Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

Microsoft is feeling the heat in the browser arena. Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is in development and they are planning to robustly support RSS, CSS 2 and Javascript. No way?! IE 8 might almost be as good as Firefox 2!

After putting the last nail in Netscape's coffin in 2001, Microsoft rested on its laurels and enjoyed the spoils of the browser war. Since then Firefox has taken a quarter of the browser market by winning people over with it's standards support, tight security and an easy add-on framework. After waiting five years, Microsoft finally released Internet Explorer 7. But their loss of market share is driving them to immediately jump into full development of Internet Explorer 8.

But regardless of motive, this is fantastic news. It seems that browser competition is once again driving innovation in the browser business. It really speaks to the maturity of the open source movement that Mozilla is spurring Microsoft to once again take browser innovation seriously.

Read more about IE 8 here.

If you didn’t take how to write a press release 101 in college or work in agency, the term boilerplate may be foreign in this context… "Do we have any boilerplate content on usability?"

The term originated from sheets of steel, originally used to build steam boilers, used as printing plates for widespread reproduced content, like advertisements of syndicated columns. Today boilerplate is text that can be reused in new ways and stays the same or changes slightly from the original. You see boilerplate information on the bottom of press releases or in legal documents.

Our interactive group uses boilerplate information in our strategy documents, Situation Analysis and Blueprint. Our standard definitions and terms have been evolving since our conception and with each new hire or project launch we learn something new and things change. A year ago we hardly mentioned the word SEO (search engine optimization) and with addition of a new developer that had a passion for the concept, we added an interior section to our strategy documents.

Some may think that having standard copy speeds up our process or leaves room for the dreaded cookie cutter experience. But with every new project we reexamine our meaning of usability, RSS, SEO, accessibility, global navigation, user experience best practices, etc, and bring a bit more knowledge to the table. Our team deals with these terms daily and sees them through different colored glasses, so why would we want to deprive our clients of this cumulative thinking.

Accessibility has become an increasingly popular buzzword in the world of web development. Its principles should drive all modern website design, but the reasons why they should may be more significant than you might first think. The definition of web accessibility is often oversimplified as the practice of creating sites that can be used by people with disabilities. This definition glosses over the business rationale of investing in accessible design. Any business or organization with a web presence needs to make accessibility a priority, not only because it will increase your site's visitor-base, but most importantly because it is the right thing to do. An inaccessible site is exclusionary, turning away would-be visitors with a lack of empathy that only a cold, hard machine like a web server can manage. Visitors who can't access the content on your site will directly associate this lack of empathy with your organization. Clearly, excluding users of your site for lack of accessibility is not just bad for your image - it's simply unethical.

I know I'm being a little preachy here, but with good reason. Given the technologies available for web development today, there is little excuse for making sites that are not accessible. With the ability to separate site content from format (see my article on this here), web developers, designers, and authors have all the power they need to create sites that can be used by all of their visitors despite any disabilities those visitors may have.

It is obvious that accessibility is important, but what is it really about? Accessibility is about more than addressing the obvious concerns of how individuals with vision or hearing disabilities use your site. It also addresses how someone with a repetitive stress injury or someone who cannot accurately control a mouse might use your site. It even considers how to allow access to your site by a visitor who does not have a disability but has a slow Internet connection and wants to view your site using a text-only browser. Generally, accessibility is all about being as inclusive as possible. The method of designing for accessibility makes sites that are usable by individuals with disabilities. Its also adds the benefit that the sites it produces are cleaner and more intuitive for everyone to use. I encourage web developers and CEOs alike to consider how the concepts of accessibility are applied in practice. The World Wide Web Consortium has published an excellent document here illustrating several accessibility scenarios. Check it out - it'll be well worth the ten-minute read.

So maybe now you've considered a bit more about web accessibility than you had before. Designing sites for accessibility is here to stay. Just like building architects must ensure that all people will be able to access every floor and room in their designs, web architects must guarantee that everyone will be able to access all of the pages and use all of the features in their sites. Rather than considering design for accessibility an obstacle, embrace it - it will produce a more intuitive website, and its use will better represent your organization in your market and community.

At Capstrat, we're committed to keeping up with the web. Our design experts will address and resolve your site's accessibility issues. Whether you have an aging site that could use a facelift or you need a new site built from the ground up, our designers, developers, and communications experts will help your business or organization achieve the future-ready web presence that you need to succeed in this digital age.

A promising development for the future of the web has been in the works for the past five years. An increasing number of users have switched to web browsers like Firefox, Opera, and Safari [wikipedia], helping to usher in the era of modern, standards-compliant websites. These browsers are heroes for the web development community, as they provide excellent support for W3C web standards (why does this matter). However, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still the most commonly used web browser throughout the world, accounting for slightly more than eighty percent of the browser market right now [wikipedia]. For those of us working in web development, this fact presents a daily hurdle, as Internet Explorer's support for modern web standards has traditionally been lacking. Developers write web page code that works with standards-compliant browsers and then they painstakingly write fixes or "hacks" for the code (in a bizarre and contrived fashion) to get the pages working in IE. This process can discourage a developer from being creative with his or her usage of existing web standards, but - there is hope on the horizon. With Microsoft's release of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006, the challenge of creating standards-compliant websites has begun to diminish. IE7 fixes many of the Internet Explorer quirks that have plagued developers since the widespread adoption of HTML and CSS, and it now supports some features that have long been available in competing browsers.

Throughout 2007, more users will be upgrading their web browsers to Internet Explorer 7 or switching to alternative browsers. As a direct consequence, web designers, developers, and authors will further shift toward the uniform usage of web standards. So what does this imply? How about a rich user experience regardless of the way the Internet is accessed. It won't matter whether you're visiting a site on your office desktop, your mobile phone, or your next-generation refrigerator - you'll have full access to a site's content and features. How about accessibility for all. Users with disabilities will not be hindered from using any part of a site. And how about lower development, maintenance, and hosting costs. Websites designed with modern standards are much easier to maintain, modify, and extend than those created with the design methodologies popularized in the late nineties. Such sites also use less bandwidth, because modern pages are composed of smaller files than their ancestors.

At Capstrat, we're committed to keeping up with the web. We're ready for the next generation of web browsers, and we are prepared to utilize these changing technologies to their maximum potential. Whether you have an aging site that could use a facelift or you need a new site built from the ground up, our designers, developers, and communications experts will help your business or organization achieve the future-ready web presence that you need to succeed in this digital age.