Can you please tell what are keys to success and what should I do to become a successful programmer and software engineer? Anything is appreciated.

That’s a tough one. “Success” can be defined in so many ways. Is success making truckloads of money? Is it having 100,000 Twitter followers? Is it getting invited to speak at conferences in exotic locations? Those are very external notions of success, perhaps it’s more personal: Feeling like you’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Feeling like your life has meaning. Finding joy in both your work and your play. With so many ways to define success, there’s no magic formula for achieving it.

Unsure how to answer this perplexing question, I decided to answer by sharing what makes me feel successful—the Golden Rule. I used the Islamic version in my response:

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

That I chose the Islamic version had more to do with where my protege resides than anything else. This concept is universal, cropping up in nearly every faith and philosophy as well as in numerous cultural proverbs:

Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself. (Baha’i)

One should seek for others the happiness one desires for one’s self. (Buddhism)

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Chrisitianity)

Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence. (Confucianism)

He sought for others the good he desired for himself. Let him pass on! (Egyptian)

Don’t go around hurting people, and Try to understand things. (Hopi)

Humanists acknowledge human interdependence, the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity. (Humanism)

In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self. (Jainism)

One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts. (Nigerian)

Do as you would be done by. (Persian)

Then there’s my personal favorite, from Judaism:

What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary.

The Golden Rule is a wonderful tool for helping maintain balance in your life, business, and relationships. And so, I followed this recommendation proverb with a bit more detail on how I feel we can embody this philosophy:

• Treat others with respect (means respecting their time, dignity, etc.).
• Look for opportunities to help others accomplish their goals.
• Give of yourself freely without expecting return.

My twelve years of Catholic schooling drummed the proverb “to whomever much is given, much will be required“ into my head, which accounts for my emphasis on sharing. I know that my “success”—as I define it at least—has been made possible by the generosity of others. And so I think it’s my duty to “pay it forward” and I look for every opportunity to create opportunities for others.

In my experience, living life this way—or at least improving on it a bit each day—makes me feel successful. Perhaps it will work for you as well.

Note: Passing along this tiny bit of wisdom made me feel successful today :-)

First, the good stuff: The “offline first” movement clearly recognizes the current dilemma of our time:

We live in a disconnected & battery powered world, but our technology and best practices are a leftover from the always connected & steadily powered past.

App Cache, Web SQL, Web Storage, Indexed DB, Service Workers, and a handful of other specs and ideas were all created to address this core limitation of the Web. They also make it possible to compete with traditional software experiences. I am 100% on board with this move. It sucks to open Chrome on my mobile and switch to a tab that’s been tucked out of view for a while only to have the page fail to load because I happen to be traveling abroad without a data plan. If that site was made to work offline, the fact that Chrome had recycled the RAM and CPU that tab had been consuming would be less of a problem and the page would load instantly from the cache.

Tunnels… hotel wifi… high latency mobile networks… expensive roaming data plans… these are all reasons we need an offline Web. I’m incredibly thankful for all of the hard work the smart folks working on solutions like these are contributing.

Also inline with the “offline first” movement, I think it’s important to consider the offline experience early in a project, so it isn’t forgotten or haphazardly bolted on. We need to make deliberate choices about what content and assets we are caching. We need to plan for offline, maybe not first, but certainly early.

All of this is to say I don’t have an issue with the philosophy of “offline first”, but I do take issue with the name. As a term, it’s a bit disingenuous. Looking at other “firsts”—“mobile first” or (to go back little further) “content first”—these terms work on multiple levels: They remind us to keep the core purpose of a page or interface central to our planning. They also support an experience that begins and ends with that core.

A “mobile first” experience starts with a distraction-free central message or content, optimized for a small screen and (often) a single, narrow viewport. It can be enhanced for larger screens and more capable devices, but that core experience may be all some users get, and that’s ok. Users will have an experience (and a site that works) no matter what. The same is true with a “content first” approach; its experience remains available regardless of device or access mechanism. Sure, both “mobile first” and “content first” require the network, but guess what: “Offline first” requires network connectivity too!You don’t see many websites delivering their content on USB drives, so all of the code required to make the offline experience possible in the first place requires an initial (and stable) connection to the Web. In other words, offline can’t be first.

You may be wondering Why is that important? It’s important because, historically, a “first” approach (as I mentioned) sets an expectation of that experience always being available. Offline can’t provide that.

Moreover, offline has another core dependency beyond the network: JavaScript. Without JavaScript, none of your fancy offline stuff—except App Cache, which few folks are using these days—will work. And yes, I know, everyone has JavaScript support… but the reality is that not everyone will get your JavaScript enhancements, even if that were actually the case.

Please don’t misunderstand the purpose of this post: I applaud the ideas behind the “offline first” movement and the amazing work that community is doing. And you should absolutely incorporate offline into projects you are building for the Web. Users with capable devices and browsers will thank you for it. Just try not to use the term “offline first” or at least be prepared for me to cringe a little when you do. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way; if so, I’m okay with that. But, then again, semantics matter. Maybe we need a different rallying cry. Sadly “Offline Too” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

According to Merriam Webster, egalitarianism is:

1. a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs;
2. a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.

It’s a simple philosophy inspired by the Golden Rule, an ethical code which is central to most major religions:

Buddhism

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find harmful.

Christianity

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Islam

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

Judaism

What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary.

Heck, even Confucius said “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself”.

With so much emphasis on treating others with the sort of respect that we would like to be given, you’d think that inequality would be a non-issue. Obviously that’s not the case.

For centuries, we humans—even those of us who ascribe to these and the other countless Golden Rule abiding religions and philosophies—have failed to recognize ourselves in others and have erected barriers (both physical and societal) to their ability to lead the sort of happy, fulfilled life that we want for ourselves and our families.

Almost every way we mistreat others—from rude or snarky comments to genocide—stems from our inability to empathize with another person or group of people. It’s hard to connect with people who are different than us—people who have different life experiences, people who have different perspectives, people who are challenged in ways we have never been—and when we struggle to create a connection, it becomes easy for us to view them as “the other”. And when we begin to look at other people this way, we lose sight of their humanity and we lose sight of all of the things that make us similar.

While it is completely true that I have a very different life than a woman growing up in Dharavi, I have to believe that we have a lot in common too. We both want a good life for our families. We both want to feel safe. We both crack jokes. We’re both human. Our respective societies may view us very differently, but she is no less valuable than I am.

And this is why I am so passionate about the philosophy of egalitarianism. It grounds us in the notion that we are all equally valuable and should be granted equal opportunity to all that life has to offer.

John Rawls has a great thought experiment that I often cite in my talks on empathy. In it, he would ask you to imagine your ideal society. It could be a monarchy, anarchy, capitalist, or communist. It could be ruled by people of one particular gender or color. It could be governed by people of a particular tribe. It could be Panem. It could be Erewhon. It could be Brobdingnag. The choice is yours.

Once you’ve been ruminating on this a bit, he drops the bombshell: You have no control over or knowledge of where you fit in this society. This is called the Veil of Ignorance, a creation of John Harsanyi (an economist and early father of game theory). Rawls found that, with the Veil of Ignorance in play, people who participated in this thought experiment gravitated toward creating the most egalitarian societies possible.

It makes complete sense: What rational human being would create a society that enslaves people if they themselves could turn out to be a slave? Who would create a society that excludes women if they might be female? Who would build a world full of stairs if they could be in a wheelchair?

I love this exercise because it makes it easy to create at least basic connections between you and a wide variety of people who are different than you. It helps you realize that we are all equal and all worthy of consideration.

What is interesting about egalitarianism, as opposed to similar sounding philosophies like modern communism, is that it recognizes that equality of opportunity does not necessitate equality of outcome. In other words, while pushing for equality, it simultaneously recognizes that we have differences in capability, capacity, and interest.

We are different. We are similar in more ways than we are different, but to ignore our differences is to deny us our individuality, our personhood, our true selves. But recognizing differences is not the same as assigning a value to those differences. That’s an incredibly important distinction and bears repeating: Just because you recognize that someone is different does not imply you should view or treat them as any more or less human on account of what makes them different. That said, recognizing differences is the first step towards being able to create equality of opportunity.

This is such an important concept in life, but I was not a philosophy major, so I’ll stick to discussing it in terms of what I know a lot about: The Web. Specifically, Web accessibility.

For a great many of us, ensuring our websites are accessible is an afterthought. We talk a good game when it comes to “user centered” this or that, but often treat the word “accessibility” as a synonym for “screen reader”. It’s so much more than that. “Accessibility” is about people. People consume content and use interfaces in many different ways, some similar and some not so similar to how we do it.

Sure, people with visual impairments often use a screen reader to consume content. They might also use a braille touch feedback device or a braille printer. They probably also use a keyboard. Or they may use a touchscreen in concert with audio cues. And yes, visual impairment affects a great percentage of people, but they are only part of the “accessibility” puzzle.

The dimensions of interactive elements—links, buttons, etc.—and their proximity to one another is an important factor in ensuring an interface actually registers our intent (i.e. it helps us avoid fat fingering). Design is an accessibility concern.

The color contrast between text and the background is an important factor in ensuring content remains readable in different lighting situations. Color is an accessibility concern.

The language we use on our sites and in our interfaces directly affects how easy it is for our users to understand what we do, the products we are offering, and why it matters. It also affects how we make our users feel. Language is an accessibility concern.

The size of our Web pages and their associated assets has a direct affect on how long our pages take to download, how much it costs our customers to access them, and (sometimes) even whether or not the content can be reached. Performance is an accessibility concern.

I could keep going, but I’m sure you’re starting to get the point. “Accessibility” is ultimately about ensuring people have equal opportunity to access your content while simultaneously recognizing that we all have special needs—physical limitations, bandwidth limitations, device limitations, etc.—that lead us to have different experiences of the same Web page.

Accessibility is egalitarianism.

We are all different, but we all human. We all deserve respect. We all deserve to be treated equally. To be treated fairly.

We need more egalitarianism in this world and the good news is that we can make it happen.

To me, she’s always been a bit gimmicky. When she debuted on the iPhone 4S, I thought the voice recognition stuff was neat, but I didn’t see her as being anything close to the “digital assistant” Apple promised us. The idea was good, but the implementation was about as inspiring as my then 5-year-old Garmin. Oh, but she couldn’t give you turn by turn directions.

Sure, Siri’s gotten better, but not much.

Now, after reading Dan Kaplan’s excellent TechCrunch post lamenting the Siri that could have been, I realize how much better she could—nay should—be. You see, prior to being bought by Apple, Siri Assistant was pretty damn useful. She was a true digital assistant, capable of setting up a whole evening of fun for you by purchasing movie tickets, getting you dinner reservations, and even hailing you a cab. Pre buy-out, her creators even had plans to supercharge Siri by giving her predictive awareness (think Google Now). Dan offered a few examples of how this might work:

• “Hey Dan, your flight to NYC has just been canceled! Would you like me to book the next one?”
• “Hey Dan, you weren’t at home when your package got delivered. Would you like me to redirect it to your office?”
• “Hey Dan, you’ve got a coffee meeting downtown in 25 minutes. How about I summon a Lyft?”

Given Siri’s previous capabilities and the plans her creators had, how did she become so lame?

Personally, I think the reason is simple: Apple doesn’t get the web. Sure there are a lot of incredibly smart and talented people who work at Apple who clearly do understand what the web is and how it works, but I think as a company Apple doesn’t. Or worse it does, but they can’t control it or monetize it, so they’re not interested.

It’s a feeling I’ve had for quite some time, but reading this piece (especially in light of Jeremy Keith’s fantastic post about the movement of many web companies toward creating more walled gardens) really convinced me. I mean take a look at Maps.

Prior to iOS 6, Google Maps was the de-facto mapping and directions app. It offered your standard driving and walking directions, but it also offered public transit directions based on public data (much of which Google has coalesced into Google Maps Transit). Now, with Apple’s homegrown Maps, if you want to get transit directions, you need to download a separate app from the App Store. Travel a lot? Try 8 differnet apps. Or 10.

Instead of using existing APIs to make transit directions native to Maps, they opted to fragment the experience.*

Sure, you might argue that the Maps team may have had to cut the transit feature due to time or budget constraints, but they found the time to make the maps three-dimensional. Just sayin’.

Clearly Apple could have used any of the publicly available transit APIs to accomplish this task, but they didn’t. The same goes for Siri. There are a ton of freely-available resources out there to collect information and then do something useful with it—to truly allow Siri to become the digital assistant of our dreams—but Apple doesn’t seem to have any interest. And I think their software is suffering for it.

* I’m all for de-coupling functionality in order to scale application logic, but de-coupling (a.k.a. fragmenting) the user experience is downright baffling. Especially for a company that prides themselves on both design and user experience.

This twist to Rawls’s experiment can be attributed to the “Veil of Ingorance” Theory conceived by John Harsanyi (a father of game theory), and it had a profound impact on how Groups chose to organize their hypothetical societies. 

What Rawls discovered through these experiments is that when the Veil of Ignorance is in play, people gravitate toward the deepest and broadest forms of egalitarianism in order to ensure that even the least well-off or marginalized people are treatly justly. In essence, it forces people to “walk a mile” in someone else’s shoes. After all, as a self-interested, rational human being, who would want to create a society that treats the elderly like crap if he might turn out to be elderly in that society?

The Veil of Ignorance is something we have to deal with in web design as well: As much as we may try to understand trends in our users—the browsers they use, the devices they are on, etc.—we can never know the full story. For instance, we may know that someone is coming to us on an iPhone, but we can’t (at least at this point) know whether they are using assistive technology like VoiceOver or even a braille touch feedback device. This is why concepts such as Usability and, moreover, Accessibility are so important. It’s also why progressive enhancement is my guiding philosophy—the use of progressive enhancement in web design is what egalitarianism is in society. 

Of course, whenever you start talking about egalitarianism, you attract the haters (and haters are going to hate). Here’s Gary Hull of the Ayn Rand Institute:

Egalitarianism, which claims only to want an ‘equality’ in end results, hates the exceptional man who, through his own mental effort, achieves that which others cannot…. Talent and ability create inequality…. To rectify this supposed injustice, we are told to sacrifice the able to the unable. Egalitarianism demands the punishment and envy of anyone who is better than someone else at anything.

Sounds a lot like the hardboiled/graceful degradation camp right? To paraphrase: Progressive enhancement is holding us back by requiring us to give all users a dumbed-down experience.Wrong! Like egalitarianism’s critics, many of progressive enhancement’s critics fail to grasp the meaning of “equality” used by egalitarians (instead using a definition more akin to that used by socialist and communist philosophies). To quote Alexander Berkman (emphasis mine):

[E]quality does not mean an equal amount but equal opportunity…. Do not make the mistake of identifying equality in liberty with the forced equality of the convict camp. … It does not mean that every one must eat, drink, or wear the same things, do the same work, or live in the same manner. Far from it: the very reverse in fact…. Individual needs and tastes differ, as appetites differ. It is equal opportunity to satisfy them that constitutes true equality… Far from levelling, such equality opens the door for the greatest possible variety of activity and development.

Were Berkman a web designer (rather than an early 20th century anarchist) he would probably fall down on the side of progressive enhancement as his statement echoes egalitarian aims perfectly: access to content and functionality without technological restriction. Progressive enhancement does not aim to give the same experience to every person on every device in every browser; that would be ludicrous. It simply asks that you honor your users (and your content) by giving them a positive experience irrespective of the their capabilities or that of their technology.

In my life, I’ve always been drawn to egalitarianism; I credit my grandparents for that. From a very young age, my grandparents encouraged me to follow the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s a simple maxim, but like egalitarianism it asks that you put yourself in someone else’s place and consider how your choices affect them. Would you want to be treated the way you treat others?

Surprisingly enough, even the Golden Rule has its critics. Whereas I see the Golden Rule as a positive motivator, some folks look at it and see it as a play to our inherent self-interest (e.g. selfishness). In other words, they argue that the message of the Golden Rule is more about you than it is about the “others.” I don’t really want to get into the whole is-a-truly-selfless-act-really-possible debate (Friends already nailed it anyway) because I think that line of thinking misses the point. To me, the point is simply consideration of the “other” in how you conduct yourself. To look outside yourself and your realm of knowledge and experience and actually empathize with another human being.

Progressive enhancement follows the Golden Rule because it is concerned with the “other”. That’s why accessibility is such a key part of building websites following the progressive enhancement philosophy. It’s about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes—someone whose abilities and situation probably differ from yours. We are a diverse lot after all.

Of course whenever I bring up the importance of acessibility, I get reactions like this: My business is selling TVs. Blind people don’t buy TVs so why should I cater to them?

Really? I know a lot of blind people with TVs. Sure, they may not be able to see it themselves, but their spouses, children, and friends likely can. And they can listen to it.

Back at my old ad agency, I had an email run-in with a department head over the National Federation for the Blind’s lawsuit againt Target. The NFB was suing Target because the company refused to address issues with the accessibility of its website that prevented blind users (among others) from being able to shop there. So I passed around a link to Derek Featherstone’s post on the subject as suggested reading. The reaction I got from the department head was that of your typical free-market libertarian:

Is Target forcing blind people to shop there? If they don’t, does Target hurt them in some way?

If it doesn’t meet web standards, why don’t blind people just shop somewhere else?

These are fair points and are the very arguments we often hear against equality legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ignoring the legal requirements and altruistic motivations behind doing something to provide equal opportunity—and ignoring the fact that in many cases the government will give you tax credits for making your business more accessible—let’s consider the business benefits of being more accessible.

To return to the TV store analogy, for all we know, a potential customer—who just happens to be blind (or even just vision-impaired)—might be on the hunt for an awesome home theater system that would be a huge sale for whoever gets her business. If she can’t easily navigate our site to find what she’s looking for—or access our physical storefront—do you think she’s going to stick around and struggle through a frustrating (or potentially humiliating) experience just to give you her money? No way, she’s going to make her purchase from somewhere that is more accomodating, that gives her equal opportunity to make a purchase by respecting her needs. So beyond doing the “right thing,” it’s in our self-interest to be as respectful as possible of our customers and potential customers—that’s good customer service.

Progressive enhancement considers customer service (a.k.a. user experience) at every level of an interface because it instructs us to provide equal opportunities to access content and functionality.

Back in January, Ben Hoh demonstrated his complete understanding of the progressive enhancement philosophy:

[Progressive enhancement] keeps the design open to possibilities of sexiness in opportune contexts, rather than starting with a “whole” experience that must be compromised. While it might simply seem like another way to achieve graceful degradation’s exact goal from the opposite direction, this newer approach is qualitatively different: because progressive enhancement doesn’t presume a single, ideal state to fall back from, it deals much better with emerging landscapes and multiple contexts. For example, developing an integrated design that provides an equally “full” and contextually appropriate experience for both mobile and desktop browsers is easier with progressive enhancement.

What a great way to put it. Eloquent, to say the least.

Interestingly, the intent of Ben’s post was not to sell people on the benefits of the progressive enhancement approach to web design but rather to ponder the question: what might progressive enhancement suggest in the world of culture and politics? It’s a subject I have been mulling over in my head for years and I thank him for finally coaxing it out of me.

Many people say it’s impolite to discuss politics (or religion), but I live for these discussions. Discussing either topic gives you so much insight into the what makes a person tick, and I love getting to know people. And despite having never formally studied it, I just love philosophy and believe that my personal philosophy (which is largely shared by the team here at Easy) greatly informs the work that we do. I hope sharing it leads to some interesting discussions both here in the comments and (just maybe) out in the real world when we run into each other—be it at conferences or the coffeshop.

P.S.: To see other perspectives on progressive enhancement and politics, I highly recommend reading Ben Hoh’s post and Barry Saunders’ follow-up.

The trend continues where I speak to clients, vendors, young developers fresh out of college, and even the teachers/professors who instruct them and they don’t understand that HTML5 and CSS3 aren’t the same specification. I have repeatedly shown an HTML 4.01 site with CSS3 to explain that they are each distinct specifications which can be applied in different combinations of different versions. This is further complicated when JavaScript is folded into the mix—some folks even think jQuery is part of the HTML5 specification.

It’s true: For all intents and purposes, “HTML5” has become a meaningless catch-all marketing phrase defining a platform rather than a specification. It’s “DHTML” all over again.¹

This all probably started with the fact that “HTML5,” as a spec, was always more than a markup language. Even from the very early days at the WHATWG (before they decided to go versionless and just call it “HTML”), “HTML5” was a markup language, an updated DOM interface, and a set of new APIs for interacting with browsers and devices. A few of us took issue with classifying it all as “HTML5,” but it’s not like anyone can tell Hixie what to do.

So yeah, from the beginning “HTML5” has been a bit of a misnomer, but the final blow to HTML5’s usefulness as a term—to me at least—came in the form of Apple’s “HTML5 Showcase.” It received a ton of attention in the press and really got the term “HTML5” out there… oddly enough while mostly demoing CSS3 features and making little to no attempt to disambiguate the technologies at work.

Ok, so what’s the problem with all of this? Some argue that there is no problem, that the public’s enthusiasm for “HTML5” can only bring about positive change on the web. I don’t disagree with that, but I also strongly believe semantics are important. Chris Mills summed up my feelings pretty well on the WaSP blog around this time last year:

This really isn’t good—I appreciate that it is good to have an umbrella term for a group of related technologies and techniques that would otherwise be difficult to talk about in conversation. “Ajax” and “Web 2.0” serve that purpose well. And it is ok to talk about closely-related specs such as Geolocation and Web Sockets as being under the HTML5 umbrella, as long as you clarify it somewhere (you can find a good example in Get familiar with HTML5!). But this is different—HTML5 and CSS3, for example, are two distinctly different technologies, and should not be confused with one another. To do so will impede learning and cause problems with development, documentation, and all manner of other things.

That’s the rub. When engaging in conversations, we need too know which “HTML5” is being discussed. Personally, when I discuss HTML5, I always draw a distinction between “HTML5” the marketing term and “HTML5” the specification even if asked ambiguous questions about HTML5. I’m not saying everyone needs to know the precise differences between the two uses of the term, but it’s our duty to educate them that there is a difference, even if they can’t fathom the particulars.

1. DHTML, as you may recall, was a catch-all phrase that meant using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript together, but some people thought it was an actual technology in its own right. Thanks marketing wonks!

[T]he menu failed. Never even opened. Suddenly, the site was without navigation…at all.

Joe Seddon, a UK-based designer, shared his reaction to the post in the comment thread, but if you’re not a Forrst member, you can’t read the comments, so I wanted to share his reaction:

I know you’re a big fan of progressive advancement Aaron and I have huge respect for you as a designer, however I disagree with your way of thinking and feel it is holding our industry back.

Starting from the bottom instead of the top limits creativity. By designing from the top we as designers can take advantage of new technology and build the best user experience possible for those who use the best browsers. I agree that designs should work to a usable degree on every browser and device in which there is a decent level of traffic coming from, however this doesn’t mean we should have to start designing for them first.

In the case of Brad Frost, he should keep his nifty slider on Barack Obama’s website however on mobile he should find an alternative solution that works. If this means removing the slider all together and replacing it with a simpler navigation method then so be it. He shouldn’t limit the experience of the desktop user just because the mobile user doesn’t have a device that supports this or that.

I don’t mean to pick on Joe here, but he shares a common misconception about progressive enhancement. One I hope my response (below) dispels:

@JoeSeddon It sounds like you’re firmly in the Andy Clarke camp on this one, but I couldn’t disagree more with your statement that my “way of thinking” (i.e. progressive enhancement) is “holding our industry back.” If anything, I think it is the way forward. And for the record, I’m not the only one thinking this way: Jeffrey Zeldman, @adactio, Ethan Marcotte, Daniel Mall, Scott Jehl & the Filament Group, Brad Frost, Stephanie and @bryanrieger, and countless others support and promote progressive enhancement every day.

Starting from the bottom instead of the top limits creativity.

Actually no. Building a website is a heck of a lot like building a house—you need a solid foundation and “good bones” for it so stand the test of time and for it to be able to support the amazing things you want to do with it. Your server forms the foundation—keeping the whole website stable. And smart, semantic markup is the framing—the joists and supports that allow you to build higher without worrying about collapse.

To take the analogy further, your backend (assuming you have an API or at least a DB and some code to talk to it) is like the electrical, water, and communication systems which will support the fixtures of your site. CSS is your façade and interior design. Basic HTTP (e.g. links and communication via POST and GET) and JavaScript (probably in concert with an API) connects the systems to your fixtures (most likely a combo of HTML, CSS & JS) and makes them functional.

All of these pieces are orchestrated by your IA, User Flows, and UX design—the blueprints, elevations, etc. of the web world. And, to be honest, that’s where you should be doing the lion’s share of your creative thinking when it comes to interface.

By designing from the top we as designers can take advantage of new technology and build the best user experience possible for those who use the best browsers.

You, as a designer, should be considering the implications of technical decisions and options at the planning stage. If you’re a freelancer or run a small shop, you may be the UX person too, but if you aren’t, you should be working with your UX person to propose innovative interactions and then plan out how those can be used on the latest and greatest browsers and what the experience would be on less capable browsers and devices. It all starts with the planning.

Nothing in progressive enhancement says you can’t use the latest and greatest technologies and techniques, it just asks you to respect your content and your users by being smart about how you apply them. Remember: browsers and technologies come and go¹; focus on your content and your users.

I agree that designs should work to a usable degree on every browser and device in which there is a decent level of traffic coming from, however this doesn’t mean we should have to start designing for them first.

First of all, analytics are not always 100% accurate and, secondly, as a web designer or developer, we never know who is coming to our site and what they are looking to do. For all you know, there’s a lady out there looking to spend millions of dollars on the product or service your site (or your client’s) is providing and your analytics program can’t tell you that she’s the 0.001% that came to your site on an aging Blackberry. Analytics can tell you general trends, but they should only be used for general guidance. I’d rather build something that is going to work for a user regardless of her device. I’m not going to waste time trying to re-create the awesome experience she may have in the latest version of Chrome or Firefox, but I sure as hell want to make sure the experience she does have is a positive one.

In the case of Brad Frost, he should keep his nifty slider on Barack Obama’s website however on mobile he should find an alternative solution that works.

Point of clarification: Brad does not work for the Obama campaign, he simply brought Stephanie’s attention to the interface, but to your point: “he should find an alternative solution that works.” Absolutely! Building from a workable baseline up to the hi-fi experience of the sliding nav would accomplish that. There’s nothing to say that you can’t have your cake and eat it too; you just need to be smart about your approach—proper planning is key.

He shouldn’t limit the experience of the desktop user just because the mobile user doesn’t have a device that supports this or that.

Of course he shouldn’t. Progressive enhancement doesn’t say that he should.

I think you should rethink what progressive enhancement is all about. Not to plug my own work, but the first chapter of my book lays it out pretty well. You can download it for free as a PDF or read the web-based version on .net Magazine .

1. Don’t believe me? Look at how many companies built software and intranets around IE6. Why did they do it? It was considered a pretty good browser at the time. Need a more recent example? Look at WebDB (SQLite). It was introduced in Webkit and and looked to be on track to become a formal W3C recommendation, but then it was dropped in favor of IndexedDB. I speak from experience when I say things like this can and often do bite you in the ass if you work on the bleeding edge.

After reading my incredibly lengthy response, Joe kindly wrote back:

@AaronGustafson First of all I’d just like to say great post, and thanks for taking the time to reply to my post.

Your reply has actually made me think about progressive enhancement and “hardboiled design” and re-consider which one really is the best strategy. I like your analogy of building a house in particular and that’s what mainly made me re-think my stance. My biggest problem with progressive enhancement was building from the bottom, as I truly did believe building from the top would allow me to deliver a better experience to those who use the better browsers/devices. In the words of Andy Clarke, I didn’t want to just give users who are on the latest version of Google Chrome little visual rewards.

Thanks for linking me to the first chapter of your book, I’ve heard a lot of positive things about it and it certainly has gone down well with its readers and the media. I’ll read the first chapter and see where I stand after it.

I’m happy to have gotten him to reconsider his stance on progressive enhancement. Hopefully we’ve gained another convert. Time will tell. ;-)

HR 4694, or the “Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act,” proposed by Representative David Obey (D, WI), would make great strides toward establishing public financing for House of Representatives races, but there’s a catch. The bill contains some very sneaky language regarding how 3rd parties and independent candidates can conduct their campaigns which virtually guarantees the continuance of the two-party system. Let’s break down some of the key provisions:

• Nominees of parties (including 3rd parties) that had averaged 25% of the vote for US House in that district (over the last two elections) would get full public funding

OK, this seems pretty reasonable and is to be expected.

• Independent candidates who had averaged 25% would get full public funding

This is good, but starts to show one of the weaknesses of our electoral system. Independent candidates, that is to say candidates who run on no party line, are always at a disadvantage, even under this system which “levels the playing field.”

If you don’t understand why, take another look at the first provision: “Nominees of parties … that had averaged 25%.” In other words, candidates, even those with very little party support, who manage to get the endorsement of a party that has averaged 25% of the votes in the district, will get full public funding. By contrast, an independent candidate has no party, so unless (s)he has run previously and garnered 25% of the vote in the last two elections, (s)he gets no public dough. And here’s another oddity… what if there is an incumbant Independent and (s)he decides not to run again, but another Independent steps up to run? Well, that new candidate has to start from scratch and may not get any public money.

• All others would be required to submit petitions signed by 10% of the last vote cast, for partial funding; and 20% petitions for full funding

OK, so a candidate or party does not have standing to automatically get public funding. No biggie, but gathering signatures from 10%-20% of the last vote cast to qualify does seem a little steep. I understand wanting to keep out the non-serious candidates, but it seems a little excessive. The St Louis Oracle did the math:

n Missouri’s 2nd congressional district, a candidate with a party that won less than 25% of the vote in the last two elections would need nearly 70,000 signatures to qualify for the public funding that her/his Democratic and Republican opponents would get automatically, and only signatures from the 2nd District would count. Nearly 35,000 signatures would be required in order to allow the candidate to spend anything at all on the campaign.

• Candidates not qualifying for partial funding would be barred from spending any privately raised money

Say that again? What? Barred from spending privately raised money? What’s that all about? This is essentially saying “if you can’t get signatures from 10% of the vote in the last election, you can’t run.” Except that it isn’t. The key phrase is “privately raised.” If you have a massive fortune of your own to fund your campaign, goodonya! We all know how in touch the über-wealthy are with the plight of the common (wo)man struggling to feed his/her family on Wal Mart wages.

What started out sounding promising rapidly spiralled out fo control into a bill which really isn’t all that democratic. As if incumbent representatives have such a hard time getting re-elected in the first place. Talk about stacking the deck in your favor!

The whole thing does beg some interesting questions though:

• Let’s say you have an incumbent who is a Democrat and she has run unopposed for the last two election cycles (it happens more often than you think). Would a Republican contender have to start from scratch, gathering signatures equalling 20% of the last vote like the 3rd party and independent candidates would?
• And on the topic of running unopposed, does an unopposed candidate who qualifies for full public funding still get it?

I’ll end this on an interesting side note: In 2004, the sponsor fo this bill, Representative Obey, faced a challenger for the first time in his political career: Mike Miles, a Green candidate. Obey refused to debate Miles, saying that he was not a “legitimate” candidate. Miles got one of the highest vote totals of any third party candidate that year (9.37% or 26160 votes), came in second in the race, and has already announced that he’s going to run again.

The Web is maturing. It needs more people like Jakob Nielsen who propose, explain and defend rules.

Now you can say what you will about Jakob, but I think the sentiment is right. I also think that priase needs to be spread a little farther to include Molly, Eric, Jeffrey and the countless other standards evangelists (both internationally renown andsitting in the cube next to you) who feel it is their calling to enforce the “rules” of the web. These are people who truly believe, as I do, that constraints are necessary for creativity. Jason Fried mentioned something similar in his discussion of Basecamp (and I am probably paraphrasing):

Limited time, limited people, limited funding… they make you creative

I think the same could be said for embracing web standards. I mean look at the Zen Garden, the Web Standards Awards, etc. There is some amazingly creative work out there that embraces the “restrictions” of web standards. Frankly, I think that web standards are the main reason DOM scripting (and all that comes with it) has been able to flourish: standards ensure a solid platform upon which to build anything. Their constraints free you to get creative and really make something new.

So let’s hear it for them: a round of applause for all of the standards evangelists out there. Keep up the great work, we appreciate all that you do.

I recently wrote to my Senators and Representative to let them know how I feel and I thought I’d share it with you. Maybe you’d like to write to yours.

Dear Senators Dodd and Lieberman and Congresswoman DeLauro,

I am a small business owner and I support preserving the Estate Tax. I owe my life and business to the America the Estate Tax has helped build.

The Estate Tax provides the needed revenue to create wonderful services and opportunities for many companies. Without the internet (which the Estate Tax helped fund), I would not be able to be the successful Web Designer I am. In fact, my career path would never have been an option. Likewise, I may not have had the education to do my job—“nor my employees, theirs—“had it not been for the public school system, also funded in-part by the Estate Tax. Without a stable mail service, I would not be able to send the invoices and receive the payments my buisiness depends on. Without the infrastructure our public highways and roadways provide, I would not be able to travel to meet with clients and my business would suffer. The same goes for air travel: it would not be as safe or reliable if the Federal Government had not used tax revenues (including the Estate Tax) to make it so.

If I should become so wealthy that my children would even have to pay the Estate Tax, I do not feel it would be unfair for the U.S. Government to ask for a little back to repay the society that has made my business, job and lifestyle a reality. In order to ensure future generations can acheive the success that I have, we need to keep the Estate Tax.

Sincerely,

Aaron Gustafson

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