Living a semantic life
November 16th, 2007
It might be safe to say at this point in time most designers are aware of what the term semantic markup means. Some of you might even go as far as practicing good descriptive and structurally sound programming habits already, if so give yourself a pat on the back. I hope what you are doing is because you understand the value behind it and not just copying code you saw on your favorite site that is standards compliant.
Semantics is defined as the “the study of meaning” first and foremost, taken from Dictionary.com. Now in our world of developing be it front end XHTML, or backend PHP and MySQL, it is our job to create meaning out of chaos, or in this case code. How do we accomplish this? Why descriptive, or semantic markup is the answer of course.
Ok, so let’s assume that we are doing everything we should be, we’re closing out “p” tags and giving our links “titles” blah blah blah, but our day to day lives feel like a pile of wet seaweed. Just kind of there all tangled up, sometimes wet(?) might smell funny and definitely no order, nor rhyme or reason to the mess. I will mention now that I am not very good with change or all that comes with it. If you can relate then you know where I am coming from, if not, you bastards, you are lucky!
It’s a 9-5 world
If we break down an average humans day it might look something like this:
- Wake up in the morning (that is AM on the clock for those of you who work from home…)
- Take a shower
- Get dressed
- Eat breakfast (once again, this should take place in the AM, preferably not before 5 AM you night owls)
- Commute to work
- Work
- Eat Lunch
- Work
- Commute to home
- Eat dinner
- Activities ie; errands, exercise, TV, movie, date, etc.
- Lights out
Wow that is a pretty long list, and tons and tons of stuff was left out of there, but it is also pretty basic. I think we can do better though. Let’s take a look at the list and see what we actually have there and approach this like we would a design project, say a front end build for a Website. Take a look at this revised list:
- Personal hygiene
- Eat
- Work
- Sleep
Ok, that is much shorter, and actually a little depressing. Is that all there is to our day? Of course not, but these are the bare essentials that most of us need to accomplish each day. What does this list look more like? One could argue semantic XHTML. It is a list of the daily duties and their semantic meaning in no particular order (hence the unordered list). At a second look, our first list appears to be more of a finished document, you might encounter on a typical Website. All we have added to it is some style to tell us which order we want to execute the tasks, and some behavior (JavaScript perhaps?) to tell us how we should do them.
If you are struggling to deal with day to day tasks, especially now around the Holidays, take a step back and think about what are you trying to accomplish. Bring it down to its simplest form, then add the order and styling, and perhaps a little behavior to top it all off. Make sure it all makes sense though, you don’t want to be brushing your teeth, naked while driving your car through the wall at Dunkin Donuts. Or on second thought maybe you are one of those lucky loons that gets to work from home and that is normal to you?
- Posted at 11:25 am in web design
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Hi,
I would just like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the “pile of wet seaweed” metaphor. I can certainly relate. Most days I feel like a pile of moist kelp. Thanks for offering advice on how to simplify! Baby steps…baby steps to the elevator……baby steps down the hall…..
OK. I brush my teeth naked every morning…and I actually have to GO to work. Dammit all! Soon…the trip from brushing my teeth to earning money will be much shorter:) That said, semantic markup is important; no question.
Semantic in short, is markup that describes the message (data) that you are attempting to deliver. More importantly, it’s the message you are trying to convey LESS the css style sheet.
If you can omit the stylesheet and still send a message to your audience and the “bots” then your job is nearly done. I say “nearly” because semantic markup should also valid and accessible.
Cliff, great reference to “What About Bob”, classic. Glad you enjoyed it.
Tim, I too hope that my commute from brush to work will be shortened, hah.