COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, CSC's training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. From CSS to markup to accessibility, we show you how the pieces fit together and

give

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: PUBLICATIONS A collection of articles, white papers, and other material that is of general interest and freely available to all visitors. Many of these were written to address commonly encountered problems in standards-based design, and based on situations we've encountered while working on client projects. ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: CLIENTS America On-Line: Standards-oriented design and CSS training; Macromedia: Strategy guidance regarding CSS features built into Dreamweaver MX 2004; Creation and optimization of CSS-based layout templates included with Dreamweaver MX 2004 COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: EVENTS Events. A listing of past and future public appearances. If you're interested in having us speak at your conference or organization, or looking for customized training, let us know. Upcoming ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ERIC A. MEYER Eric A. Meyer Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a CONTAINING FLOATS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

ROUNDING TAB CORNERS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING) Rounding Tab Corners. In the past year or so, it's become somewhat fashionable to use unordered lists to create "navbars;" that is, collections of navigation links. A good example of a navbar is the horizontal stripe across the page tops of this very site, where you can find links to the major areas of Complex Spiral Consulting. UNCOLLAPSING MARGINS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, CSC's training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. From CSS to markup to accessibility, we show you how the pieces fit together and

give

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: PUBLICATIONS A collection of articles, white papers, and other material that is of general interest and freely available to all visitors. Many of these were written to address commonly encountered problems in standards-based design, and based on situations we've encountered while working on client projects. ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: CLIENTS America On-Line: Standards-oriented design and CSS training; Macromedia: Strategy guidance regarding CSS features built into Dreamweaver MX 2004; Creation and optimization of CSS-based layout templates included with Dreamweaver MX 2004 COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: EVENTS Events. A listing of past and future public appearances. If you're interested in having us speak at your conference or organization, or looking for customized training, let us know. Upcoming ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ERIC A. MEYER Eric A. Meyer Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a CONTAINING FLOATS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

ROUNDING TAB CORNERS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING) Rounding Tab Corners. In the past year or so, it's become somewhat fashionable to use unordered lists to create "navbars;" that is, collections of navigation links. A good example of a navbar is the horizontal stripe across the page tops of this very site, where you can find links to the major areas of Complex Spiral Consulting. UNCOLLAPSING MARGINS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: CONTACT Contact Us. We'd love to hear from you! E-mail. If you are interested in learning more about our services, want to explore ways we might work together, or just have a general question about Complex Spiral Consulting, send us an inquiry. If you want us to make a proposal regarding how we can help you, please contact our planning address so that we can begin the discovery process. ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: MISSION Most Web sites drag the past behind them like a deadweight. Behind the vast majority of Web designs lurks a choked thicket of nested tables and spacer images left over from the last century. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, our training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: STANDARDS STRATEGY Standards Strategy. Are you trying to decide exactly how to utilize standards? We analyze your site's goals and the technology that drives the content, then give you our recommendations. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: MIGRATION GUIDANCE Migration Guidance. Moving to use standards will make your site better and your life easier, but that doesn't mean the choices are simple. We help you make the best decisions for your site's visitors and your internal processes while working toward a more accessible, flexible,

efficient Web site.

EMERGENT SEMANTICS

A More Immediate Example. Suppose the SXSW Web site used hCalendar to semantically annotate the conference schedules; Using an hCalendar-to-iCalendar translation script, it would be possible to subscribe to those schedules in iCal or any other calendar program that understands the iCalendar format; The translation script would be needed only until a calendar program was updated to

GROUND-UP SEMANTICS

A Quote From The Man Himself “The trick. is to make sure that each limited mechanical part of the Web, each application, is within itself composed of simple parts that will never get too powerful.”(Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving The Web) ROADMAP TO MARKUP SUCCESS Choosing class and ID names. Add classes to things that have common aspects—external links, asides, captioned pictures, etc. Classes are

more commonly used

WEBPOCALYPSE NOW?

Thoughts on Flash Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe's founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, CSC's training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. From CSS to markup to accessibility, we show you how the pieces fit together and

give

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: PUBLICATIONS A collection of articles, white papers, and other material that is of general interest and freely available to all visitors. Many of these were written to address commonly encountered problems in standards-based design, and based on situations we've encountered while working on client projects. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: EVENTS Events. A listing of past and future public appearances. If you're interested in having us speak at your conference or organization, or looking for customized training, let us know. Upcoming COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: MIGRATION GUIDANCE Migration Guidance. Moving to use standards will make your site better and your life easier, but that doesn't mean the choices are simple. We help you make the best decisions for your site's visitors and your internal processes while working toward a more accessible, flexible,

efficient Web site.

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: STANDARDS STRATEGY Standards Strategy. Are you trying to decide exactly how to utilize standards? We analyze your site's goals and the technology that drives the content, then give you our recommendations. CONTAINING FLOATS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

UNCOLLAPSING MARGINS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

ROUNDING TAB CORNERS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING) Rounding Tab Corners. In the past year or so, it's become somewhat fashionable to use unordered lists to create "navbars;" that is, collections of navigation links. A good example of a navbar is the horizontal stripe across the page tops of this very site, where you can find links to the major areas of Complex Spiral Consulting. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, CSC's training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. From CSS to markup to accessibility, we show you how the pieces fit together and

give

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: PUBLICATIONS A collection of articles, white papers, and other material that is of general interest and freely available to all visitors. Many of these were written to address commonly encountered problems in standards-based design, and based on situations we've encountered while working on client projects. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: EVENTS Events. A listing of past and future public appearances. If you're interested in having us speak at your conference or organization, or looking for customized training, let us know. Upcoming COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: MIGRATION GUIDANCE Migration Guidance. Moving to use standards will make your site better and your life easier, but that doesn't mean the choices are simple. We help you make the best decisions for your site's visitors and your internal processes while working toward a more accessible, flexible,

efficient Web site.

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: STANDARDS STRATEGY Standards Strategy. Are you trying to decide exactly how to utilize standards? We analyze your site's goals and the technology that drives the content, then give you our recommendations. CONTAINING FLOATS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

UNCOLLAPSING MARGINS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

ROUNDING TAB CORNERS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING) Rounding Tab Corners. In the past year or so, it's become somewhat fashionable to use unordered lists to create "navbars;" that is, collections of navigation links. A good example of a navbar is the horizontal stripe across the page tops of this very site, where you can find links to the major areas of Complex Spiral Consulting. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, our training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ERIC A. MEYER Eric A. Meyer Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a

WEBPOCALYPSE NOW?

Thoughts on Flash Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe's founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript

GROUND-UP SEMANTICS

A Quote From The Man Himself “The trick. is to make sure that each limited mechanical part of the Web, each application, is within itself composed of simple parts that will never get too powerful.”(Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving The Web)

EMERGENT SEMANTICS

A More Immediate Example. Suppose the SXSW Web site used hCalendar to semantically annotate the conference schedules; Using an hCalendar-to-iCalendar translation script, it would be possible to subscribe to those schedules in iCal or any other calendar program that understands the iCalendar format; The translation script would be needed only until a calendar program was updated to

HIGH-POWERED STYLE

Hacking Explorer Even More. PNG images should dominate the Web: lossless high-bit color, full alpha channel; Explorer for Windows has long been the roadblock, but no more COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, CSC's training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. From CSS to markup to accessibility, we show you how the pieces fit together and

give

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: PUBLICATIONS A collection of articles, white papers, and other material that is of general interest and freely available to all visitors. Many of these were written to address commonly encountered problems in standards-based design, and based on situations we've encountered while working on client projects. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: EVENTS Events. A listing of past and future public appearances. If you're interested in having us speak at your conference or organization, or looking for customized training, let us know. Upcoming COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: MIGRATION GUIDANCE Migration Guidance. Moving to use standards will make your site better and your life easier, but that doesn't mean the choices are simple. We help you make the best decisions for your site's visitors and your internal processes while working toward a more accessible, flexible,

efficient Web site.

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: STANDARDS STRATEGY Standards Strategy. Are you trying to decide exactly how to utilize standards? We analyze your site's goals and the technology that drives the content, then give you our recommendations. CONTAINING FLOATS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

UNCOLLAPSING MARGINS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

ROUNDING TAB CORNERS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING) Rounding Tab Corners. In the past year or so, it's become somewhat fashionable to use unordered lists to create "navbars;" that is, collections of navigation links. A good example of a navbar is the horizontal stripe across the page tops of this very site, where you can find links to the major areas of Complex Spiral Consulting. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, CSC's training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. From CSS to markup to accessibility, we show you how the pieces fit together and

give

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ABOUT People. Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a critical COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: PUBLICATIONS A collection of articles, white papers, and other material that is of general interest and freely available to all visitors. Many of these were written to address commonly encountered problems in standards-based design, and based on situations we've encountered while working on client projects. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: EVENTS Events. A listing of past and future public appearances. If you're interested in having us speak at your conference or organization, or looking for customized training, let us know. Upcoming COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: MIGRATION GUIDANCE Migration Guidance. Moving to use standards will make your site better and your life easier, but that doesn't mean the choices are simple. We help you make the best decisions for your site's visitors and your internal processes while working toward a more accessible, flexible,

efficient Web site.

COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES: STANDARDS STRATEGY Standards Strategy. Are you trying to decide exactly how to utilize standards? We analyze your site's goals and the technology that drives the content, then give you our recommendations. CONTAINING FLOATS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

UNCOLLAPSING MARGINS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING)SEE MORE ON

COMPLEXSPIRAL.COM

ROUNDING TAB CORNERS (COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING) Rounding Tab Corners. In the past year or so, it's become somewhat fashionable to use unordered lists to create "navbars;" that is, collections of navigation links. A good example of a navbar is the horizontal stripe across the page tops of this very site, where you can find links to the major areas of Complex Spiral Consulting. COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: SERVICES Training. Spanning the spectrum from short speeches to in-depth, multi-day training, we deliver the standards message to groups of any size. Rather than deliver canned scripts, our training is customized to fit the needs and skill level you already possess. ABOUT COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING: ERIC A. MEYER Eric A. Meyer Principal Consultant Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts among its clients America On-Line; Apple Computer, Inc.; Wells Fargo Bank; and Macromedia, who described Eric as “a

WEBPOCALYPSE NOW?

Thoughts on Flash Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe's founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript

GROUND-UP SEMANTICS

A Quote From The Man Himself “The trick. is to make sure that each limited mechanical part of the Web, each application, is within itself composed of simple parts that will never get too powerful.”(Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving The Web)

EMERGENT SEMANTICS

A More Immediate Example. Suppose the SXSW Web site used hCalendar to semantically annotate the conference schedules; Using an hCalendar-to-iCalendar translation script, it would be possible to subscribe to those schedules in iCal or any other calendar program that understands the iCalendar format; The translation script would be needed only until a calendar program was updated to

HIGH-POWERED STYLE

Hacking Explorer Even More. PNG images should dominate the Web: lossless high-bit color, full alpha channel; Explorer for Windows has long been the roadblock, but no more COMPLEX SPIRAL CONSULTING Helping clients improve the bottom line through the use of Web

standards

skip to: sidebar | navigation Cut your costs and improve your visitors' experience. We specialize in helping you use Web standards to reduce page weight and speed up your site's response times. Experience has shown that conversion from table-based design to standards-oriented design can reduce page weight by 50% or more. In addition, that same conversion process improves accessibility and makes maintenance easier. It might sound like magic, but the truth is that it's just the way the Web was always supposed to work. To find out how you can reap all these benefits, and more, get in touch . We'll talk about getting your site prepared for the future, not mired in the past.

LATEST NEWS

*

MICROSOFT MIGRATION

26 AUGUST 2004

Microsoft's home page has been redesigned, and the markup underneath the design is much more standards-oriented. The document weight has been cut by almost _three-quarters_ compared to the previous design, a perfect example of the benefits standards-oriented design makes possible.

*

COMING THIS FALL!

6 JUNE 2004

Principal Consultant Eric Meyer teams up with Molly Holzschlag to present a full day of in-depth training at User Interface 9 this October. Details on this and other upcoming appearances can be found on the Events page

.

*

STANDARDS ROI

30 MAY 2004

D. Keith Robinson provides some concrete examples of the return on investment offered by using standards at his weblog Asterisk.

EVENTS »

* There are no events scheduled at this time.

TRAINING

Interested in getting in-depth insight into the why and how of standards-oriented design? Find out more about our training services

.

> With his depth of knowledge and commitment to professional results, > Eric was a critical partner in our efforts to transform Macromedia > Dreamweaver MX 2004 into a revolutionary tool for CSS-based design. > —Sho Kuwamoto, VP Product Development, Macromedia home |about |services |events |publications |contact ------------------------- Copyright © 2004 - 2005 Complex Spiral Consulting