I agree with you on standards compliance, but I look at it from the the opposite perspective.. I firmly believe in and adhere to the concept of progressive enhancement, as opposed to graceful degradation. As Web developers, our job and our priority should be the delivery of content. In my day to day experiences building websites I have found that most users don't really care that much about what a site looks like. It has become even more evident now that I am building sites targeted at users in a developing country (Colombia). Most users here couldn't tell you what browser or version they are using, and couldn't care less about upgrading as long as they can find the content they want. If presented with the option, most users will upgrade, but the reality is that most don't know any better. I don't think it's my place to tell anyone how they should access the Web. In my situation, I find it best to start by building my sites with valid XHTML. No CSS, no JavaScript. I make sure that the entire site functions with just plain X/HTML. Then, I include the stylesheet presented by for a beautiful web to cover IE6. Sometimes I tweak it slightly if the project requires it, but I can at least be sure that everything renders more or less pleasantly in IE6. Then I create my stylesheet for standards-compliant browsers. I try to avoid any non-standard CSS or any hacks. If I encounter a situation where a hack is the only answer, I re-evaluate my design decisions to see if I can get the same desired result with a different visual effect. Once all of that is working, I layer on my JavaScript to do fancy AJAX stuff.
Following this methodology, I can assure that almost anyone who visits my site can use it and can have a pleasant experience. The people who care about the appearance of a website and all of the "Web 2.0" functionality most likely have an updated browser and will get the full experience. People using older browsers, or mobile phones can still use my site, and they probably don't care that the version they are seeing is less "flashy". The additional amount of work for me is negligible and I still manage to reach as broad of an audience as possible. I hate dealing with IE6 as much as any Web developer, but I think maybe it's time for our industry to realize that our sites don't have to be pixel perfect replicas in every browser. They can't be. And with the emergence of so many different web enabled mobile devices I feel that that idea becomes even more important. I want my sites to be beautiful for my users, but above all, I want my sites to be useable for my users.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you on standards compliance, but I look at it from the the opposite perspective.. I firmly believe in and adhere to the concept of progressive enhancement, as opposed to graceful degradation. As Web developers, our job and our priority should be the delivery of content. In my day to day experiences building websites I have found that most users don't really care that much about what a site looks like. It has become even more evident now that I am building sites targeted at users in a developing country (Colombia). Most users here couldn't tell you what browser or version they are using, and couldn't care less about upgrading as long as they can find the content they want. If presented with the option, most users will upgrade, but the reality is that most don't know any better. I don't think it's my place to tell anyone how they should access the Web. In my situation, I find it best to start by building my sites with valid XHTML. No CSS, no JavaScript. I make sure that the entire site functions with just plain X/HTML. Then, I include the stylesheet presented by for a beautiful web to cover IE6. Sometimes I tweak it slightly if the project requires it, but I can at least be sure that everything renders more or less pleasantly in IE6. Then I create my stylesheet for standards-compliant browsers. I try to avoid any non-standard CSS or any hacks. If I encounter a situation where a hack is the only answer, I re-evaluate my design decisions to see if I can get the same desired result with a different visual effect. Once all of that is working, I layer on my JavaScript to do fancy AJAX stuff.
Following this methodology, I can assure that almost anyone who visits my site can use it and can have a pleasant experience. The people who care about the appearance of a website and all of the "Web 2.0" functionality most likely have an updated browser and will get the full experience. People using older browsers, or mobile phones can still use my site, and they probably don't care that the version they are seeing is less "flashy". The additional amount of work for me is negligible and I still manage to reach as broad of an audience as possible. I hate dealing with IE6 as much as any Web developer, but I think maybe it's time for our industry to realize that our sites don't have to be pixel perfect replicas in every browser. They can't be. And with the emergence of so many different web enabled mobile devices I feel that that idea becomes even more important. I want my sites to be beautiful for my users, but above all, I want my sites to be useable for my users.