CSS Naked Day
There was a call for designers earlier this month (April) to have their websites stripped of their CSS for a day. This was called the CSS Naked Day on April 5, 2006. The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple.
Plain, yes. Simple? Definitely NO. There are certain considerations for the owners of the website that is just too much to ignore to participate in this endeavor. While we Web Designers are all for web standards because of its benefits both to us the designer and to the client, there is a difference between promoting standards and stuffing it down the throat of everybody.
First, what will happen to the users when they get to their site and they have to navigate differently from they have been accustomed to? That's is a big usability issue!Now, you are promoting web standards and yet you are deliberately short handed on the usability issues. That's not really ideal, is it?
Second, will the clients receive business benefits from this? Probably not, in fact it will stop online sales dead in its tracks because potential buyers will be annoyed by this kind of presentation specially if they have visited the site before. Imagine amazon.com having problems with their customers because their buying habits are changed. Not good, not good. And that frustration may last longer for a day because of the experience. Not good.
I work for a University, if that falls on the online enrollment period, which it did, imagine having students not enrolling because they may have the impression that the site is not working well.
I could go on and on, but my main point is that web standards are for everybody's benefits, but the technical side is for us developers and the business benefits are for the clients, let us not deprive those benefits to the clients for a day, not even for a second.
Plain, yes. Simple? Definitely NO. There are certain considerations for the owners of the website that is just too much to ignore to participate in this endeavor. While we Web Designers are all for web standards because of its benefits both to us the designer and to the client, there is a difference between promoting standards and stuffing it down the throat of everybody.
First, what will happen to the users when they get to their site and they have to navigate differently from they have been accustomed to? That's is a big usability issue!Now, you are promoting web standards and yet you are deliberately short handed on the usability issues. That's not really ideal, is it?
Second, will the clients receive business benefits from this? Probably not, in fact it will stop online sales dead in its tracks because potential buyers will be annoyed by this kind of presentation specially if they have visited the site before. Imagine amazon.com having problems with their customers because their buying habits are changed. Not good, not good. And that frustration may last longer for a day because of the experience. Not good.
I work for a University, if that falls on the online enrollment period, which it did, imagine having students not enrolling because they may have the impression that the site is not working well.
I could go on and on, but my main point is that web standards are for everybody's benefits, but the technical side is for us developers and the business benefits are for the clients, let us not deprive those benefits to the clients for a day, not even for a second.
