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One NASA Look and Feel, Web Standards to the rescue.

Web Standards to the rescue. One NASA Look and Feel CSS TEMPLATES

Why Web Standards?

NN4.x Damage Control

You're probably thinking, 'Ah ha, damage control, I knew there was a problem!'. But you'd be wrong. The damage I am talking about is the damage done by Netscape Navigator 4.x (NN4.x), and the damage we continue to let it do by confusing "support" with "pixel-for-pixel sameness". For some reason, we are under the delusion that it is more important to produce a desired look in NN4.x, than it is to create an accessible and useable website for ALL audiences (including NN4.x users).

Because of requirements that rely on "pixel-for-pixel sameness" in NN4.x our developers are forced to do all sorts of horrid things to HTML and images to make it look the same. And after we are done mangling the code so that it looks the same in NN4.x + modern browsers, we pat ourselves on the back knowing we "made it work". Unfortunately we are fooling ourselves. In fact, our sites will only work on NN4.x through the current browser of the day. And in many cases when a new browser is released (Opera, Mozilla, Safari) these NN4.x compliant web sites begin to break.

Not only that, every time there is a giant leap forward in web technology no one adopts it. Why? Because NN4.x might look different... OH NO! THE HORROR!... This mindset seriously needs to stop. We should NOT be developing web sites based on "pixel-for-pixel sameness" in a browser that quite honestly should not have been released.

Strangely enough, this has become common practice and is widely accepted as the "correct" way to build web sites. Somehow, NN4.x became the golden-child of web development, when in fact it's quite possibly the worst thing that could have happened to the web. Ask most web developers and they will tell you that a good web site is one that looks the same in NN4.x and in IE6 (or some combination like that).

To be fair to the developers of NN4.x, a lot of these bad habits are not directly a result of their browser. These practices came about because of the browser wars. The reason NN4.x is blamed for the way websites are built today is because it actually won that round of the browser wars. No one still uses IE 4 today, while some institutions still rely on NN4.x.

I am in no way suggesting we ignore NN4.x and toss it out the window (although the thought has crossed my mind). Instead, we let NN4.x do what it does best; and that is render plain, simple, structured HTML. We will actually be saving NN4.x from itself, and saving our developers from agony year after year. We'll also save on budgets from countless hours of redesign to fix the mangled sites.

Brand identity is important. But content, communication, and accessibility are more important. Imagine this website with NO words, just brand identity... Pretty useless huh? Now imagine it with just words. I think you get the point. Ask yourself again what the market for mobile web devices is. Now ask yourself how many people use NN4.x as their only browser. So why are we making our web sites completely inaccessible to mobile devices? We shouldn't be ignoring anyone (508c).

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Why Web Standards?

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