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WthRemix Winners Announced 112

Posted by michael from the slashdot.org-still-needs-help dept.
joeclark1159 writes "The contest to redesign the World Wide Web Consortium's homepage to look like something vaguely superior to 1982-era lpt output has announced its winners, judged on criteria including standards compliance, accessibility, graceful degradation, and aesthetics. The grand-prize winner, Radu Darvas, is arguably head and shoulders above the competition."
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WthRemix Winners Announced More

WthRemix Winners Announced

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  • rats (Score:4, Funny)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) <mrpuffypants@gm a i l . c om> on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:03AM (#5764118)
    I guess my submissions of http://www.microsoft.com didn't win after all... :(

  • Call me a perfectionist... (Score:5, Funny)

    by loquacious d ( 635611 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:08AM (#5764125)
    ...but that winning design [homelesspixel.de] still needs some massaging. At least that's what the Machead type-designer in me says. The text spacing is pretty off to my eyes, in both Safari and Chimera (nee Camino) 0.6.

    In any case, razor blades flying from my LCD at high speeds would probably be better than the W3C site as it stands. It always annoyed me that their CSS2 page was just about the ugliest one on the intarweb. "Look, kiddies! With CSS, your pages can cause bleeding eyes! Semantically!"
    • <pedant-mode>
      It's "Camino (nee; Chimera)", not "Chimera (nee; Camino)". "nee" is French for "born as". (The second "e" should have an acute accent; I couldn't get it to display properly.)
      </pedant-mode>
      • [sigh] Dude, dude, dude. You failed your pedantism.

        You were correct about Chimera coming first and being followed up by (the stupidly-named) Camino, but it's "née". The accent is on the first 'e'. Actually, you only need the second 'e' if the noun is feminine, but let's just leave it on to be safe.

  • Great... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by juuri ( 7678 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:08AM (#5764126) Homepage
    ... so now we can gave the w3 homepage be a bastion of obfuscation as well.

    When will web designers (hi slashdot!) learn that tons of varied visible information on one screen is NOT a good way to design an interface.

    • Re:Great... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...tons of varied visible information on one screen is NOT a good way to design an interface.

      I don't know. I think that being able to find information quickly, through a clear and logically layed out site, is the thing the W3C is after here. Personally, I would not like to go on a clicking marathon to find the content im after. If I can load one page quickly, and find a link to what I'm looking for immediately, I would be quite happy with that.

      I am also guessing (hoping too) that many others think tha

  • Nothing remarkable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:10AM (#5764128)
    It looks clean and organized but also rather bland and generic. Also, I like more contrast between my text and background than the dark grey on light grey color scheme chosen by Radu. I think greater contrast makes the text more distinct and easier to read.

  • okay well (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:11AM (#5764132)
    now can someone stop the w3c from their xml trip? by http 6.0, every bit will be xml encoded.

    <octet hexvalue="2d">
    <bit order="7">0</bit>
    <bit order="6">0</bit>
    <bit order="5">1</bit>
    <bit order="4">0</bit>
    <bit order="3">1</bit>
    <bit order="2">1</bit>
    <bit order="1">0</bit>
    <bit order="0">1</bit>
    </octet>
  • If the winner is any indication, it does not. While I do like his design...shouldn't everybody know that Google is spelled with two o's, not three?

  • From the contest FAQ. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:14AM (#5764134) Homepage

    What is the relationship of this contest with the W3C?

    This contest is not affiliated with the W3C, entries will not be submitted to them. Enter this contest if you are inspired by the challenge and/or excited about the prizes.


  • W3C Validation (Score:3, Funny)

    by miketang16 ( 585602 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:16AM (#5764140) Journal
    Hehe, reminds me of when I tried to feed msn.com through the HTML validator... god did it ever fuck itself...

  • Good looking, compliant and accessible - Top notch (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Isofarro ( 193427 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:16AM (#5764141) Homepage
    The winning entry [homelesspixel.de] is an excellent example that it is possible to create good looking, highly functional, structured websites that are also fully accessible. Congrats to Radu Darvas.

    Don't know about you guys, but I'm grabbing a copy of his markup and stylesheets - its packed with a number of excellent tips on creating accessible designs. Apart from one or two miniscule gripes that are not worth mentioning - this is a fantastic example of modern web design.

    Also, I do like one of the honourable mentions [bazzmann.it] - very clean looking and easy on the eye.
    • You're missing half the beauty of the design without grabbing the Toggle CSS Stylesheet [tantek.com] favelet/bookmarklet and trying it out on the winning site [homelesspixel.de].

      Because of the use of proper HTML structure (Hx, Acronym tags) the site is still is very accessible and easy to read.

      A minor quibble is the rampant usage of spans with a class named "none" to hide navigation divider pipes ("|") when CSS is on. Something like an unordered list [alistapart.com] might be better structurally... but that's more of a personal thing.
    • You're missing half the beauty of the design without grabbing the Toggle CSS Stylesheet [tantek.com] favelet/bookmarklet and trying it out on the winning site [homelesspixel.de].

      Because of the use of proper HTML structure (Hx, Acronym tags) the site is still is very accessible and easy to read.

      A minor quibble I have is the rampant usage of spans with a class named "none" to hide navigation divider pipes ("|") when CSS is on. Something like an unordered list [alistapart.com] might be better structurally... but that's more of a personal thing.
    • You're missing half the beauty of the design without grabbing the Toggle CSS Stylesheet [tantek.com] favelet/bookmarklet and trying it out on the winning site [homelesspixel.de].

      Because of the use of proper HTML structure (Hx, Acronym tags) the site is still is very accessible and easy to read.

      A minor quibble is the rampant usage of spans with a class named "none" to hide navigation divider pipes ("|") when CSS is on. Something like an unordered list [alistapart.com] might be better structurally... but that's more of a personal thing.
    • You're missing half the beauty of the design without grabbing the Toggle CSS Stylesheet [tantek.com] favelet/bookmarklet and trying it out on the winning site [homelesspixel.de].

      Because of the use of proper HTML structure (Hx, Acronym tags) the site is still is very accessible and easy to read.

      A minor quibble is the rampant usage of spans with a class named "none" to hide navigation divider pipes ("|") when CSS is on. Something like an unordered list [alistapart.com] might be better structurally... but that's more of a personal thing.
    • You're missing half the beauty if you don't grab the Toggle CSS Stylesheet [tantek.com] bookmarklet/favlet and use it when you check out the winning entry.

      Because of all the proper structure in the HTML (like proper usage of Hx, and Acronym tags), it still looks good and is easily readable without the CSS. It even unhides "skip to" links (see Dive Into Accessibility [diveintoac...bility.org]) for easier navigation at the top for non-visual browsers.

      My only quibble is the repetitive usage of spans with a class called "none" to hide the navig

  • Look ma, no tables! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @04:16AM (#5764142) Homepage
    Say, those pages looked alright, I bet Slashdot could do a redesign and get rid of thier tables too.
    • Say, those pages looked alright, I bet Slashdot could do a redesign and get rid of thier tables too.

      Yeah, I am pretty impressed with the absence of tables, replaced with "containers". Unfortunately, the containers have fixed pixel widths.

      It is interesting to see that, in spite of his ingenuity, he wasn't able to match up the columns at the bottom of the page.

      All the same an interesting example.

    • Submit a patch.
      </CmdrTaco>

  • Slashdot Ubiquity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cheerkiller ( 540413 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @06:30AM (#5764145) Journal
    I think it's interesting that so many sites are copying the basic format of slashdot.org. This is only the most recent example. For others visit xwin.org [xwin.org] and osnews.com [osnews.com]. Innovation is dead.

    • Re:Slashdot Ubiquity (Score:2, Interesting)

      by buddha42 ( 539539 )
      A three-column layout has been common since the invention of the freaking printing press.

      When the whole world starts looking like slashdot to you, its time to check into a clinic.

  • What no alternate stylesheets? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chilliwilli ( 114962 ) <tom.rathbone@g m a i l.com> on Saturday April 19, 2003 @06:40AM (#5764152)
    Where are the alternate stylesheets? Larger text options for hard of vision? Higher contrast?
    Also none of the entries make use of site navigation links?
    Load up wired.com [wired.com] in a new version of Mozilla.. that's how new standards compliant web technology should be done.

  • Accessible design with fixed font sizes? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rmonday ( 639657 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @06:54AM (#5764171)
    I don't see what's so accessible about a design that uses fixed text sizes. Seems to be an attempt to do page layout, rather than page markup.

    To be properly accessible, it should (amongst other things...) be possible to easily change the displayed font size to suit your preference.

    With the default MSIE settings it can't be done when the stylesheet specifies fixed pixel font sizes. I realise that most of the size specifications in css are broken in some way in some browser, but just assuming that everybody uses the exact same screen DPI and has the exact same eyesight isn't the answer.

    From that point of view, the winning design is a big step backwards from the existing site (and no less cluttered and confusing).

    • You can't blame the site just because MSIE is unable to scale fonts contained widthin a style-sheet. That is a problem with MSIE not the site.

      • Re:Accessible design with fixed font sizes? (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No, this isn't just another case of IE being broken, it's a problem with the specification. The CSS specs don't say that fonts specified with fixed pixel sizes should be scalable, that's just an assumption made by some browsers. IE not being able to scale fixed pixel fonts is really pretty valid, it's not just another IE broken standard thing like the fact that transparencies and alpha layers in PNGs STILL don't work in IE6 for Windows (they do in IE 5.1 and later for Mac I know).
    • With the default MSIE settings it can't be done when the stylesheet specifies fixed pixel font sizes.

      whoa, people still use MSIE? i mean, honestly?

      i know, people will mark me as a troll, but really, if you're still using MSIE, you should give the latest mozilla build for windows [mozilla.org] a try.

      i'm telling you, once you try mozilla, you won't go back to MSIE.
    • The requirement for variable font sizes is something of a myth in accessible Web design. The only browser with a problem resizing fonts is IE on Windows. People with an actual need to resize fonts, as distinct from people who are visually-impaired enough to require screen magnification (which blows up everything on the screen), should switch browsers. It's an oversold problem. One could certainly have argued for standards-compliant navigation columns that appear and disappear. Those columns of nav links c
    • My vision isn't great (I'm certainly not blind, but I need larger fonts than many sites seem to think looks "cool"). When CSS starting becoming popular for font sizing, I had to switch from MSIE to other browsers. I'm sure a lot of other people like me followed suit (but not enough that MS cared, apparently).

      Frankly, it wouldn't be a problem if IE weren't so pervasive. Current versions of Opera, Mozilla, and Netscape ALL support changing the font sizes declared in CSS. Generally (sometimes minor config
  • I don't see what's so accessible about a design that uses fixed text sizes. Seems to be an attempt to do page layout, rather than page markup.

    To be properly accessible, it should (amongst other things...) be possible to easily change the displayed font size to suit your preference.

    With the default MSIE settings it can't be done when the stylesheet specifies fixed pixel font sizes. I realise that most of the size specifications in css are broken in some way in some browser, but just assuming that everybo

  • Finally one can go to the page without feeling like having had extensive eye surgery.

  • Where's the improvement? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by macshit ( 157376 ) <(snogglethorpe) (at) (gmail.com)> on Saturday April 19, 2003 @07:03AM (#5764184) Homepage
    It must be something hidden like standards conformance, because the `remixed' home-page looks pretty exactly the same as the old home-page, except that the remix seems vaguely more depressing. To be honest, I rather like the old home-page; it's clean, straight-forward, and even kind of cheerful...

    • scripsit macshit:

      It must be something hidden like standards conformance, because the `remixed' home-page looks pretty exactly the same as the old home-page, except that the remix seems vaguely more depressing. To be honest, I rather like the old home-page; it's clean, straight-forward, and even kind of cheerful...

      You must be using an obsolete or non-CSS supporting browser. Out of curiosity I looked at it with SGI's OEM NS4.5 under IRIX and it looks like a 1995-era grey-background all-text page -- bu

      • I'm using Mozilla 1.2, so I don't think it's an `obsolete browser' problem.

        I suspect that your taste simply differs from mine, but care to describe what you're seeing that makes it an improvement over the current page?

        What I see is that they both have the same basic layout -- a title, a minimal navigation header, and 3 columns, with articles in the center one and useful links in the two side columns. The only real differences seem to be color and icon changes, little boxes around everything (in the remix

        • scripsit macshit:

          I'm using Mozilla 1.2, so I don't think it's an `obsolete browser' problem.

          I suspect that your taste simply differs from mine, but care to describe what you're seeing that makes it an improvement over the current page?

          Well, I know for a fact that my taste differs from many people's <grin>

          In this regard, I misunderstood your description to be that of the CSS-free version. I don't consider the `remix' page bland; if anything, the orange header is a bit garish IMHO.

          The `remi

  • Refreshing doesn't help, but if you scroll around the page for a while, you will eventually have everything redrawn in another (more correct) way than refresh. Go figure!

    Works great in Debian GNU / Linux - Galeon 1.3.3, Debian GNU / Linux - Mozilla 1.3, Mac OS X 10.2.5 - Safari 1.0 Beta 2 (v73) (damn fast!), and Mac OS X 10.2.5 - IE 5.2.2.

    Cheers!

    - I don't have a .sig

  • funny (Score:2)

    by fizban ( 58094 )
    Did anyone happen to translate the latin text at the bottom of Radu's page? It's been a while since I took latin, so I'm very rusty. Here's the text:

    "copyright ©2003 blah blah lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

    Duis autem veleum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel willum lunombro dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dign

  • Winning design not properly resizable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @11:41AM (#5764426) Homepage Journal
    Try making the window thinner - first the content gets squeezed down to a thin strip between those two huge menus, then eventually one menu disappears and random bits of text obscure the content! (ymmv, I'm using Mozilla 1.2 for MacOS).
  • Make the Tyranny of the Three Column View stop!

    Next they'll have rss feeds and w3cboxes!

  • Free at last (almost) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by buddha42 ( 539539 ) on Saturday April 19, 2003 @01:24PM (#5764791)
    Regardless of the nitpickign we could all do, whats important to realize is that the day has finnaly arrived when you can have a standards compliant and cross-user-agent accessible site, and look good!.

    Whats important now is to keep moving forward! Don't let your self, friends, family, clients, company, etc put up any new sites that don't at least try to validate. They don't have to be perfect, just at least try and put some effort into it.

    For those of us who learned HTML in the 2.0 & 3.x days, it takes a little bit of relearning in terms of how you approach markup, but it really is worth it.

    Go run your homepage through validator.w3.org [w3.org]. Fix 5 things. Make it a goal one weekend to make your site validate with less than 5 errors. It really is remarkably easy, we're talking about markup and stylesheets here people.

  • what the heck. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Saturday April 19, 2003 @06:29PM (#5766018) Homepage
    no 900k flash intro? one that gives me a thumping techno beat as the letters "w3c" flash into existence before my eyes?

    not a terribly modern redesign, obviously. These people need to get with the program.
  • All those pages look pretty bland to me. I wasn't very impressed with them. They are functional, I guess.

    Eye candy please. No, I'm not talking about Flash and all that junk, just need to splash the page with graphics or something. Way to plain.

    Oh well, back to my MTV and Shiney things.
  • It uses GIF files for its lossless graphics.
    h2 {
    margin: 15px 0px 3px 0px;
    padding: 3px 21px;
    font-size: 14px;
    color: #333;
    background: <b>url(imgs/arrow_ico.gif)</b> no-repeat 2px 4px #ddd;
    border: 1px solid #bbb;
    }

  • It should really have been done in XHTML Strict DTD.

    Pretty much anything can be designed well in Transitional DTD, but doing it in Strict is far more challenging (and this is the DTD that the W3C home page is done in, so it should have been the required DTD).

    When doing it in Strict, as much of the design and layout, as possible, is moved away from the structural layout and into the CSS/XSLT, which is not the case with transitional. The full and real benefits of seperating markup are not gained using

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