Designing with Web Standards

Jeffery Zeldman is renowned in Web design circles for his tireless work in promoting Web standards, both to browser manufacturers and to the Web design community. His new book, "Designing with Web Standards", brings together all his thoughts, arguments and philosophies into one neat package that is both easy to read and entertaining.

Zeldman's claim that 99% of all Web sites are obsolete might come as a surprise to many designers who think that they are at the cutting edge. We all know that the various browsers and browser versions can be a pain but some designers choose to ignore the problem. Some use 'browser sniffing' techniques to try to isolate problems, but it is easy to make a browser pretend to be another one. Zeldman says that the only real answer is to adhere to Web standards because that is the only reliable way to design sites for now and for the future. He goes on to back-up his case with examples of real sites, some of which only work in Explorer on a PC.

We have all heard the argument, 'But that's what the client wanted!'. That is a lame excuse served up by equally lame designers. Clients, bless 'em, think that they know what they want and have to be convinced otherwise to protect them from their own ignorance.