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© 2000 by Rick Altman. All Rights Reserved.
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The electronic publishing industry is younger than most others, yet it is impossible to avoid feeling nostalgic when regarding it. For many of us, it feels like just yesterday when we:
This was 1986 through 1989, and as you know, we called this phenomenon desktop publishing. Many of us used the program to which we remain loyal, VENTURA Publisher. By the early 1990s, we began to get a clue that professional publishing meant more than just using tools designed for professionals. We also needed to possess skills befitting a professional. Nonetheless, a day would never pass back then in which we did not receive something in our postal mailbox that exposed the author as a well-intentioned but ill-trained publisher. As the decade progressed, many of those pieces were produced with word processors instead of dedicated publishing programs; that only made things worse.
There were two camps in the publishing community: 1) Those who learned the publishing trade formally and made the transition to electronic tools; and 2) those who discovered publishing because of the hot new tools and had to learn about publishing on-the-job.
Why the history lesson? Because the exact same phenomenon has occurred and is still occurring, in the world of Web publishing. The first Web site we ever saw was from Stanford University, and it was a long list of resources with hyperlinks. The headlines were larger and set bold; certain passages were set in italics; and the hyperlinks had bullets preceding them. It was amazing!
Does this sound familiar? Some observers feel that amateur Web publishing is not as bad because the demands of printing to paper are removed. We disagree. We think it’s worse. We think it’s worse because the demands of printing to paper are removed. In particular:
In the early days of desktop publishing, the miracle of not having to own a $15,000 typesetting machine was incredible, but there was still a hardware buy-in, and back then, a standard HP LaserJet II cost over $2,000. And once you prepared your files, you still need to send out for film-a process that took 24 hours and about $15 per page. In other words, there was still a barrier to entry. What is the barrier to entry today with Web publishing? A PC. An Internet connection. FTP software.
In the early days of desktop publishing, you could see the results of your efforts in minutes, and before long, your project would be on press. Today, you can publish a Web site in one minute, and if it’s not right, you can correct it.
The early days of desktop publishing saw the introduction of complex and expensive software that was very hard to learn. Today, you can create a Web site with Windows Notepad.
What if Web publishing required a $500 piece of software? What if the FTP process took one hour? What if you could never change a Web page that you posted? Technology trends and the politics of the Internet would ensure that this never happens, but if it did, you know what the result would be?
Better-looking Web sites.
Doom and gloom aside, there are many promising trends in Web publishing today. Talented artists and capable publishers get incredible opportunity to flex their creative muscles. What could be a friendlier canvas to work on than a Web page, where each experiment can be scrutinized with nothing more than a Reload command? And what could be more effective for a company’s customer base than an on-line brochure that stays current from one month to the next?
Ironically, the other dynamic that has saved Web publishing is that the software has taken a long time to catch up to the users, and here is where the comparison to a decade ago ends. Ten and 15 years ago, the software was so far ahead of us, we felt like there was little we couldn’t create. (And we can argue that this has not changed; we’re still looking for our first opportunity to use VENTURA’s conditional publishing feature…) Our efforts to run the software at full throttle caused some of the most egregious entries in the Desktop Publishing Hall of Shame.
Those of us who began Web publishing in the mid-1990s probably used a plain text editor; many still do. That became the limiting factor—just how much of a glutton for punishment were we willing to become to create a certain effect? Even creating tables was hard. We would often not try for certain effects, because they were just too tedious and difficult to code. That became a good thing, because often times, simple Web pages are best.
Today’s software has finally exceeded our grasp, and we’re not sure if this is a source of optimism or dread. Take Macromedia Dreamweaver, for instance, or Microsoft FrontPage. With these programs, creating a rollover button is as simple as invoking a dialog box. All of the arcane JavaScript code is dismissed to the background. As a result, it’s difficult to find a Web site that does not use rollover buttons, and many of them are tragically ill-conceived. While Webmasters-in-restraint use them to make it clear what hyperlink has your focus, an alarming number of sites use them just to show off. It’s pretty easy to create a hover button that changes to a rainbow-neon effect with magically-scrolling text, and for many, ease of use is their sole reason for doing it.
We call this the “Because I can” Syndrome-use of an effect determined by feasibility, not appropriateness to the task: I know how to do it, so therefore, I choose to do it. It’s beginning to sound a lot like 1988 all over again…
Will a new generation of suddenly-capable Web publishers demolish the Web with ugly sites? Will these new tools resemble hand grenades in the possession of those unprepared to use them? We’ll know soon enough, because publishing an awful Web site is easier than publishing a good one.
We hope not. And close to home, we find a few things to be optimistic about. We have direct evidence about how many of our customers are interested in learning Web publishing the responsible way:
Fifteen years ago, desktop publishers wreaked havoc on the landscape when they first discovered the raw power of the software. There is a glimmer of hope that today’s sophisticated Web software will not create the same destruction. That, of course, is entirely up to all of you…
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