT and TITLE attributes (use of tooltips, alternate content???)
  • DHTML/interactivity
  • Multimedia on the Web (what’s practical and what isn’t right now)

The Future

  • bandwidth
  • new standards (SVG, etc.)
  • expansion
  • Internet 2