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I know that New Year’s Resolutions are sort of a running joke to some people, but I actually take them pretty seriously and get a lot out of them.  The trick to good New Year’s Resolutions for me have been to treat them like I treat my work: I make sure I know why I’m doing everything I do, I plan out how I’m going to do them and how I’m going to measure my success, and then I give myself opportunities to evaluate and adjust throughout the life of the project.  As a tradition, it’s got built-in positive feedback because the coming of every New Year gives me a chance to look back at my past achievements.

But this blog post isn’t about how to make your New Years Resolutions stick - the media will be filled with those stories in the coming weeks.  This is about something I think should be on everybody’s list: Web Standards.

In the Web Development community, we tend to refer to Web Standards as a single item or action, one tool we use or don’t use, one practice we follow or don’t follow, one coherent philosophy we adhere to or don’t adhere to.  We do this even though we all know this isn’t true.  ‘Web Standards’ refers to a list of best practices and suggestions, what Captain Jack Sparrow would call ‘more like guidelines’, and a constantly evolving list at that - the Web is not static, the way we build applications on the eve of 2009 is different than it was this time last year, and the best practices for device and browser compliance and accessibility need to change, too.

Now is a great time to look at your Web site’s content and functionality - the design, the code and the behaviors - to make sure it works on every user agent and for every user.

The end of 2008 has brought us some unique opportunities to make Web Standards a bigger priority. First, the release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 by the W3C on 12/11/08 offers us all a new set of industry-wide guidelines to compare our work to in these Ajax-enabled times.  And second, the proliferation of new browsers and Web enabled devices and platforms, from Google’s Chrome browser to Apple’s iPhone and from Linux-powered Netbooks with 9-inch screens to easy to operate and use screen-reading Firefox plug-ins, gives us both a lot to think about and a lot of incentive to think about it as our audience of users expects better functionality wherever and however they access our sites.

In 2009, I intend to take the WCAG 2.0 to heart for my applications, and to continue to learn about writing more accessible forms, and I look forward to the exciting challanges presented by Web enabled smartphones and other iterations of the mobile Web.  I’m also excited to brush up on microformats.  How can you put Web Standards on your list of resolutions?

There are many choices in the out-of-the-box e-commerce market, most of which come with a wide array of features. But, do you really need all of these features? About a month ago we finished configuring an installation of X-Cart for a client. X-Cart has it all, a complex tree structure of categories, feature comparison, a complex tax system, various shipping and payment method options, featured products, related products, upselling products, and so on. It is a complex system that will run just about any store, well maybe not every store, but you get the idea. Whatever the problem, X-Cart has a solution, right?

There is no denying that X-Cart is a robust piece of software. Whatever feature you are looking for in an e-commerce solution, there is a good chance that X-Cart has it, but if you ask me, X-Cart is NOT good web. Good web is simple web. Simple implies streamlined and running smoothly for the end-user. Simple means user-friendly and intuitive. It may be feature-rich, but user-friendly and swift on its feet it is not.

At dynamIt we always preach approachable, efficient, intelligent web. These concepts fall by the wayside as they try to cram in every feature possible thus making the features you want harder to find. The system becomes bloated and runs slow on the server, thus crippling usability.

So, keep it simple, and unless there is a piece out there that really fits your project, consider going the custom route.

A few weeks ago we launched a new site for Charley’s Grilled Subs along with our friends at b&a. One of dynamIt’s many tasks in the project was building a store locator whereby you can search the database of over 350 Charley’s worldwide locations to find one near you.

We have a database of all US zip codes and a database of all the Charley’s locations, each with associated geocoordinates (longitude and latitude). Thus we’re able to calculate a distance radius around any zip code and display all of the places within at which we can get a delicious Philly cheesesteak. But, what if we want to add the ability for people to enter their city, state, country or any combination of the three and still get the benefits of GIFOY.

Suddenly we have to deal with the fact that if one just enters “Columbus” then we may display Columbus, GA results when the user really wants that radius around Columbus, OH. We’d all like to think that when you say Columbus without the state, you mean Ohio, but our database does not know that. Ok, no problem, we have a zip code database that knows the city and state to which it belongs, we can just devise an algorithm to see if multiple matches exist then display options to the user to see which one is intended. This sounds reasonable, right?

Yeah, it does….until you realize that there are 18 states in this country which contain a city named ‘Columbus.’ Eighteen?!?!?! Yes, 18. So, we could go with our first idea and list all 18 asking the user which Columbus they meant, but that isn’t too friendly is it?

Alas, we turn to our comrade-in-arms Google and let them do our thinking for us.

We’ve all used Google maps. We know its fairly simple to find what it is we want when searching the maps for place names. Luckily, Google so kindly provides a simple way to deliver us developers place data (including geocoordinates) given a simple string search query using their Geocoding API.

There it is, take the user input, run it through Google and let them figure out that Columbus, OH is more important than Columbus, GA. Sorry peach-staters, Google has spoken.