32 WHY: Designing for the Medium: Chocolatey Web Goodness

Five years ago, the entire Web was a hack, held together with carpet tacks and lasagna. We are better off now than we were then. And soon the nightmare of browser incompatibilities will be a story we tell to bore our grandchildren.

CHOCOLATEY WEB GOODNESS

Having accepted that the Web varies from user to user and browser to browser, and that this will be true even when common standards enjoy universal support, let’s move on to consider the medium’s many unique strengths. If you already consider the Web the greatest thing since gender differentiation, feel free to skip ahead.

’Tis a Gift to Be Simple

Developing effective web architecture takes great skill. Setting type, designing images and elements, and laying out pages requires consistent vision and intelligence. Programming sites that will serve sophisticated and novice users alike is an art of the highest caliber. But anyone can make a website. A child of six can learn HTML and begin self-publishing in a matter of days. No other medium is as easy to learn and produce.

Millions of personal sites prove this point. Many are of interest mainly to their creator’s immediate family and friends—and that’s okay. But a surprising number offer valuable content and/or sophisticated design. You can view the vast outpouring of personal pages as proof that HTML is easy to learn. You also might see in it the unshakable human urge to reach out and connect with others. You can even view it as an extended experiment in democracy.

Democracy, What a Concept

Every medium in human history has presented a barrier to access. Writers have had to convince publishers that their books were worth distributing (or else build their own printing press, like poet William Blake). Screenwriters must convince studios to invest millions in their visions (and the writer is usually barred from the set once the script has been sold). Movie directors must argue with producers and bankers. Painters need galleries; musicians need concert halls and record deals.

Taking Your Talent to the Web

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But the Web presents few such barriers. Buy a computer and a modem, find a hosting provider, learn HTML and some UNIX filing conventions, and voila—you are a worldwide publisher! If you can’t afford a computer and modem, most public libraries, universities, and schools offer free Internet access. If hosting fees are beyond your means, companies such as Geocities (www.geocities.com) provide free hosting in exchange for the privilege of running ad banners on your site. The Web places the virtual means of production in the hands of virtually every worker. What would Karl Marx think?

Figure 2.5

The Stinky Meat Project. On the Web, anyone can publish anything they like. Baby, that’s democracy! (www.thespark.com/ health/stinkymeat/)

Speaking of low access barriers, remember the days when you had to expensively laminate print proofs of your best work, slip them into a costly portfolio, and toss them out every six months as your new work made the old stuff obsolete? Well, forget all that. With a free or inexpensive Internet account, you can mount a web portfolio that’s viewable anywhere in the world. Nothing to replace; nothing to bang into the knees of a Neanderthal seated across from you on the subway; nothing for your boss to see you lugging around when you look for a new job on your lunch hour.