Another problem with so many of today's "appified", needlessly animated websites is that they are rarely as accessible (as in, usable by people with disabilities) as their simpler, text-and-image-based predecessors used to be.
Just because <canvas> and cool CSS3 hacks are part of the W3C standard doesn't mean that you can use them wherever you want. If you use CSS3 hacks to convey meaning, that meaning is lost not only to old IE users but also to anyone who is visually challenged. Sooner or later, this is going to become a taboo, and all of us who did it will drop our heads in shame as if we'd used tables for layout. (Tables were, and still are, a W3C standard after all.)
On the other hand, I do want to discourage people from using IE7. How do we do that without turning every webpage into a shiny animated app? My answer would be simple: wrap all my CSS and JS links in a conditional comment that hides them from older versions of IE. Give those users the authentic Lynx experience. After all, it will probably be prettier, not to mention more accessible, than any "graceful degradation" hack that I can cook up.
Older design? That's too nice. What about no design? (Remember, your site should still work fine with no design.)
However I disagree. Most consumer pages don't need to look decent without CSS, be usable probably but not look decent. CSS is how you make the pages look decent.
I think that's ultimately what I mean. As an example, compare this screenshot of my site[0] with css and Javascript on to this screenshot[1] with it off. It's still perfectly usable, even if it doesn't look nice. But the same basic structure of the page is evident, and it's not like things are suddenly jammed together or messed up.
Comments
Another problem with so many of today's "appified", needlessly animated websites is that they are rarely as accessible (as in, usable by people with disabilities) as their simpler, text-and-image-based predecessors used to be.
Just because <canvas> and cool CSS3 hacks are part of the W3C standard doesn't mean that you can use them wherever you want. If you use CSS3 hacks to convey meaning, that meaning is lost not only to old IE users but also to anyone who is visually challenged. Sooner or later, this is going to become a taboo, and all of us who did it will drop our heads in shame as if we'd used tables for layout. (Tables were, and still are, a W3C standard after all.)
On the other hand, I do want to discourage people from using IE7. How do we do that without turning every webpage into a shiny animated app? My answer would be simple: wrap all my CSS and JS links in a conditional comment that hides them from older versions of IE. Give those users the authentic Lynx experience. After all, it will probably be prettier, not to mention more accessible, than any "graceful degradation" hack that I can cook up.
Older design? That's too nice. What about no design? (Remember, your site should still work fine with no design.)
I'd just like to join you up here on this soapbox and point out three nice benchmarks I've personally used to keep things I make nicely accessible:
- It must be simple to use your api via command line Curl
- Any site you make must look decent or at least be usable without css or javascript
- All sites must be fully navigable and understandable in lynx (the command line browser).
Keep with these, and the way is easy.
I support "links" but not lynx.
However I disagree. Most consumer pages don't need to look decent without CSS, be usable probably but not look decent. CSS is how you make the pages look decent.
I think that's ultimately what I mean. As an example, compare this screenshot of my site[0] with css and Javascript on to this screenshot[1] with it off. It's still perfectly usable, even if it doesn't look nice. But the same basic structure of the page is evident, and it's not like things are suddenly jammed together or messed up.
[0] - http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--07-32-57.p...
[1] - http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--07-33-31.p...