w3c: November 2006 Archives

Don't get me wrong - I actually like Flash if it's used properly. However I would expect a Flash powered site to warn me that I need the Flash plugin if I don't have it installed or need a newer version. Not so with Magico! If you visit their site without Flash or without a recent version (not sure which was my case.. ) you end up with a great big black square on the page where their Flash content is meant to be. And these guys got shortlisted as Best Web Design Agency at the Golden Spiders?

There's been quite a bit of chatter in the Irish blogosphere over the last couple of weeks in relation to web standards. Unfortunately not even Google seem to give a damn about standards compliance. The main page of Google.ie has 47 errors, including no DOCTYPE!

When you take your car into the garage you expect certain things. You do not need to explicitly ask for them, nor would you expect them to be actually verbalised. What would you expect? Well, naturally, you would expect your car to be serviced to an acceptable standard. If the tyres need to be pumped, for example, then you would expect them to be pumped to the pressure that suits your car's make and model. Of course the person conducting the work on your car is qualified. You don't even have to ask about that!! Or if you were getting your house renovated... Would you ask the plumber to do the wiring? In the internet industry things shouldn't be that different, though I sometimes feel like I am working in an industry peppered with snake oil salesmen. How many times have I seen amateur web "designers" offering "competitive" prices? What about the web companies that are supposedly experts in web design, graphic design, web development, marketing, hosting, seo and search engine marketing? And all this with a staff of two and for under €600 / year? Why am I suspicious? Am I naturally cynical? Possibly, but I've actually been around long enough to know what is and isn't possible. Remember that old adage? "Jack of all trades - master of none" While that maybe fine in some contexts would you really want to entrust your website to Jack? (Not that I have a thing against anyone called Jack..) If you put the costs of a website in tangible terms then you should be comparing it with other "real world" costs.. For example if you were to run a medium sized advert in the Sunday Business Post for one issue you would pay anything from €600 to €1200 depending on where it was placed and how big it was etc., If you are running print adverts with any degree of frequency then your marketing spend can spiral quickly. So what do you put on your ad? Your contact details are bound to feature. While an email address and phone number is perfectly acceptable a website might impress. Of course if the website was done on the cheap you might as well toss the money down the toilet. Another cliche for you - build it and they will come. In the online world that simply won't happen unless you have both a search engine strategy and possibly an online marketing one as well. Should you entrust that work to one of these polyvalent web professionals who supposedly is not only a competent designer, can debug your email problems AND can keep track of the latest trends and quirks in the SEO world? I'd recommend against it If you want a tasty design use a designer who can actually design. You don't see Coca Cola changing their logo every 6 months do you? Why would they? They got it designed properly in the first instance. If you are setting up a company or business of some kind then skimping on the design / identity could cost you a fortune in lost sales. Is it really worth it? Coming back to SEO.... If you invest properly in SEO and use an experienced professional with a proven track record ie. not a good salesman who can sell himself well even though he can't actually deliver, then every cent you spend will be a worthwhile investment. Sorry about the rant :)

The shortlist for this year's Golden Spiders was announced last Friday. As usual people are none too pleased with the list and I'd be a hypocrite not to agree with them. Why so much displeasure? Well you could look at the entry criteria...... Even though the awards are sponsored by large companies you still have to pay to nominate a site. Why do I get the feeling that a lot of quality sites don't even get entered???? OR you could look at the shortlist itself.... (which a lot of people have been doing) Either way the merit of the awards is not appreciated in many industry circles. Richard and Peter both commented on how most of the shortlisted sites do not pass the W3C validation test (which tests to see if a website's code is compliant with industry standards). The W3C validator does not care which version of (X)HTML a site is written in, as long as the site's code complies to the chosen standard. Richard has since taken his gripes to the next level by doing some further testing of the shortlist. The results make for interesting reading. Of course previous winners' sites aren't even viewable unless you use Internet Explorer....