The Human Web
Go read A List Apart. This is one of the premier websites for informing, educating, and inspiring people who design and develop websites; its pages are full of articles on user science, usability, information architecture, accessibility — all things which, when done well, makes websites simpler and/or easier to use. This is a good thing.
I suspect that most people who love web standards and usability are probably geeks at heart: we like nice clean systems and we love it when things fit together in a clean, coherent whole. We don’t like mess, we don’t like complexity.
This is also a good thing.
Trouble is, we forget why we do this stuff. We forget that usability is about, you know, making things easier to use, and make it instead about following rules, evangelising, doing the “right thing”. We criticise websites which don’t properly use web standards without remembering why those standards are important — this isn’t a competition to see who can best conform to the HTML specs; it’s a chance to make sites which work better for normal people.
Yes, normal people. Because we’re not normal. In comparison to the majority of people who operate online, we are different, because we understand how the system works! If you’ve every watched your mother, or grandmother, use the web, you’ll know what I mean.
These — your mother, your grandmother, the non-techies — are the people who web standards, usability, and all those other disciplines are made to help. The most important thing is this: when used well, these disciplines should not be apparent to website users. Those users don’t care how good websites are implemented; they just care that they’re good.
Take a look at the progress of other technology: Apple’s iPhone is easy to use, intuitive, simple. Do normal users care that it’s running HTML5 with offline storage? Do they care that its browser is one of the most forward-thinking when it comes to web standards? Do they care that it uses a custom operating system? Of course not. These things are all great, but they’re great because they help make the iPhone easier to use.
When you get down to it, what is the web? It’s a way for humans to communicate. Whether you’re buying a book, booking a holiday, subscribing to a mailing list, or developing an application, the web should be made for human beings — it was created to help human communication and (unless we’re going to get all sci-fi) that’s what it will always be for.
Next time you’re knocking some poor young HTML student for using <b> instead of <strong>, or droning on about usability like everyone should give a damn, take some time to put things in perspective. Our primary aim on the web should be to help other humans; everything else is a waste of time.