PopSyndicate.com

A girlfriend of mine is taking an HTML class at the local community college.  She’s very excited by it.  Each week she tells me about her progress and what new aspect of HTML she just learned.  And with each week, I think about how the website I just finished updating is already out of spec.  I think about the new ways websites are being built and all the new code I have to learn and I feel pity for my friend.  This class of hers will end of the semester and I doubt that there is yet another class to supplement it yet. 

HTML is a basic code to write websites and make them presentable to the reader.  Without it, the web would be a really long boring text file.  Early on, it became clear that web pages not only needed to be presentable to readers but to non-readers as well.  Search engines needed to read websites and present them through search results and browsers for the visually impaired had to relay content through audio.  How web designers wrote web sites changed and eventually so did their browsers.  For example, table formatting became considered archaic if not verboten.  When you look at the code, tables are written left to right, however due to their versatility, they can show information that isn’t left to right but top to bottom.  This search engines to produce inaccurate or misleading results.  Using new mark-up techniques like formatted lists in place of tables made information flow as intended for the reader and search engines.

Back then, there was a clear shift in making information more accessible, not just for people but also machines.  Fonts, background images, colors, spacing and other design aesthetics of web sites were no longer put into the pages but into referenced pages called CSS.  This made sites easier to design and change, and it made it easier for search engines to read the relevant data.  CSS also qualified who was accessing the web page by changing the formatting depending on what browser or device was accessing it for better compatibility while the content of the page stays the same.  PDA’s, older browsers, mobile phone and printing take advantage of CSS.

But that’s ancient history.  People don’t visit websites anymore, the read the headlines from other websites.  RSS and ATOM let users read the content of a website without having to visit it.  The relevant data, compressed into a data feed shows a users the latest headlines and site information via mobiles devices, news sites, iPods and email.

Smarter implementations of Javascript (remember pop-up windows?) let users navigate through websites without loading pages.  Links point to other pages that users navigate to and load more data.  With AJAX, Asynchronous Javascript and XML, clicking on a link or even hovering over a link calls the same information without leaving the web page.  For example, a web page contains a list of attendees and each attendee has a link for more information.  Clicking on that link would normally load a new page with that information.  AJAX, instead, alters the content of the initial page to include that attendees information without loading a new page. Click here for a website example.  The process makes web browsing faster, requires less data and generally looks cooler. 

AJAX is still a new technology.  Right after people started using it, search engines stopped.  Just like HTML tables, designers took advantage of AJAX’s unique formatting abilities overlooking its accessibility obstacles.  All this effort to make a web site as relevant as possible can overwhelm professional developers.  To stay relevant means to keep up with the bleeding edge of new language and formats.  At the same time, web sites need to be backwards compatible.  Just because a user can use AJAX and read an entire website without ever having to load a new page doesn’t mean they won’t use the “back” button.  PDA’s have a limited ability to use javascript and need to see the same data.

One method of making a site more accessible is through SEO, search engine optimization.  SEO is big business.  There are companies specialize in the practice of getting their clients high on the list for search results on Google, Yahoo! and MSN.  The rules for how these engines look at websites is a closely guarded secret.  Google’s PageRank software uses a super secret scoring algorithm based on links and popularity.  It’s almost a game to try and outscore the competition in search results.  But websites can’t live on search results alone.  After all, search sites offer other services like news results, blog results, local maps and guides, movie reviews, people finder, group discussions, and email.

Accessibility makes way for understanding.  Sites not only have to be able read information but understand content.  Introducing microformats, the Keebler elves of HTML.  Microformats can make a rock band’s tour schedule understandable for other sites to comprehend.  Without overhauling existing code too much, websites can incorporate microformats to give other sites vital information.  A movie review site can tell other movie review sites about itself, the movie title, the reviewer and the rating.  That movie reviewer might have a homepage that can be understood by other sites as well.  This information already exists but microformats designate that information for non-reader use.  Another example, a blogger’s profile using microformats on his/her website can be detected by Tails Firefox extension and allow you to add them to your address book.

This weekend, my friend will have taken another class in HTML.  She’s really bright and picks up this sort of stuff quickly.  Maybe I shouldn’t feel pity for her after all.  She’s loves this sort of stuff just that way I do.  We’re both nerds.  It makes me think about the websites that I work on.  I changed some code the other day just before I learned about a new update, its going to affect everything.  I’m beginning to pity myself.

Chris Williams is the web designer for Zeus Comics and others.  He often contemplates taking up knitting instead.

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