Best Practices

As web designers, we are stuck with the fact that not every browser resolves style sheets the same way. Regardless we are expected to come up with code that appears and functions the same whether visitors are using IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Safari, or the next hot browser we don’t even know about yet.

The discrepancies between Internet Explorer and the rest of the pack seem to generate the most wailing and gnashing of teeth. The good news is that the imminent release of IE7 addresses many of the problems of its predecessors. It still isn’t strictly compliant with the CSS standard (but that can be said of other major browsers, as well).

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I was first exposed to Daniel Swiecki when I came across his blog. Several months had passed before I noticed that he is still in high school. Someone barely half my age was making intelligent, well-constructed points about technology. Yet, the Internet’s role as an equalizer is one of its greatest strengths. Everyone’s voice is (in theory at least) equal, and the merit of your ideas will make or break you. With that in mind, I asked Daniel if he wouldn’t mind answering a few questions about his thoughts on “version control” for the web.

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The Future of the Web has released edition #3 of Carnival of the Web. Whatever Jesse’s criteria are for including a post, I made the cut again with Leaving an Audit Trail In Your Database. There’s quite a bit this month about JavaScript, both technical tips and some big picture philosophy on how it should be used. Some of my favorite items were in other areas, though:

• Let’s Talk About Frameworks, Security Edition – The B-List talks about the trade off between security and functionality in a web application. Intelligently written.
• Viral Marketing – Looking for an explanation and examples of viral marketing that isn’t slanted either hyping or attacking the practice? Here’s a simple and direct look at what is happening when a viral marketing campaign takes off.
• More - the entire Carnival of the Web

What most clients want to hear about search engine optimization is that a few hours adding some keywords to their site will rocket them to the number one result on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN for any and all searches that contain their product or service. In some industries that was possible 10 years ago. I doubt it’s possible in any industry today, and if you offer SEO services, it’s likely you’re going to be the one breaking the bad news to your customers.

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Up until this morning, the feed for this blog was in “summary” mode. I hadn’t put much thought into how the feed was being sent out. Once I did, I couldn’t think of a good reason not to offer the full feed for anyone who wanted to view the posts in their entirety via their feed reader of choice. So here it is.

In retrospect, I’m amazed how many years I went as a web designer without understanding a single thing about doctype tags. I’d seen them when I looked at the source code for other pages. Dreamweaver included one every time I created a new file. Here was a piece of code Macromedia felt important enough to include by default on every html document. What was it for? I’m a little chagrined to say I just didn’t care. What mattered to me was my page worked in my browser of choice. In the other major browsers it looked and functioned more or less the same. Over time that solution started to become less satisfying.

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So for the second week in a row, I’m late getting my Wednesday post up. To make things worse, this post doesn’t even cover a topic on running a web design business… at least not anyone’s web design business but mine.

After what seems like a lifetime of splitting my time between my freelance work (which I really enjoy) and a corporate 9 to 5 job (which pays the bills), I’m finally able to focus on what I really want to do. I’ve officially given notice, and my last day of “work” will be August 18th. This transition is taking a lot of my focus right now, but in the long term it will allow me to pay more attention to all aspects of my business, including this blog.

I still plan on posting about as frequently, but my plan of making certain to have a new post every Wednesday will likely be suspended for a few weeks as I tie up loose ends at my job and make the transition to a full-time work-at-home entrepreneur.

Update: Since writing this article, I implemented a redesign that uses a liquid layout. Let me say that I still agree with all of these points in this article. For a better understanding of why I chose to use a liquid layout, see the post Does This WordPress Theme Make My Hips Look Fat?

This article assumes that you are already at least passingly familiar with the age old web design debate of liquid versus fixed layouts. Let me start by saying what follows is not an objective analysis of the two alternatives. Sure, I’ll discuss some of the pros and cons, but I’m not making any effort to show a balanced perspective. I don’t particularly like liquid layouts. I don’t like making them, and with very few exceptions I don’t like running across them in my day-to-day web browsing. Unlike some fixed layout evangelists, though, my objections don’t have anything to do with different screen resolutions compromising my artistic vision of a site. I have no problem with putting control in the hands of the users. If the users don’t have the design education to recognize why visiting my site is giving them a headache and what they can do to fix it, though, then I do have a problem.

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