Just for fun

[wamboid]

I got a call from one of our customers yesterday wanting me to fix a problem with (edited out the url, the site was getting many more hits than normal, making them think there were customers looking rather than us - Insert your favorite poorly coded small business site url here to understand the rest of the thread) the contact page on their website. Note, my company has absolutely nothing to do with the design of this site, we only provide their internet service and hosting.

The "problem" was that the form was looking for front page extensions, which they aren't set up for, so I told them how to set the form up without the extensions. The real problem is that they used a combination of MS Publisher and and MS Front Page to develop the site. This simple two screen form takes 23 pages of code the way they have it! I felt bad not fixing the site completely, at least the code part, but I don't think my boss would appreciate paying me for that.

My question is this, is it actually that bad a thing for there to be sites out there created this poorly. That company, and I suppose many others, would never pay anyone to develop a site for them, and the person who actually created the site only does their web page as a very minor portion of his job. I've heard from others in the company how proud they are of the site and how many compliments they get from their customers. I wonder if sometimes actual developers are too picky, not that I plan on changing.

[scragar]

I don't know if the site should be completely renovated as from what you said they are happy with it and telling them its rubbish and that they need to change 500 things on only a few pages would proberly break their hearts although this reminds me of a lisences for the web thing I saw a few months ago
(where everyone would have to pay a small fee, take a test and if they passed they got their money back and would be allowed to use the net, if they failed then they would have to pay to retake the test - thus reducing the number of bad websites and such along with increaseing standards and getting rid of most l337 speak)

[wamboid]

I couldn't bring myself to tell him anything too bad about the site. After all, it does seem to work for them and their customers. As I was looking at it, I was thinking about all of the comments the site would get if posted for review in this forum. Things such as tables for layout and non-valid code jump out.

Don't get me wrong, I think every professional developer should use proper technique, but can we really expect everyone charged with the task of creating a site to follow correct standards, especially if their sites seem to be good enough for them?

[the tree]

Well here's an augument...
lots of code = lots of file space and bandwidth = lots of money

[Jona]

Wow...HTML 2.0? Must be a pretty darn old site! :D

[wamboid]

Well here's an augument...lots of code = lots of file space and bandwidth = lots of money

Not really, look at their hit counter. How much bandwidth could they possibly have saved with under 700 hits in the last 3 to 4 years? As far as space, they are under their limit by somewhere around 99%. That adds up to $0.00 more than having a good efficient design. To have a good efficient design, they would have to either pay to get some training for their guy, or hire someone like me that would want at least a few $$$.

[rapid]

surely the site will need updating at some point in the near (or distant) future. perhaps the thing to do would be to suggest this so they can plan it into their budgeting for next year or the year after.

as for the issue of whether
everyone charged with the task of creating a site (has) to follow correct standards, especially if their sites seem to be good enough for them?

i think its better to aim for perfection and then accept that we are human and cant always reach it, than having an 'Oh, that'll do!' attitude that means we only aim for just good enough.

the basic of web design; html, css, doctypes, validation, etc. arent that difficult to learn, especially with all the tutorial sites and forums like webdev out there to help and give advice.

[the tree]

Originally posted by rapid
the basic of web design; html, css, doctypes, validation, etc. arent that difficult to learn, especially with all the tutorial sites and forums like webdev out there to help and give advice. The problem with the tutorials that give adivice is that they're drowned out by tutorials that give "advice" and it can be hard for begginers to disern between the two.

[wamboid]

Actually, the problem isn't even as much tutorials that teach poor techniques such as tables for layout, but software packages such as front page and publisher, in this case, that are used quite commonly by non-professionals. By the way, the person responsible for that site has asked me if I could recommend another software package that would be better. Anyone got any suggestions?

As far as budgeting for the future, when they are being told by their customers how wonderful their site is, what would make them want to spend more money. Again, don't get me wrong, I do think they need a change, I would just like to hear an argument that makes good business sense.

Another question I have is how can we expect people who are really just secretaries, salesmen, clerks, etc. to take the time to learn to follow standards, when I really think a vast majority of professionals don't. I just googled "professional web design firm" and found that 9 out of 10 companies on the first page used tables for layout. Unfortunately, the one that actually used good CSS was probably the worst looking site of the 10.

[the tree]

Dreamweaver isn't all that bad, mabye they should give that a go. Some of the sime it's wysiwyg even produces valid code! And it's code editor is really quite nice.

O.k. here's a buisnessesque agument to using standards.

Although they've had positive feedback from some of thier customers, what about those who just turned back? Those on screen readers and text browsers would have enough trouble, those on mobile phones and PDAs wouldn't be able to view thier site at all.

Out of more than 600 visitors, how many did they get buisness from? and out of those how many did they get positive feedback from? Whatever the awnser, why not aim better?

Of course accessability isn't the only issue, using a well seperated design makes re-designs so much easier. Don't think thier planning on a re-design? A well seperated design means re-designs are so easy they could do temporary seasonal re-designs, a great way of showing that the site gets attention paid to it.

[wamboid]

That is about the best business argument I could come up with, but I don't think it will really fly with owners of small companies such as this. Assuming that the site visually acceptable in browsers, I'm not sure, but I don't really think easy redesign works as an argument. I've never used MS Publisher for web design, but I imagine it would be fairly simple, especially for a non-programmer. I think it totally regenerates the code each time it is saved, making any knowledge of even simple html unnecessary.

I think if I told them about cell phones and pda's, you would probably hear the laughter all the way to your computer.This is a very small town out in the middle of nowhere. I doubt if anyone uses either device for the internet within 100 miles of here. Even then, I think the percentage of users worldwide would be so minute that its not worth the argument.

I think the lost business argument is actually the best, but impossible to quantify.

[scragar]

even small busnesses should aim to keep the code effiecient and smooth, after all if you saw it would you be impressed that someones basic HTML possesed sevear flaws, used tables for alignment and proberly javascript mouseovers instead of CSS(or both).

if you saw this kind of thing on a personal site you would offer advise, we do it often on the rate-my-site-forum

[wamboid]

Scragar, you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Pretend for a minute that you aren't the "Supreme Master of the Web" and are instead just a farmer who needs some grain handling equipment. At most you probably have a Dell(or insert other generic computer system) computer straight out of the box and are probably viewing it in ie, since that's what came loaded, although this particular site looked the same to me in both netscape and firefox. You probably know nothing about html, never heard of javascript, and tables are something you eat on. This page loads fairly quickly, even with bad code, so the average user wouldn't know it was bad. In fact, most non-developers probably don't even know where to go to look at the code.

[the tree]

Wamboid that is a very good point, thier customer base probably doesn't care about the millisecond differences in load time or wether thier blind cousin can see it, after all it's the farmer what wants the grain.
But what if someone stumbled across this site while looking for a company to invest a lot of money in, what are they going to ask themsleves?[list=1]
Is this company prepared for the future? Are they using up-to-date communication techniques? (Just look at that doctype!)
As this company grows, will it ever come up agaisnt legal problems? (*hint* The disability discrimination act (or section 508 for you Americans))
Is this buisness making the most of what it's got and living up to it's full potential? (who doesn't like seasonal re-designs?)
[/list=1]

[wamboid]

Before continuing, let me remind everyone again that I am just playing Devil's Advocate here and would never produce a design like this. I am trying to come up with some better reasons to give people in this situation. Having said that, here is what I think some replies to the last post would be.

I used "farmer" as more of a generic term relatining to the site. Insert any job occupation other than anything IT related, possibly even web related, and you would probably get the same answers. As far as investors, take a quick look at microsoft.com, amazon.com, ebay.com, and many many others and tell me how tables for layout has kept investors away. In fact, they haven't even kept us away from places like webdeveloper.com, since we are using this forum. The site I mentioned at the beginnning of this thread is actually a bad example of this, but I think investors would be more apt to like a visually nice site with bad code than a crappy looking site with good code.

Is this company prepared for the future? Are they using up-to-date communication techniques? (Just look at that doctype!)
Non-developer answer would be yes! They have a website, and it's not even just one of those single page adds from register.com. What's a doctype? (I know what a doctype is, a majority of the world doesn't)

As this company grows, will it ever come up agaisnt legal problems? (*hint* The disability discrimination act (or section 508 for you Americans))
They do need alt tags, but they have no images that really mean anything that would keep the meaning and use of the site from getting across. By that, I mean their menu would only give a blind person the link, rather than the writing, but they have, probably accidentally, used meaningful link names.

Is this buisness making the most of what it's got and living up to it's full potential? (who doesn't like seasonal re-designs?)
Like I thought I said before, seasonal changes can be made just as easily in publisher as with css, the code is just still crappy. You simply delete the regular image in the wyswig, and then insert Santa or the Easter Bunny. It then completely regenerates new crappy code to upload. That's why so many non-experts use it.

Actually, I blame companies like microsoft for putting out this junk. If wyswig editors would actually produce good code, amatuers would probably produce better work than us!