Blog
Jens Meiert (Google, W3C, O’Reilly) on professional web design, web development, accessibility, and usability. Researching and describing what makes the perfect website since 1999.
handheld Media Type, RIP?
Website authors don’t use handheld as it’s barely supported; mobile device suppliers don’t support handheld because it’s barely used. This is kind of the situation I think we’re facing, and it’s problematic …
Let’s Make The Web Faster
Two weeks after my last outcry regarding slowness on the web there’s the more proactive response: Google launched code.google.com/speed, nicely labeled “let’s make the web faster” …
Maintainability Guide (Beta)
Maintainability is important in order to deal with change. Good maintainability makes change easier yet avoids change that is not necessary, and good maintainability also makes change more affordable …
Intermission: Speed
“The size of the average web page has more than tripled since 2003. From 2003 to 2008 the average web page grew from 93.7 KB to over 312 KB, some 233 %. During the same five-year period, the number of objects in the average web page …”
Punctuation Cheat Sheet
Working with and localizing international sites means an interesting challenge, not just for right-to-left contents. Typographically, there are differences between many locales. To get punctuation right I’m using a simple aid that I like to finally share …
CSS: The Maintenance Issue #1 and How You Can Avoid It
The biggest – as most unnecessary – maintenance issue in web development is, as my recent research shows, style sheet naming and integration. It might come surprising, but what happens in practice is that web developers do use inadvisable style sheet names and inadvisable ways to integrate …
The Result of Maturity Is Simplicity
“Finally, it doesn’t lack some irony considering that web design gets often enough protected by the credo ‘the end justifies the means’ and pragmatism’s paid homage to. The question is whether you’re talking about sick, sanctimonious pragmatism or …”
What’s Going on in the Life of … Jens Meiert?
A quick update to avoid any more police calls.
How Much Intelligence Does Good Design Really Require?
Of the definitions for art, design, and decoration I published back in the days, I do believe in the statement that design works – or has to work, respectively – the most. However, one thing’s still challenging me, and that is how much intelligence good, working design requires …
Notes on XML, Elements, and Attributes
Contrary to what one might expect, I’m not necessarily bringing in much XML design experience with my occasional contributions to the HTML 5 specification. However, the design of markup languages is something I consider beneficial for my job as a web professional as well …
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