On Dec 21, 2007, at 9:56 AM, Jeff Seager wrote: > The HTML/XHTML protocol includes well established and tested > criteria for delivering most essential content.
If you change "essential content" to "essential passive, non- interactive content" then I would agree. Otherwise, the browser still suffers from the dead page/server model which is fundamentally counter to providing any sort of interactive experience. > Web standards are based on a number of essential assertions, thanks > to Tim Berners-Lee and a lot of other Very Smart People who helped > him and Al Gore invent the Internet. One of those assertions is > that the end user has a right to control his/her experience with > this technology. Can someone to find a quote from Tim Berners-Lee that ever made such an assertion? I know of none. As far as I know, Lee was simply interested in developing open technology that the creators of such technology could do what they want with. In other words, he was trying to solve a technical problem, not an end user experience one. And the browser guys to my knowledge never had in mind to let users control their experience, just that they were rendering a developing standard that took off to the surprise of everyone involved. Custom style sheets, CSS, increasing font size, etc... all of that stuff came much later in the browsers development, so I have no idea where this notion that the web was created with the assertion the end user the right to control their experience. > People who use screen readers and other assistive technologies have > no choice in the matter, so they aren't turning off scripts just to > deny you your God-given right to deliver your brilliant Design. > Get over that. The percentage of people who do that is actually quite small. > Traditional designers hate this way of thinking because > presentation is EVERYTHING. This is false and I wish people would stop propagating this sort misinformation about graphic design. Presentation is not everything and any good graphic designer who knows anything about graphic design will tell you that presentation as a means of communication is what the goal is. Presentation that exists solely for aesthetics outside of communication is called art or style, but not graphic design. > Good web designers (and here creeps in my opinion) recognize that > it's just part of the game plan. Web design is still struggling with a set of standards not developed in conjunction with people in the graphic or print industries. Just a quick look through the XHTML DOM and one can see that the model is more closely related to linear content that is read like a tech manual or a book, not structured content that is not linear like a newspaper or such. The H# tag model screams this and the lack of any true way to create multiple linear flows like one would find in a newspaper is all the evidence anyone needs. Further, the web browser is also dealing with technological change even at this stage and will do so for a few more years yet. It still needs to mature and is doing so, we're just not there yet. For example, the correct way to handle increasing or decreasing web layouts (not just fonts) in browsers requires browsers and the operating system to properly handle the resolution of the computer screen (determined on the fly based on the screens physical size and the pixel width and height it is set to), then scale accordingly if the web layout is set a real measurement system like points. This would require a host of technological changes that simply aren't practical yet. One would be that photos need to have more pixel data passed down the pipe so they can be scaled dynamically on the client side and still retain visual integrity to match whatever size the end user is scaling to. This will happen someday, and when it does, every single tried and tested graphic design principal for the past few hundred years will still be relevant. Why? Because presentation is about communication, no matter how much people in this industry seem to say it isn't. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help