Buildling Better Webs

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Better Webs

Building Better Webs and Web Applications Organically

David Eldridge


Introduction

• Shawnee County Webmaster– Support ASP.NET developers for specialized apps.– Maintain www.snco.us with HTML, CSS, JavaScript

and legacy ASP• A Federal Webmaster (KSARNG/OSS)– Began learning standards/accessibility• Fed: Standards or Die!

– Good beginning– I always use them

http://www.snco.us/


Overview

• Introduction• Accessibility• SEO, Semantics, Separation and Standards• Performance Considerations• Return on Investment (ROI)• Questions and Housekeeping


Inseparability

• SEO, semantics, access/accessibility, etc. are like yarn on a sweater:– Carefully interwoven– Indiscernibly disparate

• Separating these topics can be difficultDon’t do it: they work together well


Accessibility:Some Assumptions

• Bad Word.• Very Expensive.• Low ROI.


Access:Not Just Accessibility

What it’s not• Protection

(against those with disabilities)

What it is• UA-appropriate• Flexible• Free– Like speech– Like beer


Access:for People

• Screen• Paper• Screen readers• Mobile/handheld/phone/PDA• Non-standard devices• DOM—etc.


Access:for Machines

• Educational/Industrial Data mining• Search Engines• [Spam bots, too: sorry ]• DOM—etc.


Access:Document Object Model

• Ad hoc API– Three simple examples:• Web Clips—Safari 3+• Web Slices—IE8 (product site)

– Requires some add’l coding

• “FireClips”—FF3 (video|add-on)– Other capabilities available and coming

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/web-slices.aspx?tabid=1&catid=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O05zNYn-WCo

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5850

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5850


Access:DOM—Extensibility

• It can be traversed, styled, destroyed, created, and appended to dynamically– JavaScript– Style: CSS/XSLT– Server-side code: • PHP and Ruby (on Rails) among others support this• In the future in Visual Studio?

Don’t be surprised, but don’t hold your breath.


Access:User Interface

• Offer users early access to the whole page:– e.g. “Go directly to content, or navigation.”

• Hide it from screen and print devices, etc.• Offer it to mobile, non-standard devices, etc.• JavaScript is not everywhere. Consider your

audience.


SEO, Semantics and Standards

• Standards are BAD! Err…?– Help dumb people (like designers) to excel– Avoid Hard Knocks University– Level the playing field


SEO, Semantics and StandardsContinued

• W3C, WHATWG, Ecma Int’l, WaSP, etc.– Recognize trends– Codify standards– Educate and Inform Educators (mostly WaSP)– Empower developers– Guide browser makers…

http://www.w3.org/

http://www.whatwg.org/

http://www.ecma-international.org/

http://www.webstandards.org/


SEO, Semantics and StandardsBrowser Changes

• FF, Safari implementing Canvas and SVG• IE8, FF, Safari implementing <audio> and

<video> elements (good and bad):– IE8/MS: MS formats – Safari/Apple: QuickTime formats – Firefox/Mozilla: Ogg formats


SEO, Semantics and StandardsStandards ‘Decouple’ Documents

• Encourage document-level separation of– Markup/Content ([X]HTML)– Style (CSS/XSLT)– Behavior (JavaScript)



• Standards save work– <video>/<audio> v. non-standard <embed>– border-radius v. rounded corner

JS/CSS/HTML mess– :hover v. old bloated hover image effect– CSS font declarations v. non-semantic <font> tag



• Standards add previously unrealized functionality– Microsoft’s XHR (XML HTTP Request):

Now Ajax (or AJAX if you insist)– Microsoft’s JPEG XR (HD Photo, previously

Windows Media Photo): Better compression for even larger image files, both lossy and lossless


Organic SEOHow Standards and SEO Relate

• Semantic tagging informs content– Good: head>title, h1, span.phone-number

– Poor: font, small, big, b, i, blink

• Metadata fills in the gaps with keywords, authorship, date and other information– Dublin Core metadata is a good framework

http://dublincore.org/

http://dublincore.org/


Organic SEOContinued

• Consider:– <title>Banking Security • BankTwo</title>

…<h1>Security Procedures</h1>

• Or:– <title>BankTwo</title>

…<span style="font-size:16px;color:#333333;font-family:georgia;display:block;">Security</span>


SemanticsInforming Data

• Framework for categorization and the DOM:– h1-h6, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, dfn, abbr, p, address

• Classes (and IDs) further augment good semantics– abbr.acronym, ol.contents, span.phone-work-voice, span.name-last, ul.ingredients, ol.instructions, div#content, div#footer-legal


SemanticsInforming Data

• Semantics help us and machines cull data:– Widgets: clips, slices etc.– Microformats like hCard, hCalendar, hAtom and hReview

• Google now uses RDFa/hReview and hCard– You don’t need to pioneer these technologies

• Google took years to jump on microformats• Firefox didn’t get over 20% market in a day• But folks are using these now

• All 3 big browsers use Web Slices/Clips

http://microformats.org/

http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard

http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/firefox-market-share.aspx?qprid=0&sample=28




Brass Tacks:Get out of Line: Use the DOM

• Standards make using JavaScript, DOM scripting and Ajax easier and better– It eases maintenance• Less inline code

– It keeps code legible…• Again, less incline code


Brass Tacks:Get out of Line: Use the DOM

– It extends easily• Classes, ID’s and the DOM make good hooks for JS

and style• At best, they require a script tag• More often they will also need more classes, ids

and/or elements.– It fails well• Users don’t miss it when it’s gone

(Everything still works)


Brass Tacks:JavaScript and Accessibility

• Some users and UAs don’t see JavaScript fire:– Screen readers• Audibly indicating DOM-scripting and Ajax changes

through screen readers is a booger.• Some UAs neglect it; others handle it poorly.

– Those behind corporate firewalls– Some mobile UAs– Others with JS disabled (purposefully or not)


SemanticsCost and Value

• Building sloppy code is cheap• Maintaining it isn’t: I know.• Inline style (and event handlers) create larger

files, and make clean-up tedious• Semantics offer ad hoc documentation


SemanticsWhy Not?

• Learning curve?– Yes.

• Code Bloat?– No…

Consider another simple example.


SemanticsWhy Not?

• HTML3 and earlier– <table style="color:#555;background-color:#eee;border:1px #333;vertical-align:bottom; "…>…<tr><td style="text-align:right;font-family:consolas,'andale mono',mono;">785.555.1212</td></tr></table>


SemanticsWhy Not?

• HTML4, HTML5, XTHML– <table class="phone-chart"…>…<tr><td class="phone-work-fax">785.555.1212</td></tr></table>


Brass Tacks

• Some practical implementation examples and ideas.


Brass Tacks:Character Encoding

• Right after the head, even before <title>:– make sure the title and all after are properly

encoded

• It’s important for good data and security…– For display• You donâ€™t want to see that.

– For good capture and security:• especially with intérñatiönal users


Brass Tacks:Character Encoding

• Unless you have particular needs use UTF-8– <!DOCTYPE HTML…>

<html lang="en-US"><head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

<title>Hello, World</title>


Brass Tacks:JavaScript Bottlenecks

• HTTP/1.1 allows multiple persistent connections.• Modern browsers load multiple resources (text,

image, audio, etc.) at once:– Without manipulation, UAs don’t allow over two scripts to

pull in at once.

• When able, load scripts last (i.e. before </body>), or use the onload event handler (or similar device) to build your script request dynamically at full load.

http://markmail.org/message/fypi6ifoovoup6pb


Brass Tacks:CSS Bottlenecks

• Make CSS external (usu. automatic in VS)– But if not, avoid using the @import command in

<style> tags, as it causes problems with concurrent downloading in some browsers

• Place it as soon after the title as possible:– <!doctype…>…

<title>I am a title</title><link rel="stylesheet"/>


Brass Tacks:More JS Considerations

• Be aware of VS controls that generate non-standard mark-up:– e.g. ListBox, DropDownList, AdRotator and more.

• As our DBA always reminds us, never trust the client (device).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exc57y7e.aspx#ctl00_mainContentContainer_cpe24431_h

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exc57y7e.aspx#ctl00_mainContentContainer_cpe24431_h


Brass Tacks:More JS Considerations

• The JS pseudo-protocol is not a protocol…• If you use it or inline event handlers with

href="#", the event will not fire in some cases, leaving users bewildered.


Conclusion:ROI

• Ease of extension• Value of data: content is more informed• Natural/Accidental/Organic SEO• Faster page loads/decreased server load• Greater user access/cullability


Conclusion:Last Things

• I won’t be there to blame when your app fails– And, they’ll laugh at you for listening to a designer

• Standards are usually optimal: but not always• Standards change: so don’t follow blindly• If they don’t help now, they may help later• Make your boss happy: the food will follow


Questions?

• No?• Good.


Questions?


Resources and Tools

• Firefox: mozilla.com/firefox• Firebug: getfirebug.com• Developer’s Toolbar: tr.im/ffwdtb– Think Firefox Web Developer’s Toolbar (ffwdtb)

• Yslow for Firebug: tr.im/yslow• Get IE8! It’s out: tr.im/getie8• More available at www.snco.us/?dev

http://mozilla.com/firefox/

http://getfirebug.com/

http://tr.im/ffwdtb

http://tr.im/yslow

http://tr.im/getie8

http://tr.im/getie8

http://www.snco.us/?dev


Contact

• Please send any more questions [email protected]/rgum

• For this presentation and more visitdev.goodbooksfree.comIt’s sparse now…there should be more later.

mailto:[email protected]

http://tr.im/rgum

http://tr.im/rgum

http://dev.goodbooksfree.com/








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Buildling Better Webs