If you do any type of development work on the web then you understand what frustration is. It can come from clients or it can come from a browser not rendering a box the way it should. Either way, frustration is simply part of the job description. Triumph is also part of the job description and although at times it may seem that there are more downs than ups, when there is an up, it erases all the feelings the downs caused previously…usually.
Here are the moments that cause me to experience some Ups.
This doesn’t happen often to me, but I love the feeling of creating an XHTML document and the markup flows as logically as any document should. There is one <h1> and the other headers follow where appropriate. <div>s are only used to separate a section of the page and there are no extraneous divs hanging around. <span>s are only used inline and when they are needed.
I know what I am describing is nirvana. Sometimes you have no choice but to wrap <div>s around other <div>s. Maybe everything isn’t perfect and you don’t always validate to perfection, but isn’t it a good feeling when you go to run a site through the validation machine and you get the badge? Because I use outside services like Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, validation isn’t completely in my hands. I can’t even get the CSS to validate because I’m using Mozilla and Safari selectors. I really do miss that badge, but I think I can carry on without it for now. One day though I will get it back and I will surely celebrate with some cider and music.
I’m not going to say you should ignore validation or that you should be a stickler for it. I’m just saying it’s good when stuff validates and even better when you put your best effort into making everything validate.
As we progress further into web development, the use of JavaScript starts to become more and more abundant. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of people that have JavaScript disabled and might be missing out on some of the functionality a site offers. For example on Drawar, if you don’t have JS enabled you can’t login to the site. I’m unaware of a workaround for this since I don’t control the JS for the Facebook and Google elements, but this makes it apparent I also need to create my own registration system for those few strays without JS.
If you use JS on your site it’s a great feeling to know that even without it being available to certain users they can still use your site, just without the same experience as others. Degrading gracefully is important and definitely something I am seeing developers being less concerned about simply because so many people keep JS enabled. If anything, try your best to offer a dumbed down version of your site. If you have to offer up the mobile version then so be it, but don’t let a lack of degradation hold someone back from using your site.
Can you believe there are still sites out there that break completely when you increase the text size? I don’t want to get into the liquid vs. fixed width debate, but this has always been one of the driving points behind creating liquid layouts. Sometimes we forget that not everyone wants to view our site at the font size that we have set and not everyone can read the text at the size we select.
Keeping this in mind can sometimes constrain your design, especially if you are trying to stick with fixed-height elements. However, with JS and advanced CSS there are more and more workarounds happening that help to increase the flexibility of your designs.
I don’t think anyone is expecting your site to remain flawless when users increase the text size because eventually any site will reach its limit on how well it can handle 296px fonts. However, if you test your site and find that increasing the font size by one notch completely throws a wrench into everything, then maybe you should consider making some adjustments.
Just so I don’t single out IE completely, isn’t it great when you finish up a design and then go to test it out in different browsers and it works flawlessly in each and every one? I used to love that feeling and I know Mike Rundle did as well. He could tell you some war stories about his struggles with IE and the design of 9rules.
With the recent security issues of IE surfacing (again) we can only hope that there will be a time where 99% of the world is using a non-IE browser. I know it’s a far-fetched dream, but if we can’t have our dreams, what are we left with?
People like to think that the fist pump became famous because of the new show Jersey Shore, when in reality, web geeks have been fist pumping ever since the first one created a flawless IE design in one shot.
There are times when I get so lost in my CSS that I forget what selectors I have used for other elements and so to prevent me from having to go and look for them (I know, lazy) I start to create crazy names. .largeCenterBlob for example. I couldn’t tell you what it does and most of the time I end up going back to look at what it actually does. Imagine if I stuck with selectors that actually made sense? I have a couple of them .floatRight and .sideboxItemRight, but the rest could fit just as well in a Twilight novel.
I wish I could say I had an intricate system that I have honed and developed over the years, but I don’t. I still wing it so if you have any suggestions I’m all ears. I have been looking around and haven’t come across anything yet. Maybe common sense should be the system I use.
When was the last time you paid attention to how a page on your site looks when it is printed on paper? I know I haven’t in a while and I even have a print stylesheet hidden in a folder that I don’t use. I can only imagine the joy though of seeing someone print an article from here and having it look spectacular in print. It’s not like it is even hard to create a print style for sites and yet so many of us neglect it probably because we don’t print stuff too often. However, I know a ton of people that do like to print content that they find on the web so it would be a good idea for all of us to pay a little bit of attention to how our content formats on paper.
I hate forms. I hate writing the XHTML for them. I hate styling them. I hate having to check user inputs. I hate everything about them. That is why it is such a great feeling when you create a truly awesome one. You would think we are crazy when we walk away from a design and think to ourselves “damn, I love that form.” Seriously, how often do you come across a form and fall in love with the design of it?
Props to you if you are someone that has created a form that provides instant feedback. You are nothing short of god status in my book. I love those types of forms. If there were a position for a professional form creator, this would be the first qualification I look for in a candidate.
Tumblr has a form on their homepage that makes me want to fill it out even though I have no intention of ever using the service. How great did the designer feel when she popped that one out? She probably went to the bar and bought everyone a round. I know I would.
From a user’s perspective, how frustrating is it when:
These are all things you have to keep in mind when creating forms on your site. Some site development is 90% forms and 10% everything else. Thankfully, there are wonderful services like Wufoo that ease the burden for many of us.
I don’t know how often this actually happens, but it rarely happens to me. I think John Gruber might be one of the greatest examples of this with his Daringfireball design. That site hasn’t changed since 1972 and you would like to think it is because Gruber likes it just the way it is. How many of you can say that you have created a site that you stared at every single day and after a month were completely content with it?
I’m probably not that way because I go through a lot of design iterations before I land on the one that I feel is right. I’m more of a throw it against the wall and see if it sticks kind of guy, while I know others like to perfect a design in Photoshop before moving on. Those types are probably more content with how a design looks after a month more than I am, but I wouldn’t change my habits for the world.
I’m stuck in my ways like that and I suck at Photoshop. And design. And drawing. Great, now I need to write an article on the Ups and Downs of making yourself depressed through your own writing.
Yeah right, good one.
I’ve never experienced this one, but I’ve heard rumors of designers being able to pull this off. These designers were direct descendants of Zeus himself apparently.
I know to an outsider these moments seem trivial, but it’s hard to explain the rush one gets when everything goes right. You can be coding for hours and banging your head against the wall, when you finally see that one semi-colon missing and there you have yourself another triumph.
It’s just part of the job description I guess and I probably wouldn’t change a thing about it. Well, except for that whole IE thing maybe.
Instead of having people drop in weeks after an entry is posted and leaving comments that won't get responded to, Drawar closes comments after two weeks so that the community can focus on more recent discussions. If there is a point you really want to make and feel that it can generate some great discussion, drop in the forums and start a topic.
23 damn good articles with 423 greatly appreciated comments.
63 discussions happening now. 734 replies.
278 resourceful links.
104 news items shared.
1298 gorgeous sites.
Please follow 
Subscribe:
Amber Weinberg
01.21.10permalink