[Gllug] [OT]Reforming wayward web designers

[Garry Heaton]

David Damerell wrote:

>>From reading Meyer, though, I get the impression that while he is very
> knowledgable, he still entertains the idea that fancy design is more
> important than usability; hence he's willing to compromise usability
> [1] for its sake, and mess up logical markup for the sake of supposed
> appearance gains.
> 
> [1] And this does compromise usability; a blind user's speech reader
> can easily tell them about tables _provided_ that table-HTML really
> does represent tables; it's just another case of using logical markup
> to do physical markup.
> 

Meyer acknowledges that getting complex layouts to work with CSS-P is
sometimes more trouble than it's worth, given the state of browser
implementation. There's no guarantee that this will change, either, given
Microsoft's stance on all this. If a top-level <table> for layout gets
everything off to a flying start without all the float, clear and width
headaches we still have, then I'm all for it.

Usability is very important, and I'm not arguing against web standards per
se, but Jakob Neilson isn't the only end of the equation in 2004. If CSS-P,
without reams of Tantek/midpass filter hacks (Zen garden), leaves you with
only 2/3 column layouts as a viable option then clients who want a
sophisticated design are going to pass you by. Your "fancy design" may be a
client's essential requirement. Why limit your capabilities?

Garry

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