GermWorks - Web Design & Life

We are nearly at a new year, dont they go fast? Almost as fast as the Internet or so I thought. I used to see the web as a fast moving medium with new trends happening all the time. With getting married and leaving the computer alone for two weeks I was afraid of missing something. I missed nothing except a few articles. I have now come to the conclusion that the Internet is not as fast as what I and others have generally thought.

So with this new knowledge, I have highlighted a few areas which I think are stuck in the mud of rehashed Internet and not causing us to move on.

Get new inspiration away from the web

I am guilty of this and I would say 99% of other web designers are also. If we all get inspiration from other websites and rehash them into our own design and style, very quickly the Internet becomes the same, rehashed and boring.

So how can we be different? Snook uses a different source of inspiration: Architecture and the outcome is awesome. Other non-web examples could be art eras (art-deco, bahouse etc), print, advertising, other countries and photography. Digital Web Magazine wrote a good article on collecting which you could implement to help collect other resources.

Snooks example

Is web 2.0 design?

I have written about web 2.0 before and so has everyone else and their dog but people still do not get what web 2.0 is all about. Web 2.0 is not JUST design but rather web 2.0 style is a PART of web 2.0, does that make sense? Web 2.0 is a trend of the Internet including Social Networking, blogs etc, I thought this was rather obvious but some people think web 2.0 is a style of design.

Is Freelance ruining the web?

I would say freelancing in general is indeed, I am not saying all freelancers are bad (as I am one myself) but majority of freelancers are. Freelance Switch is a great website for freelancers and helps bring the quality up to a high standard but lets face it, most freelancers are either hacks, people who are studying and learning or people with limited experience.

You then have other type of freelance which mass produce products like websites etc, while these are good they do drive down the cost and while that may seem like a good deal for the customer, it raises some issues like:

• No customer and client relationship,
• No sure way of checking quality,
• Work can be slapped together with care and love and
• the designer/ coder has to work harder for less.

I fully believe that if you want a proper job, pay for a proper service. You get what you pay for. This article on devlounge raises some good points about freelance being ruinedd which inspired some of my thoughts.

Browser inconsistency

This is rather obvious but when will we see browsers behaving similar and consistent? I have given up trying to count my gray hairs from working on IE or Firefox problems.

My big two problems I would like to see fixed are:

1. PNG on IE6 - Assuming IE6 will just fase out.
2. Padding to be same in IE and Firefox

HTML 4/5 vs XHTML 1 and CSS 2 vs CSS 3

HTML 5 has just released a preview and while the nav and header looks very neat and useful I wonder if this will become another CSS 3.0 problem with some browsers supporting certain functions while the others do not. I myself have come to an understanding and stand with the HTML 4/ 5 vs XHTML and CSS 2 vs CSS 3 issue, use the lesser more supported version. This way the website is more likely to be working and displayed properly for the majority of the viewers. At the end of the day THIS is the main aim!

It may mean you cannot use text shadow etc but at least it will be consistent among browsers (if thats your aim).

Do you have any opinions on the state of the web for 2007 and what could be improved?

If you have any input or own rant or ideas on what could and needs to be improved, please let us know. Also please note that this is just my opinion and its OK if you disagree and I look forward in hearing why.

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