Maybe they just updated an old site with this new one? Otherwise, the complaints in this post don’t make any sense at all to me.

One of the most frustrating things that I’ve run into as a just-getting-started designer is designing for people (usually younger folks) who have grown up with broadband connections with flash installed and javascript turned on and monitors 1280×900 and above who just don’t understand that even though a flash site may be pretty, it’s not particularly usable for the general populace.

My struggle in this has been to educate said customers that though they may never have experienced it, there is a significant portion of the population who might want to come to their site that would never come again if on the home page it showed a link that said, download the latest version of flash. In many cases, simpler is better and more usable (as is the case with the Art Directors Club).

Great post!

And even if I tried hard to change my clients mind ( because sometimes … well many times) Flash isn’t the thing they need, they were always insisting on having eye candy and animations instead of accessibility, usability and standards ( cause they don’t give a damn about anything, they just want a site as cute as the big firm’s one) …
I they only could see the truth …

maybe I should lecture every new client some of Zeldman’s words so they get the point :)

Seeing a real and working portfolio (not just screenshots!) goes a long way when weeding out the Dreamweaver kiddies, but it only helps if one knows what he’s looking at. Perhaps a specialised web design portfolio-screening service is what we need?

Being a professional female web designer (not from the States though, I’m Austrian) I’d like you to know that almost 50% of my time goes into learning about those things. They’re basic knowledge for any web designer, female or not. The problem is that everybody can call himself/herself a web designer. There are no diplomas required, you do not have to prove that you know what you’re doing. How should a client know if one did have a professional trainig. And even if you have a certificat showing that you did some 2-days course on web design – what does it tell? How is knowledge on the topic attestable?
Probably that’s what we need? Perhaps there should be some kind of diploma which one must aquire before one is allowed to call oneself a web designer?
It don’t seem the solution to the problem to me. As far as my experience goes possessing a piece of paper does not prove anything.

Keep on writing, repeat yourself – over and over again …. that seems the only thing you (we) can do.

Noreya

Respect, and keep on fighting for accessibility and the use of web standards.so do i!

The web industry needs standards, badly. For the community to move forward we need to remove the reliance on proprietary elements. Information should be freely available, in many forms, on many devices; beauty can be created on that foundation. Just let’s not deride Flash for not being accessible or standards compliant.

The web is not just about rss feeds, or linking to an exact piece of information, or being able to increase your font sizes. It’s also about exploring. It’s about experience, information, in a particular context.

I have great respect for a beautiful, standards compliant website. I have just as much respect for a beautiful and well designed Flash site.

ps…unfortunately, the art directors club website is a poor example of what flash can be, but take a look at some of the sites on thefwa.com. there are some amazing user experiences there.

Maybe more women would go into web development if there were programs like the female engineer one showing girls that tech fields are not just for guys who maybe spend alot more time in front of the computer than being with people. Sorry for the stereotype, no offense intended, but maybe that’s how young girls perceive the field without visible role models to the contrary. I assume there are still many women going into graphic design so what are the efforts in those schools to encourage specializing in web design?

Which is not to say all your comments aren’t dead on.

Did he work on the Garp titles? Alien? Zelig?

I’m pretty sure he worked on the Alien titles. I know he also worked on visual effects for Predator, Judge Dredd, and The Matrix.

Last week they were cited by Forrester as one of the top web design agencies. It’s a depressing read from a standard/ accessibility /usability point of view.

Here’s a link to their print version of the press release http://www.rga.com/press_detail.asp?id=4737 or as they say in flash.. go to the home page, click on news, click on release, click on 11 Apr 07

Massive global brands seek out companies like this that create visually stunning sites and they have created a lot of sites that I have visited in the past.

Persuading companies like this to embrace standards could have a massive impact on the direction of the web.

I hope you don’t mind, but I translated the last part of your post to French and added a comment along the lines of “everything still has to be done”. I’ve paralleled it with a comment made by one of the speakers of our Paris Web 2006 conference, who thought that the whole shebang was integrated in people’s minds, and then realised that it’s not the case yet, not by a long shot.

Thanks for griping: it feels comforting, in a way, to know that we’re right to continue advocating and shouldn’t stop. What’s not comforting is that we should have stopped advocating by now ;)

PS: if you can’t read French, get in touch via email and I’ll translate the whole thing.