This award goes to a site that shows CSS design isn't just the preserve of personal sites or big corporations. Designed by the excellent TwoThirty Media, this site can only be described as wildly sophisticated. But then, I'm a sucker for grid based layouts and big, bold use of photography.
Reviewed by Andy Budd
Really nice site - but isn't one of the judging criteria that the page should validate? According to the W3C validator, this isn't valid (I don't think it likes H1 tags contained within an A tag...
Posted by Seb :: February 10th, 2004 at 01:46 PM
this is the award i've been waiting for!
Great idea, very useful and inspirational.
Great site, somehow Wildly is right, but I think this should also be a inspirational resource for layouts made with html, and so deciding to award this site with the WSA.
Greets
Posted by Hedroy Peter :: February 10th, 2004 at 01:53 PM
This one is really cool, so inspiring and so clean! Very nice design indeed.
However if these are web standards awards, in my opinion the site should validate.
Posted by dusoft :: February 10th, 2004 at 02:53 PM
Validate... Shmalidate.
If a site meets the main objectives of using Web Standards but doesn't validate because of a minor error then that’s OK. Nobody died.
After all just because Yoko sang on Imagine, it doesn't mean it sucks.
I love the site. I want it.
...now where did I leave my slingbacks?
Posted by Bob :: February 10th, 2004 at 06:20 PM
This site getting the award is just a travesty.
Try to view the site with CSS disabled or images disabled. If you disable the images, you cannot navigate the site at all. There are other issues as well, but this single one is serious enough to warrant a re-think of the award.
However, the site is beautiful. But perhaps a tables-for-layout version is likely to be much more accessible than this version.
Posted by Niket :: February 10th, 2004 at 07:00 PM
Thanks everybody for the feedback. While it is true that validation and accessibility are important criteria, they are not the only criteria these sites are judged on. It was felt that this site exemplified good CSS based design, and the validation issues were minor and easily rectifiable.
Posted by Andy Budd :: February 10th, 2004 at 09:53 PM
Don't mean to be annoying, but both the inner comment pages and the Main stylesheet are invalid. Some people might take issue with the fact that a site that hands out "awards" for web standards doesn't validate itself (especially when all the pages have W3C links to the invalid declarations. Oh the irony!). Otherwise, great job. And great idea, wish I would have thought of it.
Posted by Adam :: February 11th, 2004 at 04:07 AM
Try to load the page in NS6+ It takes forever....
Posted by Chris :: February 11th, 2004 at 08:49 AM
My personal opinion is that I will check to see if a design is valid every time I finish coding one. It takes barely any time. In opera, just right click, and select "validate source".
Minor errors, in my opinion, however minor they may be, indicate to me that the designers simply don't care about validation all that much. If they did, they would have bothered to take a couple of seconds , and check to see if the page validates.
Posted by Francey :: February 11th, 2004 at 10:25 AM
I think loading times should also be taken into account. Wildly Sophisticated does take about 10-12 seconds to load on Win MS IE6 or Safari over BB for me.
It's the overall user experience that also counts, I think.
Posted by Michael :: February 11th, 2004 at 12:29 PM
hey guys,
since when is a site built with standards not a work in progress? you all talk like those errors are perminent. my company is still working on the frontend of the site and keeps working towards it being 100% valid. we did know it didn't validate, but we also had timelines to work within, and i wasn't going to delay the launch because of a few minor validation errors that could be fixed while it was live.
1. the h1 tags in the a tags, i couldn't figure out a better way to do it. i tried ul/li's for almost a day until gave up on them. if anyone has suggestions, i'd love to hear them.
2. a php session id breaks validation too, but the programming company that did the php work has since finished the contract, so i can't really do anything about that one.
3. it not working with css-disabled or image-disabled isn't a problem since the site was built for a specific target demographic: trendy, working women. our research showed than 0% of them browsed with those two things turned off.
4. on some content pages there are some validation issues with content. the content is unfortunately controlled by a CMS we weren't hired to build, so again, that's not something we can fix.
with "for pay" projects although it's good to strive for 100% validation, it's not always possible since sometimes another company is hired to do the backend work. i do however want to keep working to make it valid by working to make the frontend code as perfect as i can.
suggestions are welcome.
Posted by paul :: February 11th, 2004 at 04:34 PM
Paul,
The work is indeed commendable. The site looks good; no, it looks great.
Not being a professional designer myself means that I could just sit around and pass judgement without a consideration of the constraints you had to work with. My words came off much stronger than I intended to.
I also think that headers are not list items... standards don't stop them from being so. Neither, I believe---I may be wrong---should full sentences be headers.
<li><a><strong>Blah Blah Blah</strong></a></li>
is a better option (although you may have perfectly valid reasons for having the three links as h1).
Another possible change that may improve the "readability" is:
<h3 class="hide">Home</h3<
<h3 class="hide"><a>Career confessions</a></h3>
<div id="menu1Container">
<!-- Career confessions menu -->
You may also want to add background color to the h1 list items (in addition to the bg-image)
***I hope I am not coming off as an arse here***
Andy,
Could you add preview before posting comments.
Posted by Niket :: February 11th, 2004 at 07:37 PM
"isn't a problem since the site was built for a specific target demographic: trendy, working women."
So I guess it's alright to make my website IE-only since Mozilla users aren't part of my target demographic. You completely miss the point of web standards, my friend.
Posted by Marvin X :: February 11th, 2004 at 07:41 PM
Congrats Paul on being a WSA winner!
I dearly wish you didn't have to go through the bashing that has taken place here, but instead could relax and enjoy the award.
You bring up some very good points on the web design process, especially the problems that face a collaborative team of developers.
Apparently, these issues aren't as obvious as I expected..
People, even though we appreciate an open dialog, please be considerate when posting comments on the winners. They all should be able to feel proud of their work, instead of having defend themselves.
So, from now on, I will delete any comments that has to do with the design of WSA itself or don't show enough respect for the winners. If you wish to criticize the design or validation of WSA, please use the email link in the footer.
Posted by Johan Edlund :: February 11th, 2004 at 08:12 PM
johan, before i forget (since i forgot last time) thanks for the award! i've been designing/coding for years, so i don't take any of the criticisms to heart (especially online ones), don't worry. i actually appreciate their candid feedback (although i did find "this site getting the award is just a travesty." to be completely hilarious).
getting feedback such as this only helps in refining and perfecting our code and processes.
Posted by paul :: February 11th, 2004 at 08:27 PM
Just want to say nice work Paul. Also, a two notes--
1. About the site taking forever to load... this is not a CSS or XHTML or even images issue. This is an issue with forwarding. If you notice, you'll see that the server connects and transfers a bunch of times before actually loading the page (which doesn't take long at all). I remember talking to you about this problem with other 230 sites last summer, Paul, and this seems to be that same problem.
2. About the H1 in the A problem... why not use selectors for that block... something like:
#home-content ul li {
/* text styles */
}
Anyway, nice work.
Posted by Garrett :: February 12th, 2004 at 12:41 AM
This is a very clean and professional design that I am very keen on. It shows good use of CSS design as well as implementing clear photography to enhance the user's experience. The colour scheme compliments the website content as well as giving a friendly appeal.
Good work twothirty!
Posted by Simon Jobling :: February 12th, 2004 at 09:12 AM
It's not realistic to expect all the sites that receive this award to be 100% valid and accessible, nor is it realistic to expect all the comments here to give only positive feedback. You walk a very thin line when publicly recognizing standards compliance and no matter how careful you are in your review process someone will always feel you're on the wrong side of it.
That said, I do find a problem with this -
> 3. it not working with css-disabled or
> image-disabled isn't a problem since the
> site was built for a specific target
> demographic: trendy, working women. our
> research showed than 0% of them browsed
> with those two things turned off.
What troubles me here is not that the site is not accessible, but that you don't see accessibility being any kind of problem here. It sounds to me like you have no plans to increase the accessibility of the site (although I may have interpreted this wrong).
Not only is this a liability since the disabled may be able to sue under the ADA, but it's also bad practice simply because you're potentially losing customers.
I question your market research as it seems to me that "trendy, working women" may wish to access the site over a narrow band connection such as a PDA, tablet PC or even Opera embedded in their Nokia phone. On such devices it's not uncommon for users of graphical browsers to disable images to decrease load time or avoid horizontal scroll.
You may argue that these users should be accustomed to toggling images on and off. I feel it's better to give them the option than force them to change settings to use your site.
In any case, I wish you'd reconsider your view on the accessibility of this site.
~Damon Haidary
Posted by Damon Haidary :: February 15th, 2004 at 02:39 AM
I think the site is great. Well done!
Posted by Bridget :: March 29th, 2004 at 01:59 PM
"Not only is this a liability since the disabled may be able to sue under the ADA"
I'd love to see an example or article about a site that was sued for not being ADA compliant.
Posted by Jack :: April 10th, 2004 at 04:24 AM
Looks like Wildly Sophisticated got pirated!
http://www.roguechopper.com/
Posted by huphtur :: April 16th, 2004 at 03:34 PM
Comments on: Wildly Sophisticated