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July 21, 2006
Good article about CSS and "Standards"
I saw a good article today and I thought it might be a great launching point for some discussion here... (Please comment if you are reading this blog even occasionally). The important things to take from this article in my opinion are some answers to two points he makes at the end; "What's being done about this" and "Why do you think no one is screaming yet?"
More specifically I have a question; what DO we do about this?
For some, the answer is "tell them to get a REAL browser... Firefox is free!" For others with a more finely honed sense of humor it's "friends don't let friends use IE". HA HA... on to my next project and that's that.
For me though, (and I know I'm not alone) there is the nagging reality of knowing that the majority of visitors to our websites -- by a long shot -- are using IE and they don't particularly care to switch. So read the following article and write back with any suggestions you might have. What is the answer?
Opinion: Why CSS Bugs Me
John Dvorak thinks the current PC platform is so close
to being permanently broken that he's stunned people aren't
already up in arms. According to him, everyone should be sued
for false advertising. None of this stuff works at all!
http://ct.enews.publish.com/rd/cts?d=202-136-5-25-27536-15295-0-0-0-1
Stumble It!
Posted by: Kevin Adams July 21, 2006 11:56 AM | Category: Kevin's Stuff
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Comments
I make a point to test web work I do in IE & FireFox on PC and FireFox and Safari on the Mac. If it doesn't work I fix it. That sucks because sometimes it takes hours. But I want my visitors to be happy.
The rounded corners on my blog took forever to figure out in IE. That's just the way it is though. I don't see how any of us can do much about such a huge problem except maybe ecourage friends to use firefox.
From the article:
Yes. I can. It's W3C standard that's been implemented incorrectly in some browsers.
Dvorak's complaints about CSS are unfounded. His complaints would be similar to buying a car with square wheels and then complaining to the city to notch the roads accordingly.
Many browsers out there have square wheels. But just because they exist, don't take your frustrations out on the pavement.
Good metaphor. I thought it was extremely odd that he was casting the blame at the W3C instead of the browser developers. He also knocked the "cascading" quality of style sheets for problems due to user error, when in fact the ability for elements to inherit from one another is one of the many splendored things about CSS.
Such comments make me seriously doubt Dvorak's understanding of the issues, though he is right about one thing: different browsers implement CSS in different ways, and this does make life complicated for users and Web developers.
I think the problem exists because some browser developers see an advantage to making their own interpretation and/or adding elements that are unique to their browser. In some cases they may develop a proprietary element to fill a perceived gap in the standard. Internet Explorer's introduction of the favicon is an example of that. More often, however, they are probably doing these things to differentiate their product and maintain or increase market share.
If users demanded compliant browsers, and proved it by switching, the companies might wake up and reconsider compliance. I don't see this happening quickly, because the average user probably doesn't even realize there is a problem. As far as they know a Web site that looks odd is merely the result of poor design. They don't know that we're all wrestling with the code to make the same page look vaguely similar in different browsers. As long as they don't perceive a problem they won't know to act upon it.
This month 53% of the readership of this blog used Internet Explorer. On Jeremy's blog, which draws a more tech-savvy audience, that number drops to 38.5% and on http://www.case.edu, drawing a broader audience, we see the number climb to 72%.
If we want to affect change, I think the only way is to educate the end users about their browser options and the problems that exist behind the scenes. We can also educate fellow Web developers to code to the standards rather than to any specific Web browser. Never again should anyone have to see "Best viewed on browser X" at the bottom of a site.
Because we want to provide a good experience to all users, we are still obligated to code for maximum compatibility, but we should approach that from a position of reason. While it makes sense to ensure that a site works in relatively recent versions of the major browsers, we don't need to attempt perfect backwards compatibility. While some years ago I worried about making sites work in Navigator 4.7, I no longer do because it is simply too far out of date in regards to the code of today. Nor do I attempt compatibility with Internet Explorer for the Mac since that is out-of-date as well.
Eric Meyers take.
For now I think CSS serves its purpose well until we have something that's revolutionary to replace it.
Maybe I'm out of date.