I didn't go nude this time
I participated in the first annual CSS Naked Day last year - you can read my post-event thoughts at Ups and Downs on CSS Naked Day. It just so happens that today is Naked Day #2, but as you may notice I'm not participating. There are two reasons for this:
First, I think I dropped my CSS-fanboy mentality a few months ago… things solely related to CSS (aside from talk about the upcoming CSS 3) just don't get me all giddy with excitement anymore. This isn't to say that I like CSS any less; I just feel as though I've worked with it so much recently that the initial infatuation has worn off (think marriage as opposed to a first date — my fiancée is probably going to pummel me for saying that). So in the event that today a bunch of sites I visit semi-regularly happen to be all vanilla and design-lacking, instead of my initial response from last year which was much like "wahay! a CSS naked participant! look at the semantics!" my response this time around is more like, "where's the design I like so much? this is boring!"
Second, I still think that the realm of people who actually understand the point of CSS Naked Day is made up entirely of those knowledgeable on the subject and no one else (all of these people also happen to be big nerds who use the terms nude, naked and stripping extensively to boost their SEO, myself included). Usually if you loaded up a site and none of the styling was rendered, you would think something went wrong during the load, and you would most likely reload the page. If it happened twice, you would either report the problem to the web admin or just assume it would be fixed eventually. What are visitors to participant websites thinking today?
But more important than these two reasons is something I realized today as I made sporadic visits to some of the participating websites — CSS can be used to make a website extremely usable, and without that CSS, even the most semantic HTML can be really sub-par. After all, let's remember that all of these CSS Naked Sites are actually clothed with browser defaults, which define the rendering that users see before designer and user CSS are applied. If you were to remove all CSS, you would get nothing more than a run-on paragraph of dense text. Beyond that, when you are using CSS to separate content into columns, focus the user's attention with varying colors and contrast, and add visual enhancements via background images, you are adding usability features that your site needs. Taking these away for a day means that for 24 hours, your site might be making a statement, but moreover it's just hard to use.
So I hope you understand why I'm not participating… I know the value of the event and I don't mean to pass it off as a novelty, but the novelty of it has left me and I'd rather leave my current design up. Besides, you can strip this site any time with the Web Developer Extension in Firefox… go ahead, do it. It's like CSS Naked Day all year round!
I totally agree with #2. Until TJ mentioned it to me this morning I was unaware it was CSS Naked Day yet found myself on a few participant's sites. I reloaded a couple times and then left.
What's funny is I'm involved in the community and I was tricked. So what will any random 'user' think of your site when they arrive - "This isn't working, I'm outta here".
Honestly - I think its dumb. And, like you said, the only people that care can use their FF web dev toolbar to strip the CSS themselves - whenever they want.
To each his own.
Actually, you don't need the web dev extension (which is only for nerds
) You just go to View > Page Style > No Style.
Very true Ben, you got me there. I've gotten so used to relying on the extension, that I forget some of the features are native Mozilla features.
I participated this year a bit for the increase in hits but also out of general curiosity.
I noticed a couple of things that I thought were interesting:
I went nude this year, and I enjoyed it. It was kind of an anniversary as it was around a year ago that I first became aware of Web Standards, and CSS Naked day was partly responsible for that.
Also, it help to ignite my passion for designing, that I have lacked recently.
Some of the sites I checked out were hard (and impossible in a few instances) to navigate, and even comment. I noticed a few tiny problems with my own site and actually made the effort to fix them. I'd probably not of bothered otherwise. CSS certainly does make a site accessible, and for 364 days of the year, I definitely prefer to have my clothes on
I sent an email to my instructor yesterday morning about it so that hopefully it will have an effect on other students of his in the future to strive for better sites.
Yeah I did not even bother either with the CSS naked day plus with the fact that I personally stay clothed in public
Hello. And Bye.