Ramblings About Cleveland Web Design Firms and Standards
Over at Refresh Cleveland David Mead asks “What would you like to see as the standard that Cleveland web firms put out?“
How about any?
In my few years here in the Cleveland web scene, I’ve been on one side of the table or the other dealing with a fair amount of Cleveland web firms, many of them “award winning.” Most of them were more interested in locking customers into their outdated (and sometimes just plain re-branded open source) Content Management Systems than selling the benefits of standards.
In fact, not one of them had any mention of standards what-so-ever.
Quick Pause for Disclosure Time
Optiem, where David Mead works, is not one of those firms (so far as I know). I’ve never worked directly or indirectly with them or him and do not know how they operate. And actually (though I’m not sure) I think I may have done a phone interview with David once, when I was fresh out of college. If it was him, he was a very nice guy. He didn’t hire me though :)
This is in no way an attack on him, his company, or his article; just a lone web geek up too late who drank too much coffee that started writing a comment and just kept on going and is probably going to regret this in the morning.
So I should also mention that the views expresed here are mine and mine only, and do not reflect those of any company, organizations, or anyone else that I am affiliated with (or was, before this braindump…).
Just so we’re clear.
But I was saying…
Every Cleveland Web Design firm that I’ve dealt with has had no interest whatsoever in modern web design. Just about all of them, as David also points out here on Refresh Cleveland, are still developing invalid sites with table-based tag-soup layouts and spacer .gifs.
They’re more interested in dazzling clients with buzzwords, snazzy Flash eye candy and distracting them with bloated, deprecated Content Management Management systems.
True Stories
I had the Lead Designer from one firm in Lakewood tell me anchor links were absolutely impossible to do.
I had the Vice President of a downtown company laughingly state “thank God 90% of the internet uses Internet Explorer“ in answer to me asking why the $xx,xxx “enterprise” level CMS they sell doesn’t display properly (or at all) in Firefox or Safari.
I had the Interactive Advertising Director of a company mockingly ask “why would someone just give their stuff away“ when evaluating message board packages, after it was shown that the limited pre-packaged forum module in their CMS was actually a stolen Open Source package with all the original copyright information stripped out.
These companies aren’t interested at all in producing quality, accessible websites for their clients, they’re marketing hacks looking to make a buck. Which I guess is “just business,” but I think the game is about to change.
So, Uh, Your Point Is?
Sorry, let me climb off my soap box for a second and stop rambling, now that I’ve guaranteed I’ll never get hired in Cleveland again.
Which Might be a Good Thing
There’s been some rumbling recently that the old Agency model is dying, if not dead already.
The Web moves fast. You’re either striving to kick ass or stuck on old ways and becoming irrelevant. You can either cling to that bugg whip or start moving forward.
“Those people still delivering nested table layout, spacer gifs or ignoring accessibility can no longer call themselves web professionals.”
So, What would you like to see as the standard that Cleveland web firms put out?
It’s time to start with any. A properly constructed page is a properly constructed page whether it’s HTML 4.01 Transitional or XHTML 1.0 Strict.
“There are now so many web sites, blogs or publications devoted to helping people learn standards and accessible techniques that there are now no excuses not to work with semantic code or CSS.“
With the recent revival of Refresh Cleveland and the Cleveland Web Standards Meetup, professionals, hobbyists, and those in-between are coming together on our own and doing it ourselves.
Would you rather be the one showing your clients the myriad, proven benefits of web standards, or us?
Comment
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“They’re more interested in dazzling clients with buzzwords, snazzy Flash eye candy and distracting them with bloated, deprecated Content Management Management systems.”
This is absolutely true over all of Northeast Ohio. I mean can you even think of a single Ohio firm period off the top of your head that advertises web standards? The problem is the people running these agencies are all from print backgrounds and have zero understanding of the web today. They assume that the the technology powering the site doesn’t matter at all. This was part of the reason I had to get out of the agency game here.
· beth · 17/08/07 11:19 AM · #
Most of the sites I’ve seen for companies in the Northeast Ohio area (and really just about everywhere else) are typically table-based, DHTML, clip-art riddled catastrophes.
I’m hoping that between the web professionals I’ve met through the Web Standards Meetup and sites like Refresh Cleveland, things will change. Soon.
· Brad Dielman · 17/08/07 01:50 PM · #
Even most sites that do look good are monstrosities when you look under the hood at the sourcecode.
It always makes me think of those cheap iPod Shuffle keychain knockoff on display in drugstore checkout lines- They look almost as nice as the real thing but they’re just tchotchke.
Impulse buys for clueless suckers.
° brendan · 17/08/07 04:49 PM · #
Glad you liked the post Brendan.
We at Optiem have been coding to W3C standards (as best as we can, CMS’s willing) for over 4 years now. We don’t really advertise it as we’ve always thought that’s just the way you should build websites.
That was part of my interest in helping kick start Refresh Cleveland with Tina & Chris, so we can start getting everyone on the same page. Hopefully we and the meet-up crew can really get this going.
· David Mead · 17/08/07 04:59 PM · #
@David – I’m glad that you guys brought Refresh Cleveland back, it’s so awesome to see all these Clevelanders coming together to promote standards.
Especially someone with your background and experience, there’s hope for our area yet!
° brendan · 17/08/07 05:10 PM · #
I really enjoyed your post, Brendan.
My hypothesis is that we won’t see any changes in the way the larger agencies construct their sites until a one or two compelling reason present themselves:
1) Most likely scenario: Future browser releases start dropping support for deprecated elements.
2) Far out, crazy-but-could-happen scenario: A rash of successful asseccibility related lawsuits start getting covered by the mainstream press and the agency’s clients begin demanding “lawsuit proof” web sites.
· Eric Wiley · 19/08/07 11:45 AM · #
Not being a part of the agency scene and never having dealt with an agency, I’m actually kind of surprised to hear all of this. It makes me quite nervous, as my company is in the process of choosing an agency to redesign the web site.
Anyway, I was thinking that perhaps part of the problem isn’t the agencies, but the people who are hiring them. I would imagine that most of the people looking to redo their site are just looking for whatever is the latest gimmick. They aren’t doing any research or anything to see what they should, in fact, be looking for. That probably won’t change any time soon and as long as there is a market for it, there will always be shyster agencies hawking shoddy sites.
Luckily, I know better ;)
· Dana · 18/09/07 08:06 PM · #