Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 07/13/06 20:03

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006, Rik wrote:

> However, if I take on project, the client usually wants a certain layout,
> which I have to match as much as possible in standard browsers.

First of all, let's be clear that this has become a subthread about
generalities, and not specifically about "list-style-type IE6".

> So that's what I'll try. Not meaning pixel-perfect, but as near as
> possible.

That's what worries me. In so many pages I meet on the world-wild
web, I see bucket-loads of javascript that's trying desperately to
force exactly the same visual result no matter what the user may need.
As often as not, disabling JS results in a better-behaved page, aside
from all that extra JS clutter that was downloaded from the server and
then not used. In a minority of cases, the author has sabotaged this
flexibility, and when JS is disabled they'll do a NOSCRIPT that tells
the user that the page *needs* javascript, despite the fact that it
really doesn't. It's all so unnecessary and pointless.

Seems to me that if the sponsor of the site insists on close adherence
to their prescribed visual display, no matter what the consequences,
then the web designer had roughly three options:

* sell themselves cheap, do what the sponsor demands no matter how
silly it may be, take the money and run. I think those people are
typically called web monkeys.

* sell themselves dear, try to educate the sponsor into the nature of
the web, and reach a compromise between what will best meet the
sponsor's needs in web terms, and what the sponsor misguidedly says
they want.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/house/good_oil/not_paper/ may be
useful, particularly its analogy with the mistakes of early TV as
"radio with pictures". Here we have "the web as printed brochures".
In both cases the mistake is failing to capitalise on the strengths of
the new medium, and cripple it by insisting that it mimic something
which it never aimed to be.

* When a sponsor insists on their concept despite your advice,
walk away.

It's no secret that I'm an academic, and don't have to deal with this
on an everyday basis. But I've got enough contacts in the commercial
world who say that those who charge for their expertise, and walk away
from projects that won't take their advice, are by no means short of
work, whereas web monkeys who do their sponsor's every bidding are
working their fingers to the bone and getting paid peanuts.

tot ziens

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