CSS Validation and Standards; Does it matter?

Well that's some really advanced CSS stuff that frankly really doesn't need to be done in CSS anyway in my opinion. That's what javascript is for, and a lot of the crazy stuff like that is just being done because it can be done, not because it's the best way. These "A-List" (gees i hate that term) bloggers and designers and CSS advocates try to outdo each other by coming up with the next insane CSS hack just to see what can be done, not because it's a best practice.

So make your navbar images and use the Dreamweaver rollover code if you want rollovers. Save yourself time and frustration. If the few percent of people that have Javascript turned off don't see your rollover, who cares.

I agree with Deker. I tried those sliding door things but man, they were making me slam my head against the wall. It's true that there are many CSS gurus out there trying to outdo each other, but as Deker states, it's doesn't mean it's the best way to do things.

So what are your guys' view on accessibility? Is that just as important/not important as CSS?

Well if you are working on a government site you are required by law to worry about it.

If you aren't, well. There really aren't that many people with screenreaders out there. However, many of the things that improve accessibility also improve other areas like search engine rankings, download times, ease of use, etc. So it's definitely something to strive for. Though unless you are working on a government site I don't think you have to worry about abiding by every single little guideline.

Fair enough. However, I really don't see to many government sites that are accessible, or maybe that's just for the county I live in. My sister works for the District Attorney's office in the family support division and their site is really bad.

Many of their department's sites are bad.

On another note, I guess because I'm still fairly new to this, I'm looking to see how much something really and truly matters as I see these top dogs like Doug from StopDesign and Dave Shea doing those things.

Deker, you've mentioned search engine rankings throughout this thread especially when it came to the part about affiliate advertising. What exactly is this search engine ranking and Alexa rating stuff about anyway? Maybe I'll just Google it and see what I come up with.

Cheers!

Google is my second option for information... Deker is my first choice!

Yes government sites do suck. 99% of them. But there is a law that they have to be accessible, just like government buildings have to be accessible to handicapped people. They may not be enforcing this law yet, but they will eventually. Or maybe it's just federal web sites right now. I'm not exactly sure because it's really boring to read about.

Search engine rankings is kind of a broad general term for how high your site is listed in the search engines... More specifically it could be your google Pagerank, which is a rough estimate of how highly your site is rated. Search engine rankings are determined by a lot of things, but one of the biggest is incoming links to your site. The more incoming links you have, the more google thinks your site must be important.

There are hundreds of things to do to get in the top of search engines, but some of them are to have good title tags, keep your site constantly updated, have archives of old content, have clean, minimal code so that the googlebot doesn't have to sort through a bunch of nested table tabs to get to your content, make sure no text is in images, and if it is, make sure there is alt text for that image, etc etc.

There are lots of sites dedicated to only search engine optimization out there. This is one of the biggest ones: http://searchenginewatch.com/

[QUOTE=malibu]Google is my second option for information... Deker is my first choice![/QUOTE]

Same here man, I just don't want to exhaust Deker for all the info. You can't get the man tired, gotta keep him around as long as we can ;)

Hey, while we're discussing the issues of standards and CSS versus tabled layouts, one of my gripes was about the graphic design aspect. What do you guys think about this:

For most web projects, design accounts for less than 10% of the workload. Gone are the days of the dedicated visual designer. Instead, the ideal web team needs a hybrid designer who’s as happy sitting in front of Photoshop as they are coding up a stylesheet. As well as being a being a great visual designer and knowing everything about web standards, this person needs to have an intimate knowledge of usability, accessibility and universal design. - Andy Budd

You can see the full article here:
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2005/04/the_ideal_web_team/index.php#more

Any thoughts on this?

Deker, if you read this anytime soon, can you email me at zerimar3(at)yahoo(dot)com I have a question for you, or actually let me send you a pm right now....

I think there is still need for dedicated designers for some projects. It depends on the project though. For instance e-commerce sites really don't need a lot of design. Nor do business sites. But if you are working on a movie site or something, it'll need a little more design.

However, that designer still needs to know all of the other things mentioned, because they have to know what their boundaries are and how to work around limitations in technology.