Thoughts Dump
Jens Meiert, December 18, 2007 / February 5, 2008.
This entry is filed under Web Development, Accessibility, Design.
Since my plan to write less but more comprehensive posts is more or less working and gets also supported by Twitter that basically makes short entries obsolete, I will instead go for some “dump” posts from time to time, this time covering WCAG 2.0, the Opera complaint about Microsoft, and a nice design example:
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One week ago the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 reached “Last Call” status for the second time. The new attempt is basically a great thing inviting every web professional to dive in and comment again, and feedback from accessibility intimi like Jared Smith supports my impression that this does in fact mean a nice step forwards.
Recent projects yet allowed me to complain but hindered me in both proofreading and contributing to WAI documents. This should change soon, hopefully meaning the opportunity to write more about WAI development in specific and accessibility in general.
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While the W3C hammered out new stuff, Opera or its CTO Håkon Wium Lie, respectively, announced a complaint with the European Commission to force Microsoft to support open standards:
We believe that Microsoft has harmed Web standards by refusing to support them; Microsoft often participates in creating Web standards, promoting them, and even promising to implement them. Despite their talent, however, they refuse to support Web standards correctly.
I still find that to be an interesting and also understandable move, but I also understand Eric stating that
the time to file this motion and make this appeal was in 2005, when Internet Explorer had been dead in the water for years and it was genuinely holding back web design.
Anyway, we all agree that standards support needs to be improved everywhere, and personally I am just happy when there is development and progress, theoretically even independent of its speed. And currently there appears to be progress.
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Meanwhile Lil’ Jens discovered something interesting from a design point of view that he just needs to share since it’s good design and since he doesn’t want to criticize the entire day:
Figure: Checkout with desk occupancy display.
Awesome! This checkout display I saw in a restaurant or café in Oldenburg is just great and means good design since it does one important thing: It reduces cognitive load by supporting spatial perception, thus helping in quickly assigning orders and cashing desks. That is what I mean with good design, and I’m still totally excited by having discovered and been allowed to take a picture of it – no matter what the waitress thought of me
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