Stephanie Leary

Writer, Front End Developer, former WordPress consultant

rantrantrant

I really, really need to rant. If you don’t give a rodent’s behind about web design, skip to the next post.

For the rest of you…. a certain fellow employee, in a distant but related part of my organization, hired a freelance web designer not long ago to create a new site for his department. Since this department had no webmaster of its own before I was hired, I think his initiative laudable.

However, the same cannot be said of the designer (who shall not be named). This guy:

a) did the entire site in frames, with no content</p> <p>b) did the site in Frontpage</p> <p>c) did most of the navigation and content in images without <span class="caps"><span class="caps">ALT </span></span>text</p> <p>d) &#8230; similarly, paid no attention to other accessibility features required by law</p> <p>e) couldn&#8217;t be bothered to write proper code</p> <p>Check out this shining example, from the main navigation frame:</p> <p>&#8230;</p> <p><body topmargin=&amp;quot;0&amp;quot; leftmargin=&amp;quot;0&amp;quot;></p> <p></body></p> <table border=&amp;quot;0&amp;quot; cellpadding=&amp;quot;0&amp;quot; cellspacing=&amp;quot;0&amp;quot; id=&amp;quot;AutoNumber6&amp;quot;...> <p>&#8230;</p> </table> <p></html></p> <p>There are several things wrong there, not the least of which being that the order of elements is so hosed that some browsers, including Dreamweaver&#8217;s design window, won&#8217;t even display the table.</p> <p><span class="caps"><span class="caps">GAH.</span></span></p> <p>The designer (who shall not be named) had better not set foot within 20 yards of this building, or he shall face the wrath of she who must spend her day fixing his stupid mistakes.</p></p> <!--<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="https://stephanieleary.com/2003/01/rantrantrant/" dc:identifier="https://stephanieleary.com/2003/01/rantrantrant/" dc:title="rantrantrant" trackback:ping="https://stephanieleary.com/2003/01/rantrantrant/trackback/" /> </rdf:RDF>--> </div><footer class="entry-footer"><p class="entry-meta"><span class="entry-categories"><a href="https://stephanieleary.com/category/web-design/" rel="category tag">Web Design</a></span> </p></footer></article><div class="after-entry widget-area"><section id="text-20" class="widget widget_text"><div class="widget-wrap"> <div class="textwidget"><p><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/content-strategy-for-wordpress"><img class=" wp-image-8049 alignleft" src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Content-Strategy-for-WordPress-print-240x300.jpg" alt="This is an excerpt from Content Strategy for WordPress." style="width: 120px; height: 150px;" /></a>My latest books are <a href="/books/content-strategy-for-wordpress"><em>Content Strategy for WordPress</em></a> (2015) and <a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/wordpress-for-web-developers/"><em>WordPress for Web Developers</em></a> (2013). <a href="http://stephanieleary.com/list/">Sign up to be notified</a> when I have a new book for you.</p> </div> </div></section> </div></main></div></div><div class="footer-widgets" id="genesis-footer-widgets"><h2 class="genesis-sidebar-title screen-reader-text">Footer</h2><div class="wrap"><div class="widget-area footer-widgets-1 footer-widget-area"><section id="wp_editor_widget-3" class="widget WP_Editor_Widget"><div class="widget-wrap"><h3 class="widgettitle widget-title">My Books</h3> <p><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/beginning-wordpress/"><img class="alignleft wp-image-2676 book-cover" src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/beginning-wordpress-226x300.png" alt="" width="113" height="150" /></a> <a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/wordpress-for-web-developers/"><img class="alignleft wp-image-7623 size-full book-cover" src="http://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/9781430258667-e1413482899810.jpg" alt="" width="113" height="150" /></a><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/content-strategy-for-wordpress/"><img class="alignleft wp-image-8049 book-cover" src="http://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Content-Strategy-for-WordPress-print-240x300.jpg" alt="" width="120" height="150" /></a></p> </div></section> </div><div class="widget-area footer-widgets-2 footer-widget-area"><section id="text-22" class="widget widget_text"><div class="widget-wrap"> <div class="textwidget"><p>I&#8217;m a front end developer at <a href="https://www.equinoxoli.org/">Equinox OLI</a>, working on open source library software. I was previously a freelance WordPress developer in higher education. You can <a href="http://stephanieleary.com/about/contact/">get in touch here</a> or on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieleary/">LinkedIn</a>.</p> </div> </div></section> <section id="search-3" class="widget widget_search"><div class="widget-wrap"><form class="search-form" method="get" action="https://stephanieleary.com/" role="search" itemprop="potentialAction" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/SearchAction"><label class="search-form-label screen-reader-text" for="searchform-1">Search this website</label><input class="search-form-input" type="search" name="s" id="searchform-1" placeholder="Search this website" itemprop="query-input"><input class="search-form-submit" type="submit" value="Search"><meta content="https://stephanieleary.com/?s={s}" itemprop="target"></form></div></section> </div></div></div><footer class="site-footer" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/WPFooter"><div class="wrap"><p>Copyright &#x000A9;&nbsp;2025 Stephanie Leary &middot; <a href="/about/contact">Contact</a></p></div></footer></div><script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-includes/js/hoverIntent.min.js?ver=1.10.2" id="hoverIntent-js"></script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/menu/superfish.min.js?ver=1.7.10" id="superfish-js"></script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/menu/superfish.args.min.js?ver=3.5.0" id="superfish-args-js"></script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/skip-links.min.js?ver=3.5.0" id="skip-links-js"></script> <script id="stephanie-leary-2022-responsive-menu-js-extra"> var genesis_responsive_menu = {"mainMenu":"Menu","menuIconClass":"dashicons-before dashicons-menu","subMenu":"Submenu","subMenuIconClass":"dashicons-before dashicons-arrow-down-alt2","menuClasses":{"combine":[".nav-secondary",".nav-primary"],"others":[]},"combineMethod":"prepend"}; </script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/themes/revolution-pro/js/responsive-menus.min.js?ver=1.5.0" id="stephanie-leary-2022-responsive-menu-js"></script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/themes/revolution-pro/js/smooth-scroll.js?ver=1.5.0" id="stephanie-leary-2022-smooth-scroll-js"></script> <script id="stephanie-leary-2022-sticky-header-js-extra"> var studiopressStickyHeaderConfig = {"heightDifference":"30"}; </script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/themes/revolution-pro/js/sticky-header.js?ver=1.5.0" id="stephanie-leary-2022-sticky-header-js"></script> <script src="https://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/plugins/page-links-to/dist/new-tab.js?ver=3.3.7" id="page-links-to-js"></script> </body></html>