I already know a lot about web standards and am using them. I also clearly realize that using web standards is not to be able to proudly say "Hey, has your site passed the standard verification?", but for more. But as an "elite" web designer, sometimes I always feel confused. Just using and telling others about web standards is not the whole story. The question is: if we do this now, will the situation still be the same next year or the year after that? What does it look like? Are there still a small number of designers adopting web standards, while most designers continue to design sites for IE? Where are we going?
This question arose after I read the article "The Real Reason You Should Care About Web Standards" by Design by FireAndrei. Also because of Keith's article about web standards that he posted not long ago. How can we go further and do something practical for web standards? I think the first step (which may be a bad idea at all) is to have web professionals, such as Eric Meyer, Douglas Bowman, etc., conduct a comprehensive redesign and planning of the W3C verification site and guide manual. Andrei in his article "Design Eye for the Usability Guy" proposes a package of knowledge and effects is an excellent example. It simply and clearly points out the W3C site's shortcomings in many areas, such as its ugly interface. Andrei also mentioned launching a fundraising foundation to promote this matter. I personally think this is a very good idea and starting point.
Transforming W3C
The W3C is arguably the core of all things related to web standards. I mean of all things, the W3C is like a car repair shop, you "drive" your site in and get gas and all the maintenance. The reality is that if you are just starting to learn web standards, the W3C validation warnings may be difficult for you to understand. In fact, W3C should contain all CSS tutorials, which should allow you to get answers simply, instead of asking blankly what to do now. You may need to go to a certain site to find the answer, others find the answer on other sites, and unauthoritative answers are spread all over the web and continue to spark debate. It would be nice if all problems could be solved at W3C. When a problem occurs, your first thought should be to visit the W3C. OK, I know this idea is not easy to implement, but W3C should at least be useful and inspire people to learn web standards, and I am willing to devote myself to such work.
Transforming the W3C still cannot change the current situation of only a few people using standards, but it is at least a start. The real reason for the slow rollout of web standards is that Microsoft doesn't care about what it does and doesn't do because it's capable of doing (and not doing). Just like their security holes, they occur almost every day, and users cannot change this situation even if they spend a lot of money. Microsoft is willing to spend some of Longhorn's resources to continue supporting XP service pack 2 simply because too many problems have been exposed by the media and it has to do so under pressure.
European Union
The EU's case of punishing Microsoft's Windows Media Player is a joke! Every time, when I need to put a movie on a web page, I use QuickTime technology. It is a very good software. You can get a short file but good quality movie, better script processing capabilities, etc. But every time I have to "fight" and debate almost crazyly with my customers. The customer's argument is that most of the users who visit the website use Windows Media Player, why not use Windows Media Player? Isn't it annoying that this happens every time? The EU can punish Microsoft as they wish, but this does not change Microsoft's thoughts and actions. We live in a democratic society, but it does not mean that the software world is also democratic. On the contrary, the software world is full of monopolies. The same thing happens on IE browser. Maybe we have a responsibility to tell the EU and US governments what kind of environment we live in every day, but I'm almost convinced that no one has the ability to do that, since there (EU and US governments) no longer have web experts there (at least to my knowledge not enough).
Why not force manufacturers of web design software to develop applications that support web standards, thereby forcing us to use web standards in a strict way? Is this possible? Is it likely to be successful? This approach doesn't even lead to criticism. I believe that only by putting a certain amount of pressure on Microsoft can we achieve some goals. There is no pressure, everything will continue, nothing will change, and Microsoft may continue to fight a big battle. Take a look at Robert Scoble's comment.
A blacklist?
How about setting up a blacklist website? Blacklist all sites that force you to use IE and are unwilling to adopt web standards. All web-standard blog sites create links pointing to the blacklist site (the "Get FireFox" icon or the Zeldman icon is placed below the link). If it is exposed on a large scale, I believe most companies will want to be removed from the blacklist. I know it's drastic, but most commercial sites understand that maybe they've never heard of web standards, and that's a fact. Such "violence" may be necessary and may indirectly affect Microsoft.
A quality label/certificate
Another idea is to give commercial sites that adopt web standards a quality certificate, or quality label, like an ISO certificate. By doing this, we not only give our customers a guarantee that the site is based on web standards, but they will also benefit from it. After all, having a product with a quality label recognized around the world will increase its selling point. If doing so would increase "credibility and reputation" or exposure, I believe clients would be willing to consider this approach. If a large number of companies choose this approach, Microsoft will feel the pressure and consider doing something about web standards.
The above are all my personal random ideas. I don’t know how to realize them, and I don’t know if they can be realized. But at least I'm caring and trying to think about something. Perhaps these ideas can then be seen and accepted by many people (including web standards leaders) and then acted upon. It also takes some capital to help get started, changing things takes a lot of effort and money.
-----Translation completed. The following is a summary of some comments on this article. For more comments, please see the original article.
Summary of comments
Lukasz: Why are you so bothered by IE? What must you do? Let’s face the facts: Windows is the most common operating system in the world, and IE is the most common browser. IE’s share reaches more than 95%. Why should anyone care about margins (FireFox, Mozilla, etc., no matter what)? As a user, I care about the information, not whether the company follows which standard. I suggest you consider: Why is Microsoft browser so popular if it does not support standards?
lars: People have been using IE for a long time, and companies build sites that are compliant with IE and don't care about W3C web standards because of the extra cost and because there are no WYSIWYG standards-compliant editing tools. It's also almost impossible to create a blacklist, there are so many sites designed just for IE. As for Lukasz's statement that IE's share is over 95%, I disagree. Anyone who has read Zeldman's "Designing with Web Standards" knows that many other browsers pretend to be IE so that they can display sites designed only for IE.
ByteWarrior: There is already a blacklist, see here PromoZilla.nl (in the Netherlands). There are more than 300 websites on the blacklist, 50 of which have been changed to support Mozilla/Firefox.
tinotino: Microsoft is playing smart but not wisely. We are a small ax against a big tree. We need standards, just as if inches were not the standard, we would measure with our feet. I hate debugging site bugs in every available browser, it's idiotic and ineffective.
Rob van der Linde: If needed, I can help write PHO/MySQL to support building a global blacklist website (in my spare time). But I can't provide server space and domain name. Maybe we can seek support from a group of php programmers, or build such a project at Sourceforge.
David: I'm a designer and I know nothing about programming. After reading all the posts, I don't think it's that people don't want to use standards, it's just that people who already have proficient design skills don't want to give up designing and write code.
Veerle (Author): To David, I can understand that the change is not particularly obvious for designers. I'm a graphic designer, one of those people who isn't afraid to delve into code. There's no point in writing code if it makes your hair stand on end in fear. I think WYSIWYG editing software (similar to dreamWeaver) can help you. As a good web designer, even if you only care about the interface and appearance, I believe that some basic knowledge such as how code is generated is necessary to know. My daily job is to design the interface (UI) and submit (X)HTML templates to programmers. My focus is on the UI. However, I still hope that the page code can be concise and standard to replace multi-layer nested tables. When I started learning web page production in 1996, I coded all by hand. This has become my biggest advantage now. As a designer, if you know both design and XHTML/CSS skills, this will be your capital.