----------------------------------------- Email sent on behalf of Mike Brown - Wellington WSG organiser -----------------------------------------
ok, Darren firstly you need to move to Wellington rather than Australia. :) We have close to 60 people who've RSVP-ed for the first Wellington WSG meeting on Thursday. I think that's an amazing number of people, and suggests to me a real desire and need to embrace web standards. I don't have the figures to hand, but there's probably an equal split between "developers" and people from the "public sector". I think there's a big wave coming. > A few months back (maybe even a year) the NZ government released web > guidelines for all their websites.[3] Sure, this is meant to apply > only to government sites, but i think every New Zealand web developer > should read this document and try to at least adhere to some of these > guidelines when building websites. So far I've seen one NZ government > site[4] that bothers to adhere. (I'm sure their must be more, and I'd > love see them so I can feel a little better about being a web developer > in NZ.) Yes, I think the web guidelines are good, and we look to incorporate them largely as a matter of course. But, and I've been thinking of writing something on this, I don't think they (or web standards in general) are a huge selling point. I'd even go so far as to say I don't think there's a huge business case for web standards. To me they're something you just do, as they're the right thing. You do them because you're a good craftsperson and they are just part of making a good site. But at best they're only part of selling yourself to a client. And, as can be seen by so many sites, other factors - design, cost, politics to name a new - are more important. But you're absolutely on the right course to develop using web standards. From a purely commercial point of view, you're positioning yourself well. And, so everyone doesn't think NZ developers don't care about standards, here is a list of the top of my head of (more or less) standards-compliant sites we've developed over the past year. And I know others out there are doing sites like this also. Landonline http://www.landonline.govt.nz/ Growth and Innovation framework http://www.gif.med.govt.nz/ Buddle Findlay Lawyers http://www.buddlefindlay.com/public/index.aspx Reserve Bank of New Zealand http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/ Creative New Zealand http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/ Hui Taumata 2005 http://www.huitaumata.maori.nz/ Effective Governance http://governance.tpk.govt.nz/ Asia New Zealand foundation http://www.asianz.org.nz/ Disclaimer: We didn't design the "look and feel" of most of these sites. I'm also not putting them up as perfect examples! but more to show that people here are working towards good practice in web standards. Regards Mike ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
