[thelist] web standards, business and ROI (was other stuff)

Tom Dell'Aringa pixelmech at yahoo.com
Wed Jul 7 12:15:39 CDT 2004


--- David Travis <dwork at macam.ac.il> wrote:

> Oh, so I am "they"? hehehe, look, we are all in the same side, but there are
> things that need to be taken into account besides "standards". Did anyone
> here hear the term ROI? Did anyone here take into account the fact that
> working on one site for a long time actually delays other development
> projects???

mmm ROI?

http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archives/web_standards_roi.php
http://www.maccaws.org/kit/way-forward/#benefits
http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/why-web-standards/
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000266.php
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2004/01/the_business_case_for_web_accessibility/index.php

That's enough to get you started. Be informed.

> Come on people! I must admit I am surprised by the amount of naïve things
> said in this discussion. People talk about businesses, yet they fail to take
> into account business considerations.

It's rather the other way around, actually. The very reason I use standars is *because* of
business reasons. Do you think I would have launched the new site for TruGreen[1] (the largest
residential lawn care company in the WORLD) using web standards if it didn't make good business
sense? Do you think ServiceMaster would have allowed it? 

It's for business reasons that moving forward all of our sites and applications will use web
standards.

> Please, think again before shooting into the air those old mantras about
> standard, there is more to it when it comes to businesses. 

There's nothing old about standards, there's everything fairly new about them. Only recently have
they become viable. Yeah, there is a lot to consider when it comes to business - and if you aren't
considering web standards, you are not seeing the whole picture, and you are not as informed as
you should be.

> Don't get me
> wrong, when you can stick to the standards, but if you find it costs you too
> much than think business.

I don't know what you think you mean by "think business." I hope you mean doing things like being
cost effective, getting return on your investment of not only money but time. Of scaleability,
maintainability, accessability and more. Web standards address all of these things.

Honestly your approach smacks of the dot.com era and "just get it done as fast as possible"
without any thought about what comes next. And good web author should be striving hard to move
well beyond that "old" and damaging thought process.

Hope this helps.

Tom

[1] http://www.trugreen.com/
http://www.weeklystandards.com/archives/2004/06/09/





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