Web Directions

A dao of web design turns 10

• By:John
• Tweet: @johnallsopp
• April 8, 2010
• Leave a response

A decade ago, I wrote an article “A Dao of Web Design” that the then youngish A List Apart published apparently exactly 10 years ago today.

At the time, I practiced a lot of Tai Chi (which is closely associated with the philosophy of Daoism) (sadly, I do so much less now), and the Tao Te Ching was very influential on my thinking (it still is, though perhaps less directly), and the central concept of the Tao Te Ching, that the way of the universe is fluid and adaptable, not fixed and rigid occurred to me as a perfect philosophy of designing for the web.

At the time, the common complaint about the web as a medium is that designers had less control over their design than with many other media (screen sizes and color depths varied, users could change the size of the window, or text, all impacting a lovingly crafted design). To me, this loss of control (and consequent gain of control by the user) seemed a feature, not a bug, of the medium.

Much has changed in that decade, in the world, in my life, and on the web. But I feel the underlying idea still holds up very well.
I’ve long since meant to revisit the article, and perhaps will get the chance one day, but for now, it will need to stand on its own two feet a little longer.

5 responses to “A dao of web design turns 10”:

1. • By:A dao of web design turns 10 | Web Directions | Modern Design
   • April 8th, 2010

   […] more: A dao of web design turns 10 | Web Directions Share and […]

2. • By:Jason
   • April 8th, 2010
   

   Wow — can’t believe that’s 10 years ago. I doubt there would be many things written at the same time that are still that relevant.

3. • By:John
   • April 9th, 2010
   

   Thanks Jason, very kind words. In fact, a lot of the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary best practice were stumbled across back then.

4. • By:Richard Fink
   • April 12th, 2010
   

   It’s been an amazing ten years and I remember the article.
   I got into web technologies just around that time, was fishing for as much information as I could get my hands on, and discovered AListApart.
   Wow — the world of dial-​​up connections and CRT Displays. We’ve come a long way.
   As you know, I communicate a lot with the type design community and I can tell you that, in general, the inability to deliver a uniform result — unlike print — still drives most of those folks nuts.
   It really is a world-​​view thing that you either “get” or you don’t. Rationalist that I am, it took me a long time to accept that, but it’s true. For anyone under 25, it’s the natural order of things. Over that, either the light goes on or it doesn’t.
   As somebody who remembers rotary phones and 45 rpm vinyl records, there’s still a part of me, too, that resists. But then I remember that anything lost through lack of uniformity is more than made up for by the power of the network.
   It really is magic.
   However, I did feel, for a long time that the standards process was deeply flawed and feared we would be stuck with imprecision — with differing implementations for forever.
   I now think that the remedies for that are in place — vendor prefixes, test suites, and a genuine spirit of collaboration mixed with competitive one-​​upmanship.
   I see a very, very bright picture ten years from now.
   Congrats and may we all stay healthy and live to see it.

   (And BTW — a review of DWWS is being published on Readable Web later tonight. Sorry it took so long. Been half-​​finished for months. Stuff kept coming up.)

   And as the Dao continues to holds it’s own, let’s hope the Dow does, too.

   Rich

5. • By:Reflections on Week 4 | Joeys Learning Tool Throw Away The Book
   • July 2nd, 2011

   […] on the prestigious A List Apart turned 10 years old in April of 2011 as the author, John Allsopp, talks about in this article which pretty much says he is leaving it alone for now, it can still stand on its own feet today. My […]

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