God I loved your article! Here's a few words on why....I teach a "Taming the Electronic Frontier" course via distance education (internet+TV). One of the first assignments is "Here's how to write HTML. Use it to build a digital portfolio that delivers quality to your readers".
And frankly, I got what I deserved. Crap. Even using Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" as the textbook to teach about quality, I still got crap.
Eventually I got (most of) them to pay attention to quality by assigning peer assessment exercises in which everyone reviewed and RATED everyone's work according to quality delivered to readers.
I loved this article because it teaches something that the world really doesn't know, judging from my students (and 99% of the web as a whole). The biggest complaint from my students is that I never TOLD them that quality was determined by their readers, not by them. Big secret I was expected to "teach" in class. Funny... I always thought it was common sense... until I taught this class.
Next time I hope to get them off on a better foot by assigning them your article at the beginning? May I? Should be about 200 students this time.
If you're interested the old (spring 1997) version of the course is at http://www.virtualschool.edu/97a. I'll be building the fall 1997 version later this summer at http://www.virtualschool.edu/97c. Drop me a line and say what you think. bcox@gmu.edu
PS: Could you please add a "wrap=virtual" tag to these textarea boxes? I hate typing carriage returns at the end of each line; wrap=virtual fixes this.
Thanks again!
-- Brad Cox, May 22, 1997
OK, so I'm inspired to build a "humble personal homepage" with no intention of making money. I use your model and include all the personal contact information, including a link to a map to my house. So far, this all makes sense to me. Next, I might add a page about my extensive music (yuppie scum CDs) collection, with my ratings and some favorite links. Then, I'd add a page about photography with some images and links. If I'm really feeling adventurous, I might add a page on competition handgunning.Have I not just made my home address a tempting target for nefarious folk? Here, this is where I live, and this is all the cool stuff I have to steal? By the way, I included information about where I work, so you can deduce when I won't be home.
How do you get around that? While your Stearns and Foster is probably safe, I fear for your Linn Sondeck!
-- Todd Peach, January 20, 1998
Yee, hah!I keep coming back to your pages for whatever reason. Today I was doing some research on Web page redirection and I got -- duh -- "redirected" to your "Envisioning a Site That Won't Be Featured In suck.com" write-up. (I hope you and Flanders are on speaking terms, but that's another site...) How is it possible that one guy can focus so much wisdom about the WWW, design, and content into one place? Conversely, how can site managers be so completely numb between the ears when it comes to site design?
I am a hardware/software consultant working in embedded electronics. I do a lot of computer-controlled machines like medical diagnostic and treatment devices, motion control, process automation, etc. The engineering managers I deal with are not always as Internet technically hip as I would like to see. Oh, well. As bad as that may be, they are geniuses compared to the project management staff at most of my clients' locations. I strive to make people aware of what a powerful tool an intranet server can be. Some of these guys out there are using things like document automation, version control, and distributed engineering to get actual work done through a server. This can be a very cool deal if done correctly. Just the simplest pages with links to file server locations for files can solve a raft of problems. How many exchanges like this do we need?
"Where did you put that document?"
"Oh, it's up on LAMBDA06 in the /test/doc directory."
"What was the file name?"
"TEST06BA.tmp, I think."
"What format is that in?"
"I don't remember."
How about if the file is linked into a page that has a bunch of other supporting documents listed on it? Then the poor fool trying to find the info just goes to one place to look for this stuff. The variations are obvious.
Well, all that is great, but some folks just insist on adding fluffy graphics -- even sound -- to pages that are supposed to be all business. I'm still trying to figure out how to convince the WWW-naive how to create content without creating the Wait portion of WWW. They are in love with glitz. I plan to use your book as a tool for changing that. If they won't read it then I can use it over the muzzle to keep the noise down as I take drastic measures.
-- Marty Schrader, October 26, 2000
Very informative. I love your sense of humour!
-- Dr. Jim Irwin, February 27, 2001
Thanks for the informative site.
-- Mike McCracken, July 13, 2001