ie Posted…

Scotty,

Excited as you may sound, I beg to differ.

1.  »It looks great«

It depends on your vantage point.  I reserve the word great for other websites.  It doesn’t look great to me, albeit I’m very, very careful and reluctant to say that.  Here’s why.

Immediately, at first glance, I noticed somebody is striving very hard to imitate Doug Bowman.  My suspicion was borne out by the stylesheet headerfooter.css.  That’s how he codes.

Alas, the site is Doug’s knock-off.  Is it right or wrong to do that ?  You be the judge.

I refuse to believe Doug had anything to do with the IAEA website.  It falls short.

2.  »and validates.«

No.  Run this page
   http://www.iaea.org/About/index.html
through the validator.

Run this sheet
   http://www.iaea.org/css/headerfooter.css
through the validator.

3.  Too much of JavaScript for my taste.

I’ve yet to figure out why a web developer would like me to alter text size by use of JavaScript, CSS being perfectly good and appropriate mechanism.  I’ve seen this on King Z.’s site and elsewhere.  If some good soul knows the rationale, pray, enlighten me.

By way of conclusion, on the scale of 1 to 10, I rate this site 6, merely for the effort and the fact the developer(s) takes his inspiration from the best folks out on the web.  And, if, indeed, Doug’s had a hand in the creation, I bump my rating to 8, just because it’s him.  -:)

Mike Posted…

I don't know about that, IE.

I will agree with you that the site is not "great", but to me it really doesn't give off any stopdesignish qualities. If I totally disregarded the coding of it, how is it that tab navigation on top, with a sidebar on the right, looks very much like Doug's site? If that was the case, then I'd say 30% or more of CSS designs coming out nowadays would be guilty of stealing his design aesthetic.

divya Posted…

It is amazing tht such an important organization has a XHTML/CSS site. But it seems some elements are missing.

When I switch off style sheets, what I see in the first line is a "Contact Us". There is no IAEA logo nor atleast a big "IAEA" just to identify the site..( not in my Opera 7.10) it doesnt come in till sometime later. Knowing that it is a UN site, I think there needs to be some consideration for people who use text readers to navigate (atleast a "Skip Navigation" button).

But it is a commendable effort no doubt

Matthew Posted…

Yeah, its xhtml/css, which is cool - but open it up in an old browser like netscape 4 (and I would imagine IE 4 as well) and it is a right mess, with no banner image. They should use some sort of working image replacement technique for text-only, and hide more complicated code with an @import tag.

Also, there is no use in showing the text larger/smaller buttons in css deficient browsers... it takes up space (and time for visually impaired users)

Glenn Posted…

I agree the site looks decent and loads relatively fast, but I'm afraid the designers missed the bus on the benefits of using CSS. Take a look at the source code and you'll see what I mean. (hint: span class="red" where the article date is listed.)

So much for the separation of presentation from content!

Scott Partee Posted…

It's easy to poo-poo others' works, and you are just in doing so, but I remain excited about the fact that the IAEA chose web standards and is on the "right path," so to speak.

Few sites are "perfect," and design approval ("looks great") is subjective. I stand by that claim, too. If you could see the old site, you'd probably think it looked great, too! ;)

Apparently, webgraphics is not the only site that thinks this is "big news."

That being said, the comments readers of webgraphics have left are all very helpful for both the IAEA and others who might be trying their hands at xhtml/css-based design. I encourage more readers to leave their comments here (and elsewhere) as the web is a two-way medium and it's how we all learn. The readership here at webgraphics is probably some of the most knowledgable and helpful with regards to this topic as any other group of folks out there, so keep it up!

Susanne Posted…

Hi All - As one of the developers who worked on the new site, I would just like to say thanks for all the attention - we're thrilled. We're quite aware that the site is not 'perfect'...but we're striving towards better compliance every day. We're a relatively tiny team, it's a huge site, but we're on the right path and are keen to make the site 'great' at some point....Thanks for taking the time to critique, we are taking those comments into consideration.

Jeff Posted…

Just wanted to say great job to the IAEA development team. You guys are setting a great example for similar organizations everywhere, and making it easier for people like me to show the value of standards to my bosses. I am currently working with a teammate to educate our corporate leaders, and influence them to implement a standards based design. Anyone who works in a large, corporate environment realizes that is a huge challenge alone.

The IAEA developers and designers have made it that much easier for people like my teammate and myself. We both send a sincere thanks and appreciate your effort. Keep it up the great work!

Derek Posted…

I’d like to join my colleague, Jeff, in loudly applauding the entire IAEA web team. A web site the size of yours will always be a work in progress, but any step down the path to valid code is worthy of praise. You’ve done a terrific job, and given the rest of us some real world ammunition to help sell standards based redesigns to our corporate leaders. Thanks for doing the right thing with your redesign.