Archive for October, 2007

I spend a lot of time thinking about what it means (and takes) to build a high-quality, professional web site or application. I consider the whole spectrum, from macro concepts like Graded Browser Support, Separation of Concerns, and Progressive Enhancement to micro rules like never employ href="#" and always use the label element to bind text to form controls.

It’s difficult to compose a prescriptive list of all the issues a "perfect site" must satisfy. So, lately I’ve been think from a different perspective. Instead of "what it takes to be great," I’ve been asking myself "what does a great site NOT do? More specifically, I’ve been assuming a perfect site gets 100 points initially and then loses points for shortcomings.

Here are a few examples that I could use to measure a site:

• -1 point for each instance of href="#", (max of -5).
• -5 points for redirecting old browsers to a "you must upgrade" page instead of letting them see the plain linear content at least.
• -2 points for design degradation at +/-1 font-zoom level; -1 for degradation at +/-2 zooms.
• -1 for each form element missing an associated label element.
• -2 for a missing (or malformed) doctype

It’s too early to debate the mechanics (should it be -1 or -2 points), but I like the approach in general and am going to keep playing with it this week. One good way I’ve found to discover the list of things is to find a nice modern page, hit view-source, and start giving it a code review. Each thing that catches my eye probably belongs on the list, somewhere at least.

I’m quickly building a longish list — and will publish it before too long — but right now I want to ask: What would you put on the list?

I just registered on a shopping web site (to get some staples delivered). I clicked through to skim their privacy policy because some types of shopping sites share info in ways I’m not comfortable with. One section to pay attention to is "Using Personal Information." This one was pretty standard - not great but nothing unexpected. I was happy when I saw the following sentence/offer, as when given the chance I opt out of most mailings:

If you prefer not to receive this type of information from us, you can contact us at 1-877-723-3929 or online, click here.

So I clicked though. Dead link. "Sorry, there is no Safeway.com web page matching your request."

That’s encouraging. Thanks a lot.

(I hacked around for a bit and was able to find the correct link to update your safeway mailing and privacy settings.)

Tim O’Reilly, in a nice rebuttal to the flame up of silly "Web 3.0" noise over the last few days, gets much right. I agree with everything up until he writes:

Google is the pre-eminent Web 2.0 success story, and it’s all back-end! Every major web 2.0 play is a back-end story. It’s all about building applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them–and you can only do that with a richer back end.

Um, no. I agree with his reminder that Web 2.0 does not equal some specific technology (ahem, DHTML/Ajax), but to say that front-end magic has nothing to do with the Web’s 2.0 resurgence, or, more specifically, that front-end technology has nothing to do with Google’s darling status just doesn’t cut it for me.

[Oddpost and] Gmail reminded most of us that you shouldn’t need a page refresh to read your web mail, and that the improved efficiently is good, welcome, and here to stay. Sure, it’s cool their back-end provides unlimited storage and great spam filtering, but it’s the great interface that gets people’s hearts beating and them coming back for more. [G]Maps noted that in the real world you can slide the map left and right in front of your eyes, and that offering the same direct-manipulation interface online is better than the one-tile-at-a-time approach. Sure, Satellite and Hybrid views are cool, but without drag and drop the game hasn’t changed. (TerraServer and others offered Satellite view since the last 90’s at least, but it wasn’t a gamechanger.) Tags are cool, and he’s correct that Flickr is largely a network-effect play — but Flickr also showed that reducing the cost of adding tags (by not requiring a refresh) made for more tagging, and therefore more network effect. Google Docs (previously Writely) is all about complex front-end engineering.

I grant that these services are made possible by increasingly sophisticated back-end systems, and that other Web 2.0 systems such as Last.fm or Ad Sense are fundamentally back-end systems. But to say that the world’s Web 2.0 fascination is related exclusively to clever back-end shenanigans misses the mark. My point is that you wouldn’t recognize Web 2.0 without the glamour and power of today’s front-end interfaces and techniques..

It’s never been a better time to be doing front-end engineering. DHTML/Ajax is not Web 2.0, but it’s hard for me to imagine the recent resurgence without it.