I've had enough of scams in the Internet. Unlike with my Mozilla rampages, this essay does not depend on speculation and the sometimes bizarre conclusions. While the following is the usual diatribe that everyone should be used to by now, I do not need to bend the facts to fit my opinions as they have been bent already. As with any figure of authority and popularity, Zeldman must be examined under the microscope simply because what he says has such great weight and impact for the web.
Zeldman produces and manages two sites (zeldman.com and alistapart.com) that advocate standards, CSS design, etc. He also founded webstandards.org especially to bring web designers "up to par with web standards," as the name would suggest. Although I personally find some of the material on these sites utterly useless (personal gripes Zeldman passes off as design "help" and the sometimes boring/non-helpful essays on alisapart.com), their intention, I can't say the same of impact, is positive. The problem then becomes why Zeldman can't take his own advice in his commercial endeavors. Instead of just preaching standards, Zeldman should extend his crusade for CSS and the rest to his commercial projects at happycog.com. After all, those sites are the ones that receive millions of hits and could dramatically "upgrade" the web within weeks to compliant browsers via a "your browser is non-compliant" link. But why do we want to cut support to Netscape 4.x by having compliant websites? Then Zeldman couldn't complain about 99% of websites being obsolete, his commercial sites among the many of course. Before this turns to another rant, I better present the facts. Before examining and criticizing sites that are from happycog.com's portfolio, we must have character assassinations of all the firms happycog.com claims to work with.
"Evolvs is a company of programmers and designers. We specialize in advancing technology, and look good doing it."
Gee, this site not only contradicts standards, but pretty much any basic web design. Perhaps it's just a crazy idea only I had but shouldn't sites be flexible in their design? If they are flexible, everybody can see them the way they like to. Everyone from the all but gone 640×480 to the still relevant 800×600 to the 1600+×1200+ can see the same site without that pesky horizontal scrollbar. I personally feel no aversion of tables, but I do not frown away from CSS design. If it's simple, yeah do it with CSS. If it is more complicated and perhaps Internet Explorer does display it correctly, go with tables. (I am no fan of IE, but if a great majority of people can't see the site, why put it online?) But evolvs.com does not qualify as "overly tricky to impossible" with CSS. It is 3 columns and pretty much that's that. Evolvs Media Inc. is just one of the sites that give tables a bad reputation, as we can clearly see people using 800×600 would need a horizontal scrollbar. But then again what do you expect from a website that has fixed font size? Please Mr Zeldman do explain: How can a site that cannot be viewed with 800×600 can be viewed in the future on PDA's and cell phones? Why would you partner with people who cannot get these simple things right?
With JavaScript like
userAgent = window.navigator.userAgent;
[...]
return CSAg.indexOf("MSIE") > 0
[...]
<BODY onload="preloadImages();" BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF leftmargin="0" marginheight"0"
we can only be assured of Evolvs Media Inc.'s dedication to "advancing technology." I mean using faulty detection scripts and leftmargin when we have CSS makes so much sense. But then again, how can I be so folly as to criticize a site that uses perhaps as much as two sentences worth of content and 90% flashturbation?
The irony is staggering but more importantly quite humiliating for Zeldman. He preaches it but when money replaces standards, it is essential to team up with flashturbators who do not have the decency to put up a simple doctype. How can Zeldman expect everyone to follow standards when his own partners do not?
"making the invisible visible"
Wow, if HTML was made out steel and rock (not elements, tags, and attributes) this site would be a winner. This site is perhaps even worse than what our "advancing technology" buddies at Evolvs Media came up with. Not only does it use rigid, non-flexible tables, it likes to use images as text. Look on the right and try to highlight. Looks like an image to me! I mean it's not like HTML can accept plain text and links. I bet they are trying to be nostalgic by using the image map and not regular links. Or perhaps is it that if they dare let users pick their own font size, the entire "design" would crash?
Making the invisible visible? What could that refer to? Not using regular, "invisible" (due to no tags) text for words but then using images to make them visible? Brilliant, just brilliant. But how can I criticize these "invisible visible" lads when they have a book out? I forfeit my arguments because once you have book, you are just everything.
The irony is now getting stronger as we have two Zeldman partner sites that completely go against his crusade. Mr Zeldman, why do you insist on pairing up with these losers who can't get anything right? Money, I can only guess. Oh and the site does not validate.
First site that actually validates! Although it uses tables, I am not going to criticize that since I myself use tables at times but we have to make a note that Zeldman himself has been criticizing table designs for a year or so now. The font size is fixed and it doesn't fit in 800×600 (so much for those PDA's Zeldman gripes on and on about) but this site is clearly the "best" of the three. Such a shame one has to pick a best out them though. One out of three sounds good to me, I mean it's not like Zeldman is one of the top standards advocate people around. It's not like he publishes articles by the assload criticizing the same type of people he later partners up with.
Now let's examine five of the commercial ventures happycog.com has embarked upon.
When I first entered the site, I was greeted by the usual "cool" movie splash page. I was just so amazed when letters were moving around and reappearing. I mean they were MOVING around with the same background image! Talk about cool. When I entered the site, I thought I did once but splash pages do tend to disorient people like that, I found the site quite rigid. The font size, like we are getting used to with all these sites, was fixed and yes so were the tables. Zeldman did decide to make the page valid, though in outdated HTML 4.01 Transitional. I guess better than two of his partners, but shouldn't the guy who advocates up-to-date standards use those up-to-date standards? Would it be that hard for someone who is so respected in the field to make an XHTML 1.0 Transitional or dare I say Strict? I mean HTML 4.01 Transitional can use styles but apart from that it's HTML 3.2, from the days of website non-compliance.
And just as a sidenote, anybody else notice that the menu on the Charlotte Gray site is the same exact on one found at happycog.com? Is this an example of being "one of the original web-authoring gurus"?
Well this site is yet another abomination. Fixed, fixed, fixed. Like our "invisible visible" buddies, Zeldman likes to use regular text as images. Zeldman knows how to use CSS for fonts since he successfully fixed the size of all fonts. So why not use a bigger font size (such as 200%) for the "big" text he passes off as images? Notice the non-standard dashes he uses. Perhaps from FrontPage :-) I especially love how he uses alt on images as if it were the title attribute: "See this artist." I don't understand how any so called professional designer can get away with this garbage, but how can someone at the top who preaches 180 degrees against this get away with this pure shit?
<frameset rows="25,*" FRAMEBORDER="NO" BORDER="0" FRAMESPACING="0">
<frame SRC="numenu.html" NAME="menu" marginwidth"0" marginheight="0" noresize scrolling="no" framespacing="0">
<frame SRC="index.html" NAME="content" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" noresize
scrolling="auto" framespacing"0">
</frameset>
How lovely, this site uses frames. Oh well let's get down and dirty with some more HTML:
<body onLoad="preloadImages(); window.defaultStatus='jazzradio.net, that\'s cool!'" LEFTMARGIN="0" TOPMARGIN="0" MARGINWIDTH="0" MARGINHEIGHT="0" BGCOLOR="#000000" text="#ffffff" link="#cccc00" vlink="#cccc00" alink="#ffcc00">
Mr Zeldman, are we afraid of using basic CSS? margin: 0px? background-color: #000? body {#fff}? etc?
This site's irony is provided by:
<meta NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Jeffrey Zeldman for jazzradio.net.">
What's the matter? No one else wanted co-author credits on yet another Zeldman masterpiece?
Yes, another splash page or a "basic requirements for plugins" page. How nice, we for no reason whatsoever can't load the site into the existing window, so let's open a pop-up that did not need to be opened. The almost 350KB download for the flashturbation must surely have scared off some dial-up users, but who cares about the majority of Internet users anyway? I still do not know why it took 350KB to make dots pop/boil/whatever. The flash site (a.k.a. unnecessary pop-up) is quite the navigational disaster.
Mr Zeldman, when you moan about how people are still using old browsers is this the kind of HTML that just really makes you mad?:
<body bgcolor="2c2c24" [...] text="#fd9900" link="ffcc66" vlink="fd9900">
<style type="text/css">
<!--
#pageBackground{position:absolute; left:200; top:120}
#image{position:absolute; left:200; top:100}
// -->
</style>
Yes, let's see. You use bgcolor and then a line below it you have <style>. Tell me how that is not contributing to the fact that people are still using old and outdated browsers. Mr Zeldman it seems to me perhaps that you are part of the same problem you so fervently battle against. Or more correctly write against, because your actions seem to do completely the opposite. Comments so older browsers won't display their incompetent handling of CSS? Vlink? Come on, Mr Zeldman, I thought we shouldn't care about non-compliant browsers anymore?
And Mr Zeldman this is not only a user disaster but it does not even validate. Tsk tsk tsk.
"Any copying, manipulation, publishing, or other transfer of these materials, except as specifically provided in the Terms and Conditions of Use, is strictly prohibited."
I thought we should end this unabashed critique with a good "summary of all the problems" site. So out of all the five disaster, which they all are, this one is the average. Fixed font. Rigid tables. Text as images. You know, the usual shit. The site can't have fonts with percents because that would crash the layout and CSS percents do not work too well with Netscape 4.x. The site can't have a flexible design because it feels good to force the user to a specific layout. Why not use CSS for design on this site? It's simple enough. Would it look "bad" on older browsers? Probably. And of course it would awful if Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x users had to suffer. The company technology guy says the site must work for Netscape 4.x because the CEO's wife uses it. Well then! Hot damn! Let's compromise all of our values. Let's throw away all the articles on alistapart.com, let's discard the groans about how bad old browsers suck on zeldman.com, and just trash the entire webstandards.org.
Don't worry Mr Zeldman, we won't copy, manipulate, or publish your brilliant rigid, non-fluid horseshit.
Moral of the story: Copy busily down what Zeldman says, straight out of a horse's mouth. Believe every word. However, if you want to make money, disregard everything. It's inconvenient to tell people to download a new browser that isn't from 1997, the user is king. DUH! Of course, everyone has Flash, Java, and every other plugin imaginable. It isn't inconvenient to have as your main page: "Get the flash plugin now, then watch us bombard you with pop-ups and play migraine causing sound effects!" It would be okay and expected of a regular professional web designer to spew such crappy sites. Well no, let's backtrack. I have my own troubles and a few lingering doubts about the w3.org and web standards, but for people who get paid thousands and thousands for simple sites, it is repugnant and disgusting that they cannot produce pages that confirm to simple standards and respect the users' sovereignty. And for the "father of web design" to make such diarrhea-inducing sites is unacceptable. How can someone who claims to be such a top-notch designer/standards advocate/whatever get away with this garbage and hypocrisy for so long?
Mr Zeldman I don't want you to escape my critique without answering a few questions:
Are the sites that I profiled (both your partners and happycog.com's projects) sites that are "promoting core web standards"? Are you a part of "professional designers and developers [that] continue to use outdated methods that yoke structure to presentation"? Are you part of the "many practitioners [that] take pride in delivering sites that look and work exactly the same in compliant and non-compliant browsers alike, at the cost of accessibility, long-term viability, or forward compatibility"? Why do you preach standards and "developer education" when you are need of learning them, or at least applying them to your projects? Why do you partner with companies that can't even validate their own websites? Why do you make commercial websites that don't validate?
You need to explain how the commercial projects you spewed out have any resemblance to the type of sites you preach about. Since you cannot justify how some of your own websites you made do not validate, I suggest re-making all your commercial sites featured in this article free of charge up to the same level you preach about.
Maybe everyone, not just me and this web page, needs to ask Zeldman himself why he works with people who have sites that do not validate and why he creates design abominations. If you are even a tad bit concerned, please email jeffrey@zeldman.com and ask him.
And guess who somewhat agrees? Zeldman himself.
What I wrote on January 10th:
Mr Zeldman, your brilliance overwhelms me! How you can pull off what you do with the little time you have? All great men deserve a fan page and you are no exception, believe me.
http://www.andkon.com/stuf/zeldman/ my humble shrine to a person who stands true to his values.
Zeldman's reply on January 11th:
How thoughtful. Thank you so much! I enjoyed reading it and agreed with some of what you had to say.
jeffrey