Comments on: Disappointing http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/ XHTML/CSS and other interesting Articles Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:16:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 By: Ross Johnson http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/#comment-199 Ross Johnson Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:10:58 +0000 http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/#comment-199 I think this might be a case where the business ends justify the means. While I do agree that all e-commerce sites should strive to have well crafted and built websites, with the number #1 goal of selling as much as possible sometimes "web standards" take a back seat to making the website sell. I will admit that the e-commerce sites I have worked on are far from the greatest feats of web development - but it was more important to develop a site that the client could afford and sold the product rather than spending extra time on cleaning up the e-commerce engine it was built on. Passionate about standards, accessibility, and coding I am - but if a business model proves it a disadvantage to go so far in any of those areas I won't hesitate to start cutting corners. But maybe I am just evil at heart? =) I think this might be a case where the business ends justify the means. While I do agree that all e-commerce sites should strive to have well crafted and built websites, with the number #1 goal of selling as much as possible sometimes “web standards” take a back seat to making the website sell.

I will admit that the e-commerce sites I have worked on are far from the greatest feats of web development - but it was more important to develop a site that the client could afford and sold the product rather than spending extra time on cleaning up the e-commerce engine it was built on.

Passionate about standards, accessibility, and coding I am - but if a business model proves it a disadvantage to go so far in any of those areas I won’t hesitate to start cutting corners.

But maybe I am just evil at heart? =)

]]> By: Ross Johnson http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/#comment-200 Ross Johnson Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:12:08 +0000 http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/#comment-200 http://www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/ This is a pretty good e-commerce site btw http://www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/

This is a pretty good e-commerce site btw

]]> By: Dan Shields http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/#comment-201 Dan Shields Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:03:11 +0000 http://theshieldsdesign.com/blog/2007/03/04/disappointing/#comment-201 I think your 100% correct when your talking about creating an ecommerce site for a client because usually the functionality, budgets, timelines and the platform you are working on all make a factor of what you produce. The thing is though my responsibility at my job is primarily for the maintenance, clean up of existing code and creation of new templates/sites. The existing platform is a custom made platform from a major development company, but I work directly with a software engineer and we are working on cleaning that up also, so the possibilities are endless. Of course since this is my job and I won't be creating an application with a deadline and budget constraints, my goal is to get the sites to be as perfect from the front-end as possible. But maybe thats because I am a perfectionist at heart :) and should just realize that they don't have to be perfect. The main reason I have been looking into it s the fact the sites I work on currently have horrible CSS, HTML (although it is not table based). Working inside of it could be so much better for all of us. It would definitely save time on page load and not to mention better SEO rankings because currently a long with the tag soup, there isn't even the use of proper header elements and other key factors. I just know that with these sites I have seen, a lot of time could of been saved if they did do it the correct way and it would make maintaining it much easer. I would think there are a lot of companies out there that have internal development teams that could create great sites. Maybe I'm complaining to much! Thanks for that link thats exactly what I am looking for of course you would find something I've been searching for forever, although all they have is the one product description page that is more like a category page. It works for them though. Thanks again Ross I think your 100% correct when your talking about creating an ecommerce site for a client because usually the functionality, budgets, timelines and the platform you are working on all make a factor of what you produce.

The thing is though my responsibility at my job is primarily for the maintenance, clean up of existing code and creation of new templates/sites. The existing platform is a custom made platform from a major development company, but I work directly with a software engineer and we are working on cleaning that up also, so the possibilities are endless.

Of course since this is my job and I won’t be creating an application with a deadline and budget constraints, my goal is to get the sites to be as perfect from the front-end as possible. But maybe thats because I am a perfectionist at heart :) and should just realize that they don’t have to be perfect. The main reason I have been looking into it s the fact the sites I work on currently have horrible CSS, HTML (although it is not table based). Working inside of it could be so much better for all of us. It would definitely save time on page load and not to mention better SEO rankings because currently a long with the tag soup, there isn’t even the use of proper header elements and other key factors.

I just know that with these sites I have seen, a lot of time could of been saved if they did do it the correct way and it would make maintaining it much easer. I would think there are a lot of companies out there that have internal development teams that could create great sites. Maybe I’m complaining to much!

Thanks for that link thats exactly what I am looking for of course you would find something I’ve been searching for forever, although all they have is the one product description page that is more like a category page. It works for them though.

Thanks again Ross

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