About This Site
Past
I've had a personal website for over 15 years. The majority of
that time (1997-2006), it was a frames & tables site
optimized for Netscape Navigator 4. In those 9 years, I went
from being proud of it, to feeling it was time to update it,
to cringing at the sight of it.
On the eve of the previous redesign, I took a step back to
look at it objectively, and in spite of the visceral reaction
it inspired in me (nearly as much for the implementation as
for the design aesthetic), I had to admit that it held up
surprisingly well. It began its life fairly close to the
bleeding edge of cross-browser web design by 1997 standards.
I distinctly remember looking longingly at Cascading Style
Sheets in 1996 and pining for what they promised: a
disolution of the unholy matrimony between content and design
foisted upon us by the combatants in the Browser War in their
arms race attempts to one up each other.
Present
Twelve years later, the old bleeding edge has fallen off the
trailing edge. The revolution was not televised. In fact, it
occurred with very little fanfare. Apart from a
the vast majority of people continue doing things in the old
ways: inflexible design with tables & transparent spacer GIFs.
I certainly didn’t see how far that revolution would
take us — acccessibility, dynamic positioning, simpler
searching, and dynamic content, oh my! Structurally, the XHTML
of these pages have more in common with the first homepage I
made in 1993 [have to see if I have it
archived somewhere] than they do with the frames &
tables “bleeding-edge” redesign from 1997.
I’m actually very happy with this design. It came
together entirely in one rather productive 24 hour period.
This is the second time I’ve taken a concept in my mind
and translated it to a web design. XHTML/CSS definitely made
that easier, but it is still a joy. Normally my designs have
not suffered the translation from my brain to the screen
gracefully. Inevitably they’d fall prey to my inability
to actualize them (mostly graphically, but some of it was
hampered by cross-browser incompatibility)
At the core, it is a deceptively simple design, but I’m
still very happy with it. And with the design
separated from the content, I can much more
easily keep it up as my abilities continue to grow. It’s
a nice theory, anyway.
Future
So, where do we go from here?
Today, the metadata geek in me is looking at the semantic web
the way the web geek looked at CSS twelve years ago.
It’s not without it’s flaws, and it’s
definitely an overly optomistic view of how the web could
work. But even that appeals to the idealist in me.
I have no doubt that the next twelve years will be as
different from what I expect than the past twelve have been.
But it’s still exciting to think of the posibilities.
That is a wonderful feeling. I pretty much left the web world
burnt out. I’ve returned to find a completely different
landscape than I left.
Soapbox
With that, I’d like to point out that I’m not a
web professional any more. I don’t have access to a
browser usability lab, and I don’t get off on debugging
on every permutation of browser out there.
I have made an effort to make this design work in as many
browsers as possible. Dean
Edwards is a God amonst men
and deserves the Browser War’s equivalent of the Nobel
Peace Prize for
frankly, Redmond’s idea of “100% CSS
compliance” is inscrutably laughable. (Those tears you
see, they’re tears of joy. Really.)
The evangelist in me also feels that while 100% browser
compatibilty is a noble goal, anyone still using IE after
being warned repeatedly that it’s an insecure, bug
infested steaming pile of spaghetti code with holes big enough
for a 747 to fit comfortably, then they get whatever they
deserve, and I can’t be pandering to that low a common
denominator.
</soapbox>
