Clean Up, Flatten Out
By Molly E. Holzschlag
When I first started in Web design, I grabbed at everything that came down the assembly line: graphics, animation, Flash. If I didn't use something, I read about it and tried out the code, the software, or the technique. I experimented, and I loved it all. In my frenzy, I made some offensive mistakes, and I still make them. But I'm learning a lot, and one thing I'm noticing is that my bad habits have sometimes gotten in the way of designing aesthetically great sites that embrace today's recommended markup and related practices. It's like being a self-taught guitar player. I'm innovative but encumbered.
In our rush to build the Web, we've fallen into some really limiting habits when it comes to both our visual designs and our technology presentations. The more I study markup—especially in the context of XML—the more I'm convinced that the solution to our design woes lies in the essence of markup, and not in the fun frills.
In my early days as a Web designer, I had friends who'd been in the computer industry for years, had been using the Internet for email, Telnet, FTP, and Usenet. They hated graphics, even hated the idea of GUI access to the Web. They made fun of me for anticipating the possibility of a visual Web, much less a media-rich Web.
It's odd for me—especially with my love of broadband and clever Flash design—to come around to a purist point of view when it comes to visual Web design. Perhaps I'm not as radical as the friends who once teased me, and I don't regret my experimental frenzy one bit. But now it's time for all of us to pay attention to what we're doing, why we're doing it, and for whom.
