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The Emperor’s New Clothes

@DigitalBarn February 2012

The Vocal Minority

What’s the Plan, Stan?

The Tonight Show: Top 10

• Responsive Design is Irresponsible• Why Free is too Expensive• Browse Crappy• Why you have to be High to use HTML5?• Justified: Why you’re the client from Hell• Basic != Standard• Good developers don’t make good Jedi Knights• Exit stage left: How we failed the world with

CSS3• Upgrades of Mass Destruction• Lies, damned lies, and Open Source Statistics

Lets get ready to Rumble…

Which depending on your age means…

(if you’re over 30)

(If you’re under 30)

But !

• If you search for “PJ and Duncan” on Google images

• On the 4th row you see this…

It’s KIMB !!!

Daddy, what is Belle doing to Beast?

Browse Crappy

Or the Bullshit that is… If you build it, they will upgrade

Carrot

HTML5 for XP .com

• Rounded corners, gradients and drop shadows without graphics

• Rich graphs and visualisations using Canvas and SVG.

• Games that don't ask you to install plugins.• 3D graphics and support for any font• Drag and drop and touch support for tablets.

Stick

Responsive Design is Irresponsible

Premise

• Responsive Design is the ability to apply different CSS styles based on media queries

• e.g.

Why this appears awesome:

• Mobiles– Responsive Design allows designers and front-end

developers to react to mobile devices.

Awesome, right?

Wrong

Responsive Design is based on hypocritical and contradicting bullshit.

Call a spade, a spade

• When we say “responsive”, what we mean is, “Mobile”.

• Or specifically, “same content, different design”.

• It works on the premise that the ONLY difference between a desktop and a mobile browser is screen size.

• Non-Desktop users:– rarely use a Human-Computer-Interaction device– are almost always looking for different information– are rarely on broadband

Proof of Paradox

• It’s not about Screen Size, it’s about Context. • We had Screen Size specific 10 years ago, so

it’s definitely about Context and not Screen Size.

• Except, the only way to test for Context is to test for Screen Size.

• So in order for it to not be about screen size, it needs to be measures and identified by screen size.

Screen Size != Context

But somehow...

Context 1:1 Screen Size

Who you gonna call?

• These companies, say that their users don’t like to be treated differently unless it’s in their best interests.

• Not with a visual, but a data & architectural change.

So…

• in order to change the visual elements under the premise of it being about Context and not Screen Sizes, we have to map Screen Sizes to our predefined Context, and then use Screen Sizes to decide what to display – which was exactly what we said it wasn’t doing.

• It’s also exactly what our users don’t want.

Irony in Images

• Responsive Design was invented for designers/front-end coders to not be reliant on developers for multiple versions of websites.

• One of the major downfalls of RWD is Images.

• Inline images work best for responsive design, using the code: – img.className { max-width: 100%; }

• By this method, the same image is on all site versions.

• Do you load an image that’s high quality, and destroys your bandwidth on a mobile?

• Or do you load a low quality one that looks poor on a desktop?

• Or do you attempt to load multiple images and display/hide the correct one as needed?

• None of these work well. So you have to use a technical solution to request the right type of image.

Workarounds for Workarounds for Workarounds

Conclusion

• Responsive Design = “same data, different display”.

• But it can’t take into consideration:– Bandwidth– Platform– Device– Purpose– Context

• It wants to, but all it knows is Screen Size. • Those require decision making processes,

something that CSS simply isn’t built for.

• It has to be about Information Architecture.

• It can’t be done by CSS alone.

• CSS wasn’t intended nor built for that purpose

• We need to stop shoe-horning shit into the CSS specs

• We’ll end up at a place where each browser supports only the code they want to and in the way they want to

• RWD is not a bad idea.

• Technical restraint and common sense are once again being thrown out the window in the name of cool-looking-shit on the internet. (Hello 1999?)

• RWD is irresponsible, because designers & front-end coders have the ability to fake something regardless of the Business Case or Return on Investment.

• Rest assured, 2-5Mb “mobile optimised” homepages await us.

Why you have to be High to use HTML5?

Flash

Bazinga

Agile? More like Fragile

• Work started in ernest in 2004

• First Draft published in 2008

• 4 years later, still no definitive spec

Example...

<time>

<data>

HTML5, it’s not ready.

Justified:Why you’re the client from Hell

Justified

• CLIENT: “I don’t like the type.”

• ME: “What don’t you like.”

• CLIENT: “I don’t like how it goes all to one side.”

• ME: “You mean ranged left.”

• CLIENT: “Yes, yes, arranged left.”

• ME: “How do you want it?”

• CLIENT: “To be the same on both sides.”

• ME: “Justified?”

• CLIENT: “I don’t have to justify anything! I own the fucking company.”

• Jargon free isn’t enough

• We still treat people as if they have what WE consider to be a base level of knowledge.

Basic != Standard

Basic is the shit you can’t do without

Standard is what your USERS think is the baseline

Good developers don’t make good Jedi Knights

Premise

• What makes a good developer?

• What makes a good Jedi Knight?

In the real world…

• What makes a good Project Manager?

• What makes a good Tester?

Q. D. T

How many Project Managers are in the WP core team?

0

How many Testers are in the WP core team?

0

WP3.3 Beta was released with the menu not working in IE

Everyone thought everyone else had tested it.

They also have 0 developers, they have 8 Happiness Engineers

Go to Sleep WordPress, here’s Distraction Free Writing

Why Free is too Expensive

Premise

• I can’t see the word “free” in “Open Source”

• There’s a growing sense of entitlement that software should have no cost.

• Worse, we now expect people to give support and updates for free… forever!

• We’ve stopped looking at the business cases around the software we’re hoping to use.

• We favour the cheap option over expensive software that aligns better with our needs.

• “premium” and “freemium” plug-ins are decried unless their cost is so small and their features so great that the Return on Investment is insanely large.

• That’s not a business model that can continue to perpetuate itself in the long run.

How often have you thought this?

• I can’t believe that plug-in costs money!!

• I could do that myself 2-3 hours!

• I mean, look at the other free versions, they haven’t been kept up to date, but appear to do the same thing.

It’s a rip-off !

Listen to Bowie

• How much do you charge an hour?

• How long do you think it would take you to plan, code, test and deploy your version?

• Divide the cost of your purchase by how long you think it would take you to develop. Which is more?

• Open Source is not yet taken seriously as a viable business model, and we need to make a mental shift.

• We need to accept that “Open Source Software” does not contain the word “free”, and that my time, your time, and other people’s time is worth more than “nothing”.

• Don’t value free over not free: it’s an oxymoron!

Upgrades of Mass Destruction

Lies, damned lies, and Open Source Statistics

1 in 13 people in the UK work in a Bank

1 in 14 people in the UK work in the NHS

1 in 15 people in the UK work in Government

1 in 15 people in the UK work in 1000+ employee company

1 in 5 people in the UK work in a place that’s 3000%* more likely to use Old Browser

The Kobayashi Maru

Every week on Star Trek

• Kirk: Mr. Scott, How long until X?

• Scotty: 3 weeks captain.

• Kirk: I need it in 4 minutes

• Scotty: I just cannae do it captain

• Kirk: I need it Mr.Scott

• Scott: Oh you need it? let me just flick this switch

Short Term:Ignore Kirk, Listen to Scotty

Perception

• We have many generation of managers who have been brought up to believe that:

• Management is always right• Authority trumps Expertise• Any issues can be overcome in Any time period

Long Term:Ignore Scotty, Listen to Kirk

Engineers sometimes need to be held back

Remember

• Kirk went on away missions• Kirk talked to all departments• Kirk talked to Starfleet Command• Kirk talked to people on the view screen• Kirk was from Ohio, he just worked in Outer

Space

• Scotty stayed in Engineering

“I know this ship like the back of my hand” - Scotty