Busy — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 08:18:21 +0000

sumeiko, you still writing?
Maybe this would make a good story topic - eye candy vs standards

If you are, I also have another topic you may be interested in, wont mention it on the boards but if your interested PM or email me

Abhishek Reddy — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 03:58:34 +0000

Renegade wrote: I agree that the schools and institutes of today do not focus much on standards of the web. All they are really looking for is eye candy as already mentioned. If it looks good then it will pass. Just this year, I have experienced this first hand. The web design course that I took didn't focus much on web standards. The closest thing that would probably come close would be that your site had to work across all major browsers.

*sign*

It's all got to do with the male ego, you see...

(Sorry, couldn't resist, it's an in-joke.)

Renegade — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 03:51:40 +0000

I agree that the schools and institutes of today do not focus much on standards of the web. All they are really looking for is eye candy as already mentioned. If it looks good then it will pass. Just this year, I have experienced this first hand. The web design course that I took didn't focus much on web standards. The closest thing that would probably come close would be that your site had to work across all major browsers.

*sign*

Abhishek Reddy — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 02:52:27 +0000

Quote: I guess the blame should go to todays schools (education system), they are the ones that should be teaching valid web design/development.
XHTML was released in 2000, I know schools are behind the times but this far behind ?

It's far, far, far worse than you think.

Quote: The prizes for my category were really good, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to enter. First and second place were a Microsoft Office Specialist - Master Certification (MOS) which is valued at $6500 each. It's rather sickening to think that a prize like that is going to someone who didn't really earn it 100%

I'd personally advise you to reconsider the value of an MS Office suite. Programs like Word and Excel churn out non-standard code even when it comes to office documents -- they use proprietary standards that don't even work with older versions of the same software. They're only able to get away with this because of the ubiquity of MS Office as status quo, unlike the diversity of software and users on the internet. Whole new can of worms, so I won't open it here.

I wouldn't say the winners didn't earn it. Given the parameters of the contest, they've all won it legitimately. I think the general message here is that the organisers and the broader educational system is at fault for lagging behind technology so poorly, for whatever reason. The contestants may well have poured their heart and soul into their works; it's unfortunate that they might have been misdirected by the greater powers.

Quote: Abhishek told me that he didn't get anywhere in the same competition when he was at school, which in my opinion is rediculous because Abhishek has his own Web Design business!

Well, that's not entirely relevant, imo. It is possible for bad designers to go into business and even be successful (not saying anything particular about anyone), so that doesn't say much.

sumeiko — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:37:09 +0000

I agree. A lot of people, just looking at their Web sites (mainly the flash ones) have probably used templates. In fact, in the rules, templates are allowed.

The prizes for my category were really good, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to enter. First and second place were a Microsoft Office Specialist - Master Certification (MOS) which is valued at $6500 each. It's rather sickening to think that a prize like that is going to someone who didn't really earn it 100%

Abhishek told me that he didn't get anywhere in the same competition when he was at school, which in my opinion is rediculous because Abhishek has his own Web Design business!

Busy — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 22:41:39 +0000

I guess the blame should go to todays schools (education system), they are the ones that should be teaching valid web design/development.
XHTML was released in 2000, I know schools are behind the times but this far behind ?

JeevesBond. I believe your hope they would venture into the right direction is misguided. Life is about taking the easy way, if you win a competition using frontpage or a template then you'd continue to use them as they are what won you the prize. The "experts" (judges) have commended you for taking the easy way out.

Note: the easy way in this case is not easy for the future, one day web strandards will rule the web and web designer/developers not following them will be left behind or will need to relearn their style. Look how many HTML books/tutorials teach people to write the code in uppercase, people learning this method have a hard time changing to XHTML (all lower case) already.

JeevesBond — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 11:08:43 +0000

Are you suprised that they're all built in FrontPage? The bloomin competition is sponsored by Microsoft! Beyond that I wouldn't like to comment - don't particularly want a court summons for libel landing on the doormat!

Teaching kids how to do non-standard inaccessible web design is definately a bad idea, although I get the impression the exercise is a way to keep children entertained, barraging them with technical information and insisting they follow the standards set by W3C and section 508 could jeapordise the activity somewhat. So the creators of the competition can be forgiven, I don't imagine they are web designers themselves and are therefore as uniformly ignorant of standards based design as the contendees!

I would also hope that any participant in this competition seriously wishing to take-up web design as a career will find the W3C in their own time, and with good guidance from such people as those found on this forum they will find their way to the Zen Garden of XHTML and CSS (arf arf).

Finally (honest!) this is a double-edged sword, if the up-and-coming generation are really this ignorant about web design then our generation of designers are safe... Feelings on this are mixed, it's the difference between everyone doing things correctly (to standards) - which would make me happy - and our ability to stay one step ahead by offering a quantifiably better service - which makes me a rather immoral individual.

Busy — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 05:02:02 +0000

sumeiko wrote: Busy: Are you saying the Web Challenge is a kind of scam!? (Just goes to show you, it's not what you know, it's who you know.)

Yep. Think about it, the title of the competition is "Web Challenge", wheres the challenge in picking up a template or throwing togther a flash movie (ok there is a challenge in them but isn't the point ), The thing is based around the web, whats the web trying to enforce? standards - Web standards of which this challenge has nothing to do with. Infact the help section even advises to use Frontpage to make sites.

If I was the Judge, the judging would be based on the following:
Browsers compatibility - viewable on at least IE, Mozilla and Opera
Is valid HTML (extra points for valid XHTML and CSS to the upper levels - trans, strict etc)
Extra points for CSS only layout
If flash used, must be text navigation.
Pages must load within a minute on 56k
Extra points for steps towards section508 etc standards

Just thought about the not what but who ... thats not the case here is it because your part of the sponsors side lol, oh well, but is still a bogus competition that teaches nothing useful to our kids.

There are some nice looking sites amongest the winners but none are valid. It's like a house, teach someone to build a solid foundation and no matter what kind of building it is it will remain standing, build a crappy foundation and doesn't matter how high tech the structure is, it will fall down.

My conculsion of the Web Challenge is it's just advertising for the sponsors.

sumeiko — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 03:25:24 +0000

It's interesting to hear about your different thoughts on Eye candy. Personally, I agree that the Web Challenge is rather unfair. In my opinion, the web site that got third was much better than the others.

Busy: Are you saying the Web Challenge is a kind of scam!? (Just goes to show you, it's not what you know, it's who you know.)

Abhishek Reddy — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 05:29:36 +0000

Ah well. 'Eye candy' is given that name for a reason.

There are some very good elements about the winners' sites, but I think they're generally evidential of a disappointing trend in web design.

I think you were on the right track. Keep at it as you were.