Quality
What Is HTML Optimization? What Is It Not?
Is HTML optimization as well-defined as we need it to be? A look at what’s out there and an attempt to be clearer.
#34 · · development
“Web Design as a Process” in Charts: Maintenance, Decay, Tech Debt, and Big Bang Launching
Web design is a process. This process relates to the quality and completeness of a given website, as observed over time. We can chart and understand different types of this process.
#33 · · development
My Web Development Wishlist 2024
Respect, UX before DX, quality output that starts with conformance, running one’s own website, and adding as much as necessary, but as little as possible to web standards—five wishes to benefit our field, our users, and us as professionals.
#32 · · development
Challenge Yourself, Even When It’s Art
The paradox of CSS art may suggest an artist had a free pass for the quality of their code. Or does it? I believe there are three possible answers to this.
#31 · · development, design, art
What Makes You a Professional Web Developer
On a starting point that involves committing to high standards (including validating, and exercising control over oneself), acting ethically, practicing, learning, taking care of oneself, and taking care of others.
#30 · · development
Web Frameworks, Coding Guidelines, Quality Control, and the Craft of Web Development
“Good frameworks aim to be tailored, usable, and extensible”? “Coding guidelines must be communicated, enforced, and reviewed”? “No website should go without a plan for quality control”?
#29 · · development, frameworks
The Little Book of Little Books
The consolidated and updated version of The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines, and The Little Book of Website Quality Control!
#28 · · books, development, frameworks
The 3-Second Frontend Developer Test
“Do you validate?” Be a frontend developer who ships valid HTML and CSS; hire frontend developers who ship valid HTML and CSS. End the time of unconditionally accepted sloppiness in professional frontend development.
#27 · · development, conformance
In Critical Defense of Frontend Development
The field of frontend development is in another crisis, largely due to an incomplete, misinterpreted definition and a bizarre mess created by “web development as a commodity” and “web development as software development.” How frontend development is more than development, and what we can (and should) do.
#26 · · development
The 4 Pillars of Good Embed Code
Embed code is third-party code to be integrated on websites and apps, like ads or social media widgets. There have been many problems with embed code for a very long time. This post covers the essence of what makes for good embed code.
#25 · · development, design
On Writing Better Markup
As HTML is so important and yet also so easy, everyone writes HTML, and everyone says they can write HTML. And with that they don’t just mean they are able to write HTML, but that they write good HTML, where “good” means “high quality.” That would be great news.
#24 · · development
How to Configure Lighthouse for Balanced Quality Websites
Google’s Lighthouse is a great tool even though it has some issues. Fortunately, it’s possible to configure Lighthouse to one’s own views on what matters. Here’s the config that I like to use.
#23 · · development
The 3 Levels of Code Consistency
Consistency is a factor for code quality and one of the key reasons why we need coding guidelines. Interestingly enough there are three levels of consistency: individual, collective, and institutional.
#22 · · development
The Cost of Frameworks, Illustrated
A visual attempt to show how for everything built for the long run, external frameworks are a pricey crutch that has to be avoided or be thrown away at the earliest time. The reasons: quality—and cost.
#21 · · development, frameworks
Principles of Web Development
Web development, at more than 20 years of age, is becoming an increasingly mature profession. Web development is yet also subject to constant change, and the field produces more of that change, out of itself. More technological standards…
#20 · · development, maintainability
On Quality and Logistics
Clearly, quality requires quality thinking. But then it requires a lot more, like definitions, criteria, tools, planning, enforcement, &c. pp. And it relies on some organizational foundation.
#19 · · development
About the Mindset for Quality
In my view, quality starts with quality thinking. Quality thinking is broad, but it quickly leads to a quality mindset. This mindset, now, I’ve long regarded as critical…
#18 · · development
New Book: “The Little Book of Website Quality Control”
The hallmark of a professional is not the pursuit of activity, but the expertly pursuit thereof. What’s worth doing is worth doing well; and what’s done well exemplifies quality. A professional website is no exception, and there are criteria and tools to help.
#17 · · books, development
The Problem of “Fire and Forget” in Web Design
If I were to pick the main issue in web design… I couldn’t answer immediately. I don’t think there are so many, but there are a few, they are very different, they operate on different scales, and so they’re hard to compare. One, however, is “fire and forget.”
#16 · · design, development
A Vision of Web Development
There is one thing every web developer should aspire to: writing the most minimal, semantically appropriate, valid HTML, and then never changing it. “Never” not in a sense of denial and refusal, but in the sense of a guiding light…
#15 · · development, minimalism, semantics, conformance, maintainability
Web Frameworks in a Nutshell
My next book is coming! “The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks.” I’m wrapping it up with the team of O’Reilly as we speak. In the book, I share much of my experience architecting, developing, and maintaining web frameworks, as I’ve done for Google, Aperto, and GMX…
#14 · · development, frameworks
Google and HTML/CSS Code Quality
For much of Google’s life time there have been few Google web pages of high code quality. That had changed over the last years, but now there are regressions. On the rise and fall of Google’s websites.
#13 · · development
All Code Is Not Equal: On Research and Production Code
Web development is at a point at which we need to make more fundamental distinctions. One of them is a more determined one between web documents and web apps, another one is between research and production code.
#12 · · development
HTML/CSS Frameworks: Useful, Universal, Usable, Unobtrusive
A high quality HTML/CSS framework needs to have four attributes: useful, universal, usable, and unobtrusive. The four U’s.
#11 · · development, frameworks
Diagnostic Styling Reloaded
Eric cultivated the concept of “diagnostic styling,” meaning using CSS to track down problems within HTML documents. I’ve been working with diagnostic style sheets for general quality assurance…
#10 · · development
The Greatest Secret in Web Design
Alright I cheated, this isn’t a secret. Or an open secret. Or whatever. It’s that web design is a process. Good web design is an ongoing endeavor.
#9 · · design, development
Web Standards at Google
As an exception, I’m writing as a Googler here: At Google, we care about web standards. Officially, that’s no news, but given repeated criticism for the code of our pages, maybe it is.
#8 · · development
The Most Important Thing Is to Get the HTML Right
Why? Because it’s the markup that makes for most of the code of a site and is hence key to cost efficiency and maintainability; because it carries meaning and is important for accessibility; because it often has an impact on performance; and because it is the prerequisite for online success.
#7 · · development, semantics, accessibility, maintainability
When Guidelines Should Be Descriptive or Prescriptive
Every time I’m putting up guidelines or conventions one of the decisions I need to make is whether the guidelines, or which parts of them, should be descriptive or prescriptive. For coding guidelines this could mean the difference between, say, “the markup should be valid” and “the markup must be valid”…
#6 · · development
How to Share Code With Users
If you share HTML/CSS code with users: Make sure that the code is valid and that ideally, it works with both HTML and XHTML. Focusing on valid code—a step towards quality code—should be obvious. “Invalidating” other people’s sites isn’t nice…
#5 · · development
10 Measures for Continuous Website Maintenance
Website maintenance and quality assurance constitute the backbone of high-quality offers of information, and they make the difference between amateur and professional web design.
#4 · · development
10 Steps to Create a High-Quality Website
A quality website doesn’t fall from the sky, and it’s impossible to create in a few fast clicks. When setting up a website, one needs goals, content, structure, design, programming, and maintenance. What one needs is…
#3 · · development, design
QA: On Errors, and Why Paying for Errors Pays Off
A pseudo-scientific approach to improve websites and services, and that is applicable almost anywhere.
#2 · · development, misc
Evangelists, Focus on Standard Ad Code
On the quality of online ad code, and what we could do.
#1 · · development