April 4, 2007...9:30 am
April 5th is Naked Day
[UPDATE: Naked day is over and the site is back to normal, but I thought I'd leave this article here anyway.]
This Thursday we’re joining thousands of others web designers and stripping our site back to the basics and exposing our soft under belly! What’s it all about I hear you ask? Isn’t web design all about glitz and gadgets? Well really, it’s about the content.
Every web site owner should always have content as their main focus. Because the blueclock web site has been designed according to best practices, removing the design took all of 5 seconds and putting it back in place tomorrow will take the same time. All of the information about logos, colours, positioning and visibility of elements and typography is held in one file called a stylesheet. When the link to this file is removed, the page falls back to the default layout.
Separating all of the presentation information from the actual content of the page means that new or amended designs can be easily implemented. It also means that you can give your users options on how they view the site or adapt the layout for depending on how it is being viewed e.g. in print or on a mobile device. But the key point is that by stripping out the design, the page remains not only useable, but it still makes sense.
It still has a structure of headings and paragraphs that anyone can understand. It’s not the prettiest of pages, but the message is still conveyed. And the whole point of being on the web is to have your information discovered. By designing to best practices all of your content remains accessible and barriers to accessing the information are removed. This is how search engines see your information. The headings and structure help search engines to figure out what the page is about. If you are visually impaired and use a screen reader, the structure and hierarchy of the document will be conveyed to you as it is read out.
If you are dyslexic and changing the background colour of the page helps, you can do that. If you’re just plain old tired after reading too many websites and want to give your eyes a rest, you can be kind to yourself and increase the font size by pressing ctrl+
So here it is, BlueClock in all it’s glory (or lack of it). And this is what counts as fun in the world of web design.The site will be back to normal tomorrow. Or maybe not, it’s growing on me.
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