A question about bad coding...

If you told him you could make the site work everywhere, make the site load faster, and make the site work better, (ignoring £/hour) I cant imagine why a client wouldnt want those things.

It also (as aarlev said) helps with SEO.
 
Best simple analogy to give a client about benefits of decent code:

Let's use some made up numbers. Your site gets 10,000 visits a month. Of those 10,000 visitors, 10% (1000) go on to purchase your product costing £100. Of those 1000 a further 5% (50) have an impairment. If they can't access your site fully, they may not be able to complete the purchase. You just lost £5,000 in potential sales because of poor code.

The numbers are admittedly fictitious but they illustrate the point.
 
All very useful info.. thanks lads.. needed some reference to go to my boss for some funding :D ... it'll probably get shot down but still worth a try :p :lol:
 
renniks said:
If you told him you could make the site work everywhere, make the site load faster, and make the site work better, (ignoring £/hour) I cant imagine why a client wouldnt want those things.

It also (as aarlev said) helps with SEO.
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My point is, that I personally struggle to argue my corner as why standards based coding is better. I struggle to tell them the real benefits.

It's not proven that CSS based sites run any quicker, 'the site work better' seems to general for me, it doesn't seem like a direct benefit.


I'm desperate to find out that CSS based coding is quicker 90% of the time than tables, that it's always more accessible (not all table layouts have problems with screen readers supposedly) and any other benefits.

For me the only real benefits I can think of off the top of my head are easily updatable for the future, compatible with old and new browsers (when done right) and more chance of being read by those with screen readers.

I know standards coding is the best way, but I can't always convey that to the client.
 
Standards dictate that tables should be used for presenting tabular data and nothing else. Layout and presentation should be done with generic containers eg. divs (in order to define a section of related content) and css.

There is also a speed of page render penalty with using tables for layout and presentation, however its a little long too winded to explain here.

Ultimately standards and regulation are what success and professionalism are judged in the majority of other professions, of which I feel Web design and Development industry should start emulating and enforcing, however, its up to you to quantify whether or not your that bothered, although saying that, recent legislation change with the UK Disability act can lend you in very hot water if you dont confirm to certain standards and regulations, as per Harry's post.
 
Load times are only really noticeable when you have several nested tables, a 'top level' table shouldn't pose any real problems.
 
So my point unfortunately stands. I still haven't found a good way to communicate why tables are wrong.

There must be a simple cartoon out there with some form of metaphor to show the clients? :confused:
 
What your looking for Fred is enlightenment, the Zen of web design/development, you cant be told what it is, you have to discover it for yourself, then you will be able to guide your clients.
 
Xenonsoft said:
So my point unfortunately stands. I still haven't found a good way to communicate why tables are wrong.

There must be a simple cartoon out there with some form of metaphor to show the clients? :confused:
Click to expand...

Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered

I think that communicates it pretty well, and also lists some key selling points that you could incorporate when trying to educate your client on why standards are the way forward.
 
the dude in the picture looks like willy wonka would if he let himself go, or got fired from his chocolate factory and fell on hard times!
 
You can hold a car up with bricks just as well as you could a jack, but bricks aren't specifically built for that purpose. Sure the bricks will hold the car up, but it's gonna be a lot harder to do, and in future the jack will be the easiest to manipulate and alter. And if you're using bricks to hold up a car, what are you building your house with?

Semantics play a large role.
 
Cheers all.

Very interesting link, bookmarked for certain future use!

Liking that analogy Harry, did you make that up or should I be directing my compliments elsewhere?
 
renniks said:
The top sites code doesnt have a doctype, for some reason has two <head> tags, the center tag? is in the wrong place, the <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> tag needs to be closed

The use of tables for non tabulated data, not closing all tags (image tags etc.)

all make it a slower process and less compatible with certain browsers as the browser has to assume certain things and work out what you meant by this or that.
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About the <center> tag,

If the site is being written according to XHTML Strict DTD, then that is instantly wrong as it isn't supported and shouldn't be used anymore. Plus it has been marked as deprecated in HTML 4.01

EDIT: I also like the analogys going on here, I would try and think of my own, however you will all have Dumbledore beards before I come up with one :D
 
Well you can use XHTML but it would be more beneficial as XHTML is now discontinued from progress to use HTML 4.01 and aim for HTML5 when it is standard practise.
 
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