WSA Winner
Thursday July 7th, 2005
What do you get if you cross Cameron Moll with Patrick Griffiths? An old dog with some new tricks... Ahem!
A crisp, clean design combined with lush colours is enough in itself to make this site an attractive prospect. The fact that the whole thing is (invisibly) liquid, and a perfectly executed example to boot, is what really sets it apart though. It is a true joy to explore and that's what I am off to do now, explore some more.
Reviewed by John Oxton
#1
Apart from being a site Andy Budd's involved in, I am seeing absolutely nothing stands this site above from everything else from the CSS Vault.
It used to be that WSA would feature the cream of standards based sites, hence the (very) infrequent updates. I would prefer it stayed that wya, to be honest.
Posted by Ben Sekulowicz :: July 7th, 2005 at 03:03 PM
#2
First and foremost keep in mind I have met Andy Budd once in my life, just so you know.
Also, in my opinion this IS one of the cream of the crop at the moment. Show me something better?!
Posted by John Oxton :: July 7th, 2005 at 03:07 PM
#3
Yeah, I thought this site was excellent. Can't really describe why it's so good... but it is.
Posted by Turnip :: July 7th, 2005 at 04:32 PM
#4
I agree with Ben's comment here. If this is the cream of the crop why is it that a certain page (Andy Budd's page no less) has text running out of the blue area there on the bottom right?
http://www.vivabit.co.uk/training/advancedcss/
Not intentional I think and not very top notch. I do like the clean feel I get, also like the 3 colums on the homepage although the tabs in the second column don't 'touch' the first column like the tabs in the third cloumn do. Don't like the rounded form design. Also do not like the favicon (it's red and there is no red in the site anywhere).
Posted by Dion :: July 7th, 2005 at 06:51 PM
#5
@Dion: I'm not able to see "text running out of the blue area". Perhaps you could describe in what browser/OS combination you experience this.
And just to iterate what John said earlier: Vivabit is most definitely cream of the crop!
Posted by Johan Edlund :: July 7th, 2005 at 07:13 PM
#6
I love this site - the use of colour and the composition both ooze class. There is a slight 'bug' on ff PC with the bottom of the white box / left column being out by a pixel on certain pages, but I'm sure that's just a tweak. Well done.
Posted by Kev :: July 7th, 2005 at 10:42 PM
#7
I'd like to echo Ben's comments. It would be nice to see the WSA looking beyond the blog community for it's awards. I've no doubt that Shaun Inman, and the excellent 456 Berea St deserve their accolades, but there are plenty of commercial sites out there which deserve applause for their use of web standards that are being negelected.
Posted by James Box :: July 8th, 2005 at 09:26 AM
#8
While the site appears to validate and pass the 508 etc., it's very poorly constructed. I would conclude that while the author is able to pull off the technical tricks in order to create a 'standards' site (passing the tests, etc), he fails to understand the reason behind standards compliance -- a trend we are seeing more and more of recently.
For instance: what's the point in this??
Not to mention the litany of s everywhere.
As a design, it's nice enough, but the construction methods -- while appearing tight and regulated -- are shoddy at best.
Posted by Jordan :: July 8th, 2005 at 09:43 AM
#9
My code examples appear to have disappeared, for the first space read:
and "Not to mention the litany of s everywhere" should be:
Not to mention the litany of s everywhere.
Posted by Jordan :: July 8th, 2005 at 09:45 AM
#10
I give up.
Posted by Jordan :: July 8th, 2005 at 09:46 AM
#11
Looks nice, but it certainly doesn't warrant a standing ovation.
Admittedly it scales quite nicely if you bump the text size up, and it's got a fairly simple design and colourscheme, but it's also loaded with spurious spans and divs to achieve purely visual effects.
I have to say, there's more well-considered standards-compliant sites out there.
It does seem that there's a certain amount of old-boy-network back-slapping going on sometimes with a lot of these "standards recognition" sites, which can be quite disheartening to those of us doing this day in, day out on some pretty large-scale projects.
Posted by Andy Hawkes :: July 8th, 2005 at 09:56 AM
#12
Lets be honest, this site is attractive. But I thought WSA was about Web Standards - Form and Function. Combined.
As Jordan says, it does validate but this isn't a site that I would show someone as a good example of standards based design. And that's what I *thought* WSA was about. Maybe times have changed, but it looks like there maybe an opening in the market for a site of this nature - Great standards based sites.
Posted by Jon Patchett :: July 8th, 2005 at 10:00 AM
#13
Thanks for the kind words about this site. I'm extremely proud of it, and it's great that it's received a web standards award.
To pick up on a few of the criticisms...
I really don't get this crap about it not being web standard. Is this supposed to be because of the spans and divs? They're *necessary*, completely standard and don't mess up the semantics of the document *in the slightest*.
I've tried to do something that is different from the run-of-the-mill fixed-width, single pixel border, right-angled corner etc. etc. of many CSS designed sites. It's an example of what *else* can be done with web standards. Due to the limitations of CSS (which are accounted for with CSS 3), certain HTML scaffolding is necessary.
If a client were to come to you, for example, show you a design and say "I want this to work as a web page," would you say "no, we can't do that, because that'll mean I have to put in more span and div elements"?
Is the suggestion that certain design choices should be avoided for the sake of the "purity" of span and div-free HTML?
As for "he fails to understand the reason behind standards compliance," that's bullshit, as those who know me (and my publisher, as one example) will attest to.
Jordan - if you'd like to try again with your "what's the point in this," maybe I can explain.
Just as another note, Andy Budd had no input into this site whatsoever.
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 12:27 PM
#14
It's pretty clear to me now that this website does not deserve an award. One of the pluspoints of using web standards is that a website will more or less look the same in every browser (or so I thought other designers also think this way). And for one reason or the other this site does not display as correctly in Safari 2 on Tiger as it does on Firefox Tiger. All the quirks I describe above result from looking at this site through Safari. All problems dissapear when viewed in Firefox. Which make me think more possitive about the look and feel of this site. The design still is nice.
Posted by Dion :: July 8th, 2005 at 12:46 PM
#15
Ah. Dion - Unfortunately I don't have Tiger or Safari 2, so it hasn't been tested on that. It is tested, and seems to be fine, on previous version of Safari.
It would be a terrific delight if web standards really *did* mean designs looked the same on all browsers, but as I'm sure everyone knows, it takes a bit of tweaking!
I will attempt to look into it...
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 01:17 PM
#16
Hello Patrick,
Good to see you taking the criticisms on board.
Having worked with standards compliant design for years, I'm fully aware that there is certain scaffolding necessary, however with many of the fabulously innovative techniques around in 2005 (image replacement techniques for example) I find it impossible to believe that the following markup is required, and I'd be fascinated to hear why you think it is:
<span class="icontain"><span><span><span><input name="cName" id="cName" /></span></span></span></span>
Posted by Jordan :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:16 PM
#17
Hi Jordan. I'm glad you managed to get the code printed!
Each of the form fields has four rounded corners, and because they can be any width or height due to the liquid and elastic nature of the layout, that means four separate background images are required - one for each corner. Because of the current state of CSS 2, which only allows one background image per box, that means four boxes, and therefore four elements, were required.
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:22 PM
#18
I think what Jordan means is that there are other ways around this problem - especially on small scale sites like the one shown here.*
For example, a form doesn't just have one element that can hold a background - why not make use of the additional, consisten elements contained within the fieldset, such as legends or submit buttons. Some clever CSS/HTML and you can apply your corners to these elements, (which will be present anyway) and get rid of the extrenuos markup.
* I would expect to see more scaffolding on large sites that are based aorund CMS systems, since these are much less consistent with their placement of certain elements, and you can't rely on the order of elements appearing.
Posted by Ben :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:27 PM
#19
@ben
cause the rounded corners are only presentational elements, why not use javascript and the DOM to add the necessary elements?
Posted by ml :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:31 PM
#20
Ben, I fully understand that there are other elements' boxes that can be taken advantage of, but in this example, there is no way of accurately lining up corners to the side of the form fields.
Trust me, this is the best way.
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:34 PM
#21
Oh, and ml - good point. I'm glad that came up. The JavaScript approach was considered and rejected - I didn't want to rely on another technology. There are pros and cons to both approaches, I think.
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:36 PM
#22
Or further: why not use the heading element, the paragraph element, etc. of the content within the box to assign the corners, as is done here: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/customcorners/
Let me make it clear that I'm not attacking the design (which I think is rather nice), nor even the methods used to build it (not my place). The only thing I'm saying is that for a site winning a 'web-standards award', I was a little surprised at the bloated markup.
Posted by Jordan :: July 8th, 2005 at 02:39 PM
#23
In my opinion, it would be far neater to do this using JavaScript. If used correctly, using the DOM, this could be achieved to work in the majority of browsers and even scale gracefully where JavaScript is disabled.
I just personally don't think the extra markup is the right direction for the web standards movement. I know that it is difficult, given browser support and the lack of features in the CSS1 spec, but it's something I couldn't live with.
At the end of the day, the site does go a long way in utilising web standards and accessible practices. It's just that I don't personally agree with some of the structure, methods, or the WSA accolade.
However, it looks like we have a very constructive discussion going on here.
Posted by Jon Patchett :: July 8th, 2005 at 03:28 PM
#24
#7 - James: What blog? Did you actually look at the VivaBit site?
Sorry, I can't see what the whingers are on about here. It looks crisp, fresh and different. The fluid/elastic layout coding is excellent, and it breaks the boring norm of "centered 760px box'. It deserves an award in my opinion.
Who cares about a few spans for goodness sake?! This is the real world!
Posted by Jon Hicks :: July 8th, 2005 at 03:38 PM
#25
Jordan - I don't quite follow what you're getting at there. Where there is a spare box available, such as a paragraph or heading, it is always utilised. The spans are only added when there is a need for more background images to be applied to the "same element".
Jon - Using JavaScript to insert elements is certainly an option, and was considered, as mentioned. As you say, this is a subject of taste, and I opted to go one valid route as opposed to an other, equally valid route.
I wouldn't agree that it would degrade gracefully though - you would have a design with corners in some places but not others, looking rather odd.
Keep in mind that amongst all of this talk of extra markup, it does not hinder the semantics of the document.
It was either extra markup or compromised design, and surely one of the things we should be promoting as web standards advocates, is that there need not be any compromise when it comes to design.
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 03:43 PM
#26
Patrick,
The corners are a purely aesthetic thing. If JavaScript was used to insert the corners, and JavaScript was disabled in a particular browser, the content would still be accessible i.e. degrade gracefully.
Jon.
Posted by Jon Patchett :: July 8th, 2005 at 04:07 PM
#27
What a thoroughly absurd set of comments. I have left my own opinions off site as it's not really fair to drag the WSA down to my level. I mean that IS what you are suggesting isn't it? That I can't judge properly?
Posted by John Oxton :: July 8th, 2005 at 04:21 PM
#28
@ #26 - I understand that, but degrading isn't all about the underlying content. The term "degrading gracefully" is *usually* applied to that because it's usually talked of in terms of what would happen when CSS is off. But in this case, if only JavaScript is off, then the visual side degrades, and probably not in a way that could be described as graceful!
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 04:22 PM
#29
John,
The majority of comments on here are constructive and well founded and I'm not sure what you are getting at.
I think it's fair to say that not everyone is going to agree with an award. If you don't want to hear any negative comments then why have a comments system? If you only welcome comments on how great the site is and how brilliant a reviewer you are, maybe you should change the literature so that it's not so misleading for people who are trying to get something out of this. Honestly.
Posted by Jon Patchett :: July 8th, 2005 at 04:54 PM
#30
"Apart from being a site Andy Budd's involved in, I am seeing absolutely nothing stands this site above from everything else"
Constructive?
"old-boy-network back-slapping going on"
Simply not true.
"Maybe times have changed, but it looks like there maybe an opening in the market for a site of this nature - Great standards based sites."
Exactly what is implied here?
I am sorry Jon but a lot of the conversation here is far from contructive, what has any of the above got to do with the actual site in question?
Posted by John Oxton :: July 8th, 2005 at 05:00 PM
#31
Can I just say, it's fair comment to say whether you agree with an award or not if you like or dislike the design.
The main argument here, however, seems to be surrounding the code underneath the design. I've done my best to explain *why* the code is the way it is, and why it's necessary to be that way.
One can say one doesn't like the "extra" markup, but then the design can't be achieved without it (or essentially doing the same thing by using JavaScript). This isn't really opinion talking here, it's fact.
Posted by Patrick :: July 8th, 2005 at 05:09 PM
#32
Patrick,
I'm not trying to argue but it would be gracefull? How would you describe your site in a screen reader without the rounded corners?
Jon
Posted by Jon Patchett :: July 8th, 2005 at 05:11 PM
#33
Allright, let's get real now. What is WSA about?
Look at the criteria: it's about visual appeal, it's about separation between data and presentation, it's about quality of code, it's about usability, it's about accessibility. All in all, it's about uniqueness.
So, where does this site go wrong? Nowhere.
In my opinion, the visual appeal is fresh and attracting; something different! Nice colors, good contrast. There's also clear separation. The code validates (W3C). The navigation does not get me lost. The site does not depend on javascript or what so ever; instead, it's very relyable, even visually. Overall, I think it's quite unique.
I'd like to make a small comparison.
Lot of people think Shaun Inman's site is cutting edge. I agree: it is.
Lot of people think he therefore deserves an award. And again, I agree.
Somehow.
But... One has to admit: his site is not liquid. It does not fit in 800x600. It can not cope with large fonts very well (true, this is very hard to achieve). I remember his site didn't validate at first. And it really needs Javascript (Firefox/XP/SP2), otherwise navigation is a complete mess. Besides, it's easy to get lost anyway: I think it's not intuitive, may be even a bit confusing. And last but not least, is his design really that attractive?
So what are we talking about? If Shaun deserves an award, Vivabit does as well.
Less is more. More or less...
Therefore, I have to agree with Jon Hicks (#24): excellent fluid design, unique!
Great job guys, very inspiring!
Posted by Marc :: July 8th, 2005 at 07:35 PM
#34
#11 -Andy said "It does seem that there's a certain amount of old-boy-network back-slapping going on sometimes with a lot of these "standards recognition" sites, which can be quite disheartening to those of us doing this day in, day out on some pretty large-scale projects."
Then submit your site to be judged! Let the WSA know about it, and then will stand a chance of getting in!
#23 - Jon said "In my opinion, it would be far neater to do this using JavaScript. If used correctly, using the DOM, this could be achieved to work in the majority of browsers and even scale gracefully where JavaScript is disable"
Sure, but when viewing the site with CSS off, the rounded corners will still show. Then it's starts to get a bit messy.
I agree with Patrick - there are plusses and minuses to both approaches, but neither is a perfect solution. Therefore, I don't think Patrick's choice of route should be a reason for not getting this award.
By all means, lets discuss the design and coding, but as John said, resorting to calls of 'old-boys network' or completely wrong accusations of 'another blog site' and involvement with Andy Budd.
Posted by Jon Hicks :: July 8th, 2005 at 08:10 PM
#35
Hi Jon,
I think you make a very fair point.
Just a quick note - If you use JavaScript to achieve the rounded corner effect, by manipulating the DOM, the styles will still be controlled via the CSS. So, with CSS off, the corners won't show.
Jon.
Posted by Jon Patchett :: July 8th, 2005 at 10:06 PM
#36
Hi Guys,
Thought I felt my ears burning :-)
First off, as several people mentioned, this site has nothing to do with me. It was designed by Cameron Moll and developed by Patrick Griffiths. Sure I'm running a CSS training course in association with Patrick and @media, but that's where any involvement ends.
I have to admit that I don't like the implication that the site would have been given an award because of any perceived involvement by myself. For the record I have nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the WSA. I'm no longer involved in picking the "weekly awards" and am never consulted on what sites are chosen. Currently my only involvement is submitting my vote for the gold star award along with the other monthly judges.
I'd agree with Ben and James that many of the sites awarded do come from a limited subset of sources. However there is good reason for this and it has nothing to do with favoritism, nepotism or lack of trying.
All of the judges are active members of the web standards community, so they read the same blogs, visit the same showcase sites and know many of the same people. When another member of the web standards community releases a new site, they get too hear about it. When a site gets featured on the CSS vault, they get to see it. As such, many of the sites featured here will have inevitably been featured elsewhere. This may give the false impression of favoritism. It may also give the impression of a closed community. However that's not the case. It's just that new sites get propagated so quickly it can sometimes feel that way.
Unfortunately the WSA judges don't have a magic list of every CSS site launched, so they have to rely on finding out about them from the community. While there are many web designers out there who like to blog about their latest work, there are many more that go unnoticed. If people aren't publicising these sites, how do you expect the WSA judges to find out about them? They're not psychic you know.
The WSA has a nominations list, so if you come across a great site that deserves an award, rather than carping on about the lazy judges not doing enough to earn their keep, why not try to help? Let them know about the latest cool site you've seen or created. Tell them why it's so good and why it deserves an award. There is only so much time three people can spend researching sites. These awards are your awards, so you have some responsibility to make your own suggestions if you if you don't think there is enough diversity.
On the subject of why various sites are chosen. First off, design is very subjective. So just because you don't personally like the design, doesn't mean the design isn't worthy of an award. Secondly, as I said in the comments of Shaun Imnans award, sites are chosen for a whole range of reasons.
Some sites are awarded for their simplicity and usability, others are awarded for their strict adherence to standards. Some are awarded for great visual design while others are awarded for their innovation. If every site was awarded based on the same strict set of guidelines, the awards would be very dull indeed.
The criteria is very subjective. You may think that the most defining feature of a standards based site is the purity of the code, somebody else may think it's all about the design. However you need to get over your own personal subjective bias and look at the sites in a more objective fashion.
It's easy to nitpick. People find it much easier highlighting what's bad in something than highlighting what's good. In fact many in the standards community revel in it. You can always find something small to complain about. And by complaining about it you demonstrate your superiority. "Well it's a great looking site alright, but it has an unencoded ampersand ergo, I'm great and you suck". If any of you saw my SXSW presentation you'll know what I'm talking about. Get off your high horses for a second and celebrate what's good about a site rather than dwelling on the minutia.
Posted by Andy Budd :: July 9th, 2005 at 01:46 AM
#37
To bring the discussion back to the site at hand...
It definitely deserves an award. Beautiful colors, typography, imagery. Perhaps a bit crowded at smaller resolutions but that shouldn't be much of a problem with the intended audience.
Very ambitious design undertaking too. Fluid design with rounded corners? Not sure I would want to be the one to make that work.
Only complaint would be the nav. After looking around a bit, it became clear that the training, consulting and design links are different to stand out. At first I thought they were to indicate what page I was on, or hadn't yet visited.
So does the highlighting of these links really serve a purpose? Were the designers really concerned that visitors wouldn't notice and/or click on them?
Posted by clint :: July 10th, 2005 at 05:54 AM
#38
Hats off to the reviewer. This site is everything that a WSA should be!
* Clean markup (plus some non-invasive tags to help the CSS along)
* Pushing the limits of CSS
* Valid
* Interesting content
* More than a blog
* Rock solid design
@clint - I think highlighting the nav links was a great idea, especially from a marketing perspective, if not a usability one.
Posted by Terry E. :: July 10th, 2005 at 07:33 PM
#39
This is really interesting stuff, and I guess people's opinions come down to how you perceive the WSA's.
Should you be looking in too much detail at the code? Personally, I don't think that that's what these awards are about. I think they're about beautiful sites almost solely from a visual point of view. The markup and CSS, as long as it validates and is 'web standards', is of secondary importance. The emphasis is very much on visual design. Just take a look through the archives here to see how true that is.
Therefore I feel this argument is fairly irrelevant. The mark up shown above is about achieving a visual effect in the only way possible - and from a visual design point of view it had to be done.
The question is, should the kind of mark-up that some Standardistas would not dream of creating be endowed with a Web Standards Award?
Well, that comes down to the original question of how you percieve the awards. Like I said above, these awards focus on visual beauty above all else, and on those grounds Cameron Moll's design definitely deserves the recognition.
I say good choice, John.
Posted by Andy Hume :: July 10th, 2005 at 08:15 PM
#40
Other than saying this is an award deserving site, my only feedback is on the sheer amount of information crowded onto the home page.
Usability may say this is a good thing but that front page demands a lot of the viewer.
White space, blue space any space at all.
I realy do like the remainder of the site's two column layout.
Well done and all the best with the venture.
Posted by John :: July 11th, 2005 at 10:39 AM
#41
Andy (#36) hits it all the way home. I don't think there's much more to add to the debate, frankly. It's a beautiful site with brilliant execution (the liquid design blows my mind) and well-deserving of any huzzahs it receives.
If I had any quibbles whatsoever, it would be that the full-width image and "tagline" doesn't seem to be the best use of space - it is the primary focal point, but doesn't really impart any information to justifies its visual immediacy.
I recognize that it's meant as a counterbalance to the columns below, but there might have been a better way to accomplish this and use the design space more effective.
Just my two bits, is all. Huzzah!
Posted by neil :: July 11th, 2005 at 02:13 PM
#42
Don't know that there's much I can offer (as it seems most every angle has been hit) but I took a look at the Vivabit site before reading any comments and certainly thought it was well-deserving of this award. All this talk of "too many spans" and "you coulda done it this way instead" seems to really miss the point. It would seem to me that what matters most is what the user experiences... and that experience seems consistant. A few additional span tags aren't gonna choke the life out of a site. Naturally any type of review or award will be subjective and there will always be dissenters. Hopefully those who disagree with the selection of this site will submit sites they consider at least it's equal or better for future award consideration.
Great work, Patrick.
Posted by Josh :: July 11th, 2005 at 02:33 PM
#43
I sense a lot of web standards veiled jealously in many of these posts. Remove the extra spans and everything else that people like to complain about and they'd still complain because their name isn't on the award.
"By showing you standards-compliant sites that make your jaw drop, we hope to show you that web standards aren't a constraint, they are a liberation."
I'd be seriously surprised if anyone that actually followed the link to the site (that can appreciate good work that they didn't do themselves) honestly didn't think "wow, this pretty damn nice" when they first saw the site.
Posted by Rob :: July 11th, 2005 at 04:16 PM
#44
Let's chime in for a bit, shan't I?
Wow. That's what I thought. Web standards, liquid and yet it's so extremely graphic-rich. Major kudos. I trust Patrick's web standards knowledge well enough to not even look at the source code to trust it. I have yet to take a first glance, but I don't need to. It's damn sexy, and wow, liquid. Taking liquid to the next level. Now I need to work harder ;)
Posted by Rob Mientjes :: July 11th, 2005 at 07:19 PM
#45
fucking a. the nits here are freakishly banal.
i feel icky after reading these comments and need a shower. i think i'm going to create an entire website consisting of one 5 mb flash file as means of therapy.
Posted by k.klein :: July 11th, 2005 at 10:22 PM
#46
i mean criticising a favicon?
that's like cooking a fine 7 course meal and getting bitched at because the salad fork and the appetizer fork were too close in size.
Posted by k.klein :: July 11th, 2005 at 10:26 PM
#47
Wow. Stunning. I'm still pretty new to web standards, but even if I studied for years, I'd never be able to come up with such a gorgeous design. It's nice to know it's possible, though.
Posted by Kathy :: July 11th, 2005 at 11:19 PM
#48
The surest evidence that you've created something less than extraordinary is if everyone likes it.
Relish the peanut gallery. Relish the naive criticism. It's the sign of greatness.
Well done!
Posted by Mike D. :: July 12th, 2005 at 02:06 AM
#49
XHTML + CSS are not perfect. They simply are not able to express every possible visual design whilst maintaining a purely semantic markup. Some structural markup is necessary, and avoiding it may not always be beneficial. IMO clever techniques to avoid structural markup are a compromise that can make CSS less clear - worth thinking about if someone else is going to maintain your code.
Total seperation of content and design is only really possible by marking up your content in XML and using XSLT or some other transformation method to generate the web page. A site using this methodology is quicker to develop and maintain and can offer visitors a number of versions of a page from plain content only to highly visual.
Posted by Alex Farran :: July 12th, 2005 at 08:34 AM
#50
Really nice work.
Posted by Conánn :: July 12th, 2005 at 10:11 AM
#51
Andy and Mike: well said.
It's a beautiful site, and the elastic-liquid layout is mindblowingly awesome. Very, very well-crafted and it's visually great to boot.
One thing I wonder, though: why was there no styling applied to the form fields? In any inverted color scheme, which common in linux, but also possible (and useful) in windows, the form fields are black boxes with white spacing and rounded corners around them. Looks very silly. :-)
But, the nitpicking aside, I think it's a superbe site, and very much deserving of the WSA.
Posted by Faruk Ateş :: July 12th, 2005 at 10:11 AM
#52
Are web standards still cutting edge?
I'm not to sure about that. They are standards, sites which fall below are substandard. That's about the end of it in my opinion.
But shauninman.com on the other hand, that is cutting edge. Unobtrusive Javascript and AJAX, those are the places where new things are happening.
Rounded corners?
Really cutting edge?
Posted by Douglas :: July 12th, 2005 at 10:53 AM
#53
Between flexible layout, which can only improve user experience and a few extra <spanz> 'n' <divz>... well we all know... From w3c (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.5.4):
“The DIV and SPAN elements, in conjunction with the id and class attributes, offer a generic mechanism for adding structure to documents. These elements define content to be inline (SPAN) or block-level (DIV) but impose no other presentational idioms on the content. Thus, authors may use these elements in conjunction with style sheets, the lang attribute, etc., to tailor HTML to their own needs and tastes.”
Design is, needless to say, excellent in all it's aspects. Congrats to both!
Posted by maratz :: July 12th, 2005 at 12:37 PM
#54
Doesn't speak to me visually, but maybe it's not supposed to.
Posted by Jason Gaylor :: July 13th, 2005 at 01:17 PM
#55
I would first like to say that the site is well done and does deserve the award. But over other sites...? Well, perhaps.
I would like to point out a thought that I've been debating on a lot recently: It really does seem like the design sites are giving awards to the same upper echeloen of developers out there. Stylegala, here, etc... It really seems like someone different has a really hard time "breaking in."
Now is that because the people who get the awards because they are
A) Really good and always produce really high quality work or
B) Giving a AWESOMENESS+1 because of their name..?
I haven't decided yet. I would love to say choice A, but recently I've been feeling like B is becoming an ingrediant too.
I hope I didnt offend anyone, and I truly do believe that the sites that get these awards deserve. It's just a question of do they deserve it over other sites?
Posted by Kris Gosser :: July 14th, 2005 at 03:57 AM
#56
You do really need to consider why the top designers are the top designers in the first place, it's because they are bloody good at what they do. They don't always get awarded or featured though. Take the recent Zeldman/Bowman collaboration, didn't really make a big splash as I remember. I can't speak for any of the other showcase sites but certainly here at WSA, if you have something good you want us to see, submit it so you are sure it is seen. But don't expect it to feature the next day we have a lot of submissions to get through, so it might take a little time.
Personally, the name doesn't matter to me, I am in no way a yes man, nor do I get a kick out of sucking up to the big boys -- I really have no need to do so -- but yes, I will admit quite openly, and as Andy Budd already said, that the big names do get noticed quicker because we read their blogs, often daily.
Also, keep in mind that I am still very new to WSA and let me tell you these buggers here have shunned loads of my submissions in the past, some of them built by my good self and worthy of more publicity, I mean I am mates with Andy Clarke for God's sake, why!? So I have half a clue how it feels trying to break through, but it can be done and no-one here will try and hinder you just because some big name launched a site on the same day.
To conclude, if Vivabit showed up tomorrow I would award it exactly as I have already, it is a great looking site with some real interesting stuff under the hood. I might also, as a judge, ask you the commentators if perhaps it is you who can't see past the name to the site itself, rather than me being prejudice? I'd ask in a friendly way of course! :)
Posted by John Oxton :: July 14th, 2005 at 04:11 AM
#57
wow, some of you guys here really need to chill!
getting your knickers in a twist over too many spans and a favicon? LOL!
Posted by ian :: July 14th, 2005 at 09:34 AM
#58
@ian
Amen to that.
Posted by Mark :: July 14th, 2005 at 01:55 PM
#59
John,
Like I said, I didn't mean to offend anyone. I still believe in my heart that the upper-echeleon of designers win the awards because they are really, really friggin good. And I applaud the award given to Vivabit.
My comment stretched farther than WSA. I mean, the "big boys" are big boys because they win WSA stuff. It's just other gallerys/award sites seem to want to fit in, so they portray a lot of the same stuff as any other site, like WSA...
I probably spoke round in a circle there, but I hope you get my drift, and also understand I'm not trying to downsize raw skill. Especially to the people that deserve the WSA awards.
Posted by Kris Gosser :: July 15th, 2005 at 02:46 AM
#60
javascript = usability
css = styles
html = structure
the curved corners should be done in css, not javascript
Posted by Martin :: July 16th, 2005 at 12:48 PM
#61
Wow... Okay, the Vivabit site is really a beauty. Truly... Take the criticisms with a grain of salt (as I'm sure you are). The site is a gem, and an amazing example of what can be done with visual CSS.
The liquid @Media image in the middle column is really a nice touch. Can't say enough great stuff about this site. Well done guys.
Posted by Josh Williams :: July 16th, 2005 at 06:11 PM
#62
So John, one question only: Which of the two is the old dog?
(snicker)
Posted by Cameron Moll :: July 18th, 2005 at 09:22 PM
#63
Nicely done, to both of you, seriously.
Having actually read all the comments, I just have to *sigh*...
The lifespan of a website is way too short to worry about extra spans. What's important is that the site serves a purpose, and communicates (very well) what it needs to, to who it needs to. Regardless of whether it wins awards.
Get some perspective - if you're building a site to win awards, you're just not getting it.
Keep up the good work guys :-)
Posted by Martin :: July 20th, 2005 at 02:25 PM
#64
A lot can be learnt from the layout of this site - a truly commendable effort. Well done!
Posted by coda :: July 20th, 2005 at 03:21 PM
#65
I have nothing to add. These comments were so insanely long, I just had to add something. Don't you people work?
Just kidding.
Personally, I like the site. The color combination alone sets it apart, since it's really very unusual for a corporate site to use such a dark color theme. But, what I like the most if the clean look of the site -- just enough information without being too much.
Dude, building business sites with web standards (beyond the box + text) is *hard* -- if you're not careful all your sites will resemble one another.
They did a good job with this one.
Jonathan
Posted by Jonathan :: July 26th, 2005 at 12:08 PM
#66
The true genius of this design shows when you un-maximize the window and resize it, almost as small as you like. Elements move, resize themselves and yet everything stays proportional. I love the top brightness descending into bottom darkness.
Posted by Rose :: August 11th, 2005 at 02:51 PM
#67
Quote from the page:
" How do you save a Photoshop file as an HTML page?
The short answer is that you can't.
The still short, but slightly more interesting answer is... you can send it to us.
That's right, we've got a special magic plug-in.
(...)"
huh? now that's weird
Posted by adam :: August 12th, 2005 at 09:27 AM
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