So, Jeffrey, we all know you as a web design guru and web standards advocate. But you got into the Web in 1995. What had you been doing before? Tell us about your background, and how it influenced your web design future. As a child, what you dreamt to be?

I didn't see a TV until I was three; for a while in early childhood I ran an imaginary television station, Channel One, which “broadcast” whatever I was doing or thinking about. Kind of like a blog.

I wanted to write fiction, compose music, and make films. My fiction writing earned me fellowships at the University of Virginia and the interest of several big writers, but I was not able to publish my work, and, in my early 20s, I quit trying.

I wrote articles for The Washington Post and columns for the Baltimore/ Washington City Paper, achieving a certain following. One day my editor at The Washington Post fired me. I never learned why.

From age 14 to 29, I played in bands you never heard of, eventually building a studio in Washington, DC where I composed electronic scores for the Upright Vertebrates dance company, and collaborated on documentary film soundtracks with Robert Goldstein of the Urban Verbs. Alas, the music “lifestyle” became more important to me than the music.

When all else fails, there is advertising. I was working at a New York ad agency in 1995, when a client asked if we could design a website. I never looked back.

What progress has been made in the fight for browser standards? Will there ever be a browser that is completely standards compliant?

Browsers are continually improving their compliance with standards that are now 10 and 15 years old. They are also partially supporting emerging specifications like CSS3 and HTML 5. (For instance, most browsers, IE excepted, now support the HTML 5 “canvas” element.) Partial support of specifications that aren't yet finalized is a tricky business, but it's necessary if we're to move beyond CSS 1 and its siblings, and the people doing it are very good.

No browser will ever be "completely" standards compliant because no software is perfect, and because the specifications themselves have flaws, chiefly vagueness. For example, no two browsers allow you to style form elements the same way, but that is not a fault of the browsers. The specifications don't provide details about how form elements should look and behave. If I use CSS to apply a height to an input field, it's not going to look the same in Opera as it does in Firefox; that's not the browser makers' fault.

Indeed, the more you look into these subjects—and I work with Eric Meyer, who is always investigating such arcana—the deeper you fall into the Twilight Zone, and the more amazed you are that anything on the web actually works.

Google has recently released an open source browser called Google Chrome. To your opinion, how this fact would influence the situation with web standards?

Chrome is interesting and we'll talk about it in a moment, but what's really going to drive standards awareness in the next months is the release of IE8. For the first time, IE will no longer support "IE-only" websites by default. Instead, it will support standards by default. Think about that. If you're a developer, and you've somehow managed to remain completely unaware of standards-based design, your IE-only website won't work in IE. Wow! Right? So what will you do?

If you plan to have a career, you'll start learning about standards-based design fast. (IE8 will support old-fashioned IE-only sites if you insert a tag in the head of each web page instructing the browser to do so, but that's merely to protect old sites; it's not a strategy you can pursue if you intend to create new sites.)

That's the big news where browsers and standards adoption are concerned.

As for Chrome, none of us knows how much business it will take from IE. And, to hear them tell it, Google isn't especially interested in stealing IE's market share, anyway; they mostly just want to innovate in the browser space. What it's really about is rethinking the browser so things happen faster and more efficiently. But Chrome is based on Webkit (the same standards-compliant rendering engine that powers Apple's Safari), so it supports standards out of the gate. Will it hurt standards adoption to have another standards-compliant browser in the marketplace, with the power of Google behind it? I think it will help.

Which of the initiatives that are on the horizon do you think will benefit the Web's future the most?

I don't think any technology out there holds to the key to a better web experience for all. As far as I can tell, the web's future will be driven by the same thing that drove its past: good ideas, good writing, good design. And the surprises that communities spring on the makers of sites and applications that serve them. Who knew Twitter would become so big or so interesting? Not the makers of Twitter—it was a side project, something they built for themselves while working on a “bigger” product. But the bigger product didn't create anything like the excitement (not to mention third-party apps and mash-ups) that Twitter has generated. You just never know what the people will respond to. And that's the real excitement of the web.

Tell us about your design process. How do you stimulate yourself during work?

I'm a creature of routine. I start working about the same time every day, at the same computer, in the same chair. I eat the same lunch, take the same break, leave at the same time, and walk home by the same route. Removing choice from these mundane activities lets me focus on work decisions instead.

Creative inspiration comes in flashes at inopportune moments, such as when I'm pushing my four-year-old in the tire swing at the park. Luckily I type fast, even on an iPhone.

With writing and design problems, I generally have several terrible false starts while I'm at my desk, and the solution comes the next morning, while I'm walking the dog.

You publish A List Apart magazine; have written two books (Designing With Web Standards, now in its 2nd Edition); co-founded the web design conference An Event Apart; and founded and is executive creative director of a web design agency Happy Cog™. This takes a lot of time and effort. What drives you?

I started A List Apart because there wasn't a magazine publishing the kind of web design articles I wanted to read.

I wrote Designing With Web Standards because my years of standards advocacy through A List Apart and The Web Standards Project hadn't convinced every designer and client on the planet to embrace web standards. I thought, maybe if I phrased the argument a different way, or slipped it between the covers of a book, it would be more effective at promoting change.

I started Happy Cog because, when I worked for other people, they often made decisions I didn't agree with. If my work was bringing in the accounts, but I had no say in how those accounts were managed, what was the sense of putting my pants on in the morning? I figured I could do as good a job as the people I was working for, and if I failed, it would be on me. Seems to have worked out so far.

What other project(s) are you currently working on that you could talk about?

I'm redesigning An Event Apart's website, and the amazing Eric Meyer is coding it. It's great to be your own client!

Describe a typical day of Jeffrey Zeldman.

Oh, I can't, it's too boring. I make coffee, kiss the wife, walk the dog, take the daughter to pre-school, go to the office, go home, walk the dog, kiss the wife, read to the daughter, gargle, repeat. I love it. But The Matrix it's not.

What inspires you the most?

My wife and daughter, living in New York City, and my wonderful Internet pals.

What qualities does one need to possess in order to work for Jeffrey Zeldman?

I'm attracted to talented people who are also nice people.

Listening is important. I don't mind a client disliking an idea or a design, but I'd hate to have a client think we're arrogant.

I like working with grown-ups, regardless of their chronological age: people who do what they say they'll do, and deliver it when it's due. Coaxing people to do their jobs is no fun.

Curiosity counts. We're at the dawning of a medium whose potential we can't foresee. Every day should be an adventure. If you're bored, you're in the wrong business.

What advice would you give to the beginning web designers?

Keep working, keep learning, and don't be discouraged. Apprentice yourself to, or work with, people who know what they're doing. Don't settle for easy. Don't be too lenient on your own work. Don't accept the first job you're offered. Don't stay in a bad job, you'll be miserable all the time, and you'll have nothing to show for your years.

Be excited! You're inventing something new on the planet. Imitate to get started, sure, but don't settle for copying any master, because nobody has really figured this out yet, and the person who figures it out best just might be you.

Helen Walker

Helen Walker

Helen Walker graduated with a degree in Mass Communications and Sociology. She worked as a newspaper journalist for two years after that. Having always been interested in cyberculture and its impact on society, Helen switched to online journalism and joined Design Interviews blog in July, 2007. Ever since she's been interviewing web designers and administrating the blog. Helen is a keen movie-goer and she is also a panda lover.


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