An interesting survey, These web sites are identical…or are they? suggests that “75% of web design is normative, the rest is merely color and pictures.”.

I found this link over at blogdex.net

This survey compares 10 web sites through elements of their layout: styles, page construction and elements… The survey seeks similarities and differences between those well known web sites… What can be observed is that those web sites agree on implicit, internalized layout and design norms (Consensus rate), and that deviance from these rules (Dissidence rate) is uncommon.

The survey made the following conclusions, which I’ll directly quote here. Before I do, let me urge you to take a look at the data and analysis they present, it’s enjoyable.

First Things First: IA and CSS

With apologies for the delay, here are links to the presentation Christina Wodtke and I delivered at the webvisions 2004 conference this past Friday in Portland, Oregon.

Downloads

• IA and CSS (ppt, 571kb) - Final, as delivered at conference
• IA and CSS (html) Animation removed post-conference
• IA and CSS (pdf, 699kb) Animation removed post-conference

There has already been some feedback, including a wonderfully thorough recap over at epersonae.com, and some glowing words — posted immediately after the conference — from vanderwal.net.

This flat out rocks as it echos what I have been doing and refining for the last three years or more… This process makes things very easy to draft in simple wireframe… This practice has cut down development and design time in more than half and greatly decreases maintenance time. One of the best attributes is the decreased documentation time as using the Web Developer Extension toolbar in Firefox exposes the class and id attributes that provide semantic structure… I can not think of how or why we ever did anything differently.

Overall, I was very pleased with the talk, and with the reception is received. Some people did give some constructive criticism though, but that’s always nice to get too.

Thanks to everybody who came and listened to me, and those that asked questions or found me for a conversation later. Thanks also to our wonderul hosts, who put on an excellent conference — I’m looking forward to next year. And finally, to Christina again for dragging me out.

I’m sitting in the web visions conference in portland, listing to anil dash talk about blogging… I coulding resist blogging about him talking about blogging… (from my Treo 600)

http://www.koechley.com/nate/presentations/webvisions2004/first_things_first_beta.ppt

Flash of Unstyled Content (FOUC)

Some pages that use the CSS @import rule experience a curious display quirk in the Windows version of MS Internet Explorer: a momentary flash of unstyled page content. The unimaginative creature that I am, I call this phenomenon Flash of Unstyled Content or FOUC for short.

Langston Hughes - The Academy of American Poets

Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.