Hardboiled Web Design
This time next month my colleague Chris and I will be sitting in the Surgeons’ Hall on Nicholson Street in Edinburgh at Andy Clarke’s Hardboiled Web Design workshop.
I’ve just started reading his latest book, of the same name, published by Five Simple Steps and it is excellent.
As it says in the blurb: “It’s for people who want to understand why, when and how to use the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies in their everyday work. Not tomorrow or next week, but today.”
We’ve had some interesting conversations within the Web team about when to start using HTML5 and CSS3. I’m all for using it now, others seem a little more hesitant. It ties in with recent posts here about when to stop supporting certain browsers <cough>IE6</cough>.
Clarke is pretty clear on the matter: websites do not need to be pixel-perfect clones in different browsers. Instead, adapt for the browser’s capabilities.
The hardboiled approach pushes graceful degradation further and demands that we use our creative talents to design experiences that are responsive and tailored to a browser’s capabilities. Hardboiled web design redefines graceful degradation for the challenges we face today.
If we’re going to create the inspiring websites that our customers expect, we must look beyond how we’ve approached progressive enhancement and graceful degradation in the past. Simply ‘rewarding’ people who use more capable browsers with rounded corners and drop shadows and generally settling for less isn’t enough.
Instead we should take full advantage of new technologies, and craft every user’s experience so that it’s appropriate to the capabilities of the browser they’re using. That will likely mean that designs will look different — sometimes very different — across browsers.
(Hardboiled Web Design, Andy Clarke, p.20)
Of course, that may require more development but who ever said this Web designing lark should be simple?
I’m really looking forward to the workshop. Why not join me? Book online £299 + VAT (£358.80)