standardsdesign
A Short Story
Once upon a time, an Engineer wanted to send files to his colleagues without walking a disk over to their desk. So, in short, the internet was created.
Then, one day, a Designer said, "Hey, your website is ugly - give me some codes I can use to pretty it up!", and hence web "design" was born.
Well, the big bad web Browser Developers wanted to all create web browsers how THEY wanted to - none of them were the same! Thus began the Browser Wars. As a victim of the carnage, the Designer had to design every site with extra code and nasty workarounds so that his site would be pretty in ALL the browsers.
The Client was mad at the Designer because they always had to spend extra time ($) on the website, getting it to work. Even then, the Client would get a phone call once in a while from one of his Customers that would say, "Hey, your site looks funny on my computer". Actually, the Client would be lucky if they called at all - most of them just left for his competitor.
One day, a bunch of Designers said, "Enough of THIS!" and Web Standards were born. Web Standards consisted of a group of people who wanted to convince all the Browser Developers and Designers and Engineers to work together to create standards for web design so that everything could easily work together. That way, the Designer didn't have to do too much work for his Client, who was tired of paying him for all that extra time and losing customers. Then, the Browser Developers could build browsers that worked with the Designer, not against them. And the Customer could use whatever browser he wanted. Then, everyone would be happy.
Web browsers have come a long way since the Dark Ages of the Browser Wars, and the majority of the new browsers support Web Standards.
Clients have come to realize that having a site built by a Standards Designer means several things: one, cheaper updates - you can redesign a whole website that uses standards with just a LITTLE bit of work, not a whole lot. Not to mention, Clients never get calls that say, "Boy, your site sure looks funny on my computer", and they never have to worry about losing customers because their site doesn't work!
Designers, little by little, have come to realize that standards design is better design and build websites using standards for their clients. Random Genius is one of those savvy designers.
At the end of the story, all the people who use Web Standards will have websites that work, on any device, for any person, using any browser, anywhere. Happily. Ever. After.
Interested in Learning More?
Here are a few links you can use for learning more about designing with web standards just in case you're interested:
1. The Web Standards Project - a grassroots coalition fighting for standards that ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
2. Web Standard Awards - some awesome sites that use web standard design - so good, they got awards for it.
3. Jeffrey Zeldman on Designing with Web Standards - one of the major leaders in web standard design and his clever book on the topic.
If you're interested in learning more about how Random Genius can help you build a better site for your company, or convert your existing site into standards compliance, drop us a line - we'd LOVE to help you out!