A List Apart #250
A List Apart always has great stuff, but I found this issue’s articles even more relevant to my current projects.
First up, A Preview of HTML gives a great tease about what is coming. I love the idea of actual structural elements for the page itself instead of using divs all the time. I also loved seeing the benefits of both HTML and XHTML and how HTML5 will support both. It echoed some of the thoughts that have been expressed in a recent discussion on the CWSA message board.
The second article, Designing For Flow is about designing complex sites so that they get out of the way and let the user get things done. This is the whole problem with my company’s web site and exactly what I hope to focus on improving. Some really great tips in there and I’m really glad to see someone talking about complexity instead of simplicity. Some sites are necessarily complex and all those articles out there about simplifying your design don’t help me much.
Great stuff. Go read.
December 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I tend to think about two things in regards to HTML5. 1), the actual timeframe where it will actually be rendered useful and the adoption rate is increased with vendors and users alike, and 2) backwards compatability. These are two very important things to consider.
While I like the structural elements, would this mean that we should all go back and edit all of our markup to be in line with the new elements? Not against new elements - but think about the magnitude of this chance (think corporate and enterprise, think CMS’s, think packaged web services). I think adoption rate will take a long time. This is why I like Microformats. They take what everyone else is already using, and adding semantic goodness to their elements. The benefit is two fold. The page is semantic, and they have hooks for their styling and JavaScript.
A DIV simply represents a logical division. Where do you draw the line on all of the different possible divisions a user could potentially use? If you leave one out - then we are right back at square one where someone will have to modify accordingly to fit their specific needs (much like people do now).
Just some more stuff to think about, I am still processing it all and I figured I would share it with you.