Talking to a brick wall...
Rants & Raves
The Future of the Web
On further reading, it appeared that the reason for this apparent malice towards style came from the "nature of the web", as described by the W3C. The web, unlike other previous media, is designed to be flexible and interactive. A magazine or book is printed on a set sheet of paper, with immobile ink. A television program is delivered to screens of a certain known resolution at scheduled times.
A web page, so said the W3C, is not meant to follow these existing mediums
of communication. The web consists of content which can be, in theory,
delivered to literally anything or anyone, in any way.
The well designed web page would be capable of
being read on not only a certain browser or even a computer, but also
on a digital stylus, PDA, cell phone, audio browser, braille 'monitor',
or even a radio or television's hardware.
When you consider the idea that a web page is
not designed, necessarily, to be even visual media, current ideas of formatting
and style become useless. What does 'bold' mean, when the text is being
spoken? Doesn't the term 'emphasized' fit a broader spectrum of delivery?
What about the navigation area of that web page
you were just at in the upper-right corner? A web page displayed on a
small screen like in a PDA or cell phone would be better off without such
formatting, and 'Upper Right Corner' loses a lot of meaning if a web page
isn't something you look at anymore.
And so, by this argument, the W3C stated that content should not include
potentially useless or harmful style data. I could see the sense in this
argument, but was certainly a bit miffed at the concept of seeing a web
full of pages with no decent navigation, white backgrounds, and paragraph
after paragraph in Times New Roman.
The W3C had another answer for me, however. Just
when I was about to lose all hope and say "Let the web be the web,
and the W3C rot!", I found the missing link.
>>