Creating Findable Content
The goal of any web designer is to have their content to be accessed easily rather they used HTML, Flash or any other medium. One way to achieve this goal is to use W3C web standards and keep your structure (HTML), presentation (CSS), behavior (JavaScript), and data (XML) separate. This is where progressive enhancement comes in.
The progressive enhancement theory is like building a house. You start with your HTML( structure/ foundation), then with CSS you make your structure look presentable by adding color to the walls and the outside of the “Web” house. After that, you bring JavaScript in the mix to have attributes like “windows” or “doors” function. Finally the “family” of XML data comes to dwell and live happily ever after.
So what happens if there’s a glitch in the matrix and the “windows and doors” stop working? Will that family of XML data be okay?
Of course because they applied for the “Graceful Degradation” House Insurance plan. This was in case anything stopped working the data could still be accessed.
But, everything is really going great and now you want to add some “flash” to the house by adding a pool in the backyard. Everything is going great the “data” family is throwing house party’s with houses on the web.
And now you want to the bigger sites to notice you so other people can join the festivities. So now you have to brag about the data /family and the house using keywords that pertain to the house, headings (h1, h2, h3, ec.) to talk about each section of the house you even put up an Robot.txt “sign” to invite spiders to crawl through your web house.
The XML data family is celebrating because it worked for them and they want to tell you about some links that could help you.
- SwfObject - Allows your “flashy pool” to be found easily.
- Findability - Maybe you want to adopt!?
- Robot.txt
Tags: findability, findable content, flash and findability, graceful degradation, progressive enhancement