Re: FN-FORUM: Opinions on W3C validator

date posted 24th September 2007 12:49

On 24 Sep 2007 12:15:28 -0000, Tony Crockford wrote

> well, that's like saying I tried to drive my car on the railway
> track and it didn't work.

No its not. Driving your car on the railway is not a valid use case and
you'd be right to fix the issue by saying "don't drive on the damn railway".
However, a field based sales person is a valid class of sales person and
saying "don't do field based sales" is not an option and so the app is not
usable until it is fixed. Standards compliance has no bearing on the issue
here.

> your using usability in terms of process and application in that case.

I'm using usability to mean can I use the app to get my job done. That's
what usability means - is the damn thing usable or not?

> can you think of an example of a standards compliant website on the
> web that doesn't work as a web site on the web?

There are plenty of sites, on the web, that are not usable. I've never
bothered to find out if they are standards compliant or not 'cos I don't
care. It doesn't matter whether they are or not, the site is still unusable
and so is dead to me. Classic example is a shopping site that makes me sign
up for an account and hand over all my personal details before they will let
me browse their goods. I should only have to sign up for an account if I
want to buy something. Such a site could have standards compliance up the
yahzoo, but it would still have usability issues in my opinion.

--
Gary Short
http://www.garyshort.org