Stephanie Leary

Writer and 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="http://stephanieleary.com/2003/01/rantrantrant/" dc:identifier="http://stephanieleary.com/2003/01/rantrantrant/" dc:title="rantrantrant" trackback:ping="http://stephanieleary.com/2003/01/rantrantrant/trackback/" /> </rdf:RDF>--> </div><footer class="entry-footer"><p class="entry-meta"><span class="entry-categories"><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/category/web-design/" rel="category tag">Web Design</a></span> </p></footer></article><div class="after-entry widget-area"><section id="wp_editor_widget-2" class="widget WP_Editor_Widget"><div class="widget-wrap"><p><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/content-strategy-for-wordpress"><img class=" wp-image-8049 alignleft" style="width: 120px; height: 150px;" src="http://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Content-Strategy-for-WordPress-print-240x300.jpg" alt="This is an excerpt from Content Strategy for WordPress." /></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 receive an email</a> when I have a new book for you.</p> </div></section> </div></main><aside class="sidebar sidebar-primary widget-area" role="complementary" aria-label="Primary Sidebar" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/WPSideBar"><section id="search-2" class="widget widget_search"><div class="widget-wrap"><form class="search-form" itemprop="potentialAction" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/SearchAction" method="get" action="http://stephanieleary.com/" role="search"><meta itemprop="target" content="http://stephanieleary.com/?s={s}"/><input itemprop="query-input" type="search" name="s" placeholder="Search this website &#x2026;" /><input type="submit" value="Search" /></form></div></section> <section id="text-21" class="widget widget_text"><div class="widget-wrap"><h4 class="widget-title widgettitle">Fascism Watch</h4> <div class="textwidget"><p>The Fascism Watch is a daily(ish) news roundup. <a href="http://stephanieleary.com/tag/fascism-watch/">View all the previous Fascism Watch posts &raquo;</a></p> </div> </div></section> <section id="text-9" class="widget widget_text"><div class="widget-wrap"><h4 class="widget-title widgettitle">Latest WordPress Book</h4> <div class="textwidget"><p><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/content-strategy-for-wordpress/"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7950" src="http://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Content-Strategy-for-WordPress-240x300.jpg" alt="Content Strategy for WordPress" width="240" height="300" /></a></p> <p>A short book for content strategists and managers on implementing a complete content strategy in WordPress: evaluation, analysis, content modeling, editing and workflows, and long-term planning and maintenance.</p> <p><a href="http://stephanieleary.com/books/content-strategy-for-wordpress/chapter-2-analyzing-content/" class="">Read the sample chapter</a></p> <p><a class="" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WQ7OVFK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00WQ7OVFK&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=sleary-20&amp;linkId=C3Z72TMIDGLGIK5J">Kindle</a> <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/content-strategy-for-wordpress-stephanie-leary/1121817217?ean=2940151468725&itm=1&usri=2940151468725">Nook</a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/content-strategy-for-wordpress/id989642785?ls=1&amp;mt=11">iBooks</a> <a class="" href="https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/content-strategy-for-wordpress">Kobo</a> <a class="" href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/538381">Smashwords</a></p> </div> </div></section> <section id="text-6" class="widget widget_text"><div class="widget-wrap"><h4 class="widget-title widgettitle">WordPress for Web Developers</h4> <div class="textwidget"><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430258667/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1430258667&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=teradiassite-20"><img src="http://stephanieleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/9781430258667-226x300.jpg" alt="WordPress for Web Developers (9781430258667)" width="226" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7623" /></a></p> <p>This is a book for professional web designers and developers who already know HTML and CSS, and want to learn to build sites with WordPress. 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