"In my world, the designer drives the train."

I tried to figure out how to do good typography with the tools I was given, with the early 1.0 browsers. And I couldn't do it. It was very frustrating. I was actually making huge pages out of .gif images just to do the kind of typography I wanted to do. And then I developed some new tricks when the new 1.1 browsers came out, I was able to do a lot more interesting things -- basically by getting around what HTML was designed to do.

"HTML is strictly a markup language ... and I used it, or you could say, bastardized it or misused it, to denote presentational aspects of a Web page."

SIMS: Which was to present information at different levels?
SIEGEL: HTML is strictly a markup language meant to denote various structural aspect of a Web page, and I used it, or you could say, bastardized it or misused it, to denote presentational aspects of a Web page -- how I wanted it to look and layout -- and that was kind of a no-no at that time, theoretically.

Soon after that, the Netscape site started using these kind of techniques, and it grew and grew, and lots of people followed suit.

SIMS: The one-pixel.gif that you created was controversial.
SIEGEL: Well, it was among a small number of people who thought that I was messing around with the markup and the answer was, "Yes, I'm definitely messing around with the markup until I can get better tools to do layout." And fortunately new tools and browsers are on the horizon, and we can leave those old hacks behind and get into better structured design and good presentation. C O N T I N U E D . . . 2 of 3
SIMS: You've written there's "promise on the horizon" in a way that the purists can have code but the designers can have more control over their presentation. Do you think this is opening up new opportunity in terms of the designer's control over the interface?

"The Netscape 4.0 browser does not do style sheets. Whatever it does with style sheets is not to spec. It's buggy code that doesn't work, and everybody knows it is not something to build on."

SIEGEL: It is and it's going to be tricky. It's certainly right now impossible because the Netscape 4.0 browser from a press release point of view supports style sheets but in fact from an actual implementation point of view is a disaster.

SIMS: How is that? Does it slow it down?
SIEGEL: No, No, No. You can quote me on this. The Netscape 4.0 browser does not do style sheets. Whatever it does with style sheets is not to spec. It's buggy code that doesn't work, and everybody knows it is not something to build on.

So if you're building a site for people with Netscape or IE 3 you can't use style sheets, basically. IE 4 does an okay job, and we have to give them a lot of credit for doing a much better implementation than Netscape's, but still there are problems with the IE 4. So we're really looking to the 5.0 browsers to give us style sheets that will allow us to separate style from content.

By the way, it's not that important in certain context. If you are running an MTV site, no one cares how your documents are structured; they want to have a good time at that site. It really depends on the context. Who are you presenting to? How do they like to consume either their information or their entertainment? If they want entertainment, structure isn't as important.

SIMS: You've said that you don't even use alt tags on your pages because that is not the way you intend for them to be viewed. Is that right?

"On my personal site I don't have alt tags. I don't want people coming with non-graphical browsers to my site. They can go somewhere else."

SIEGEL: On my personal site I don't have alt tags. I don't want people coming with non-graphical browsers to my site. They can go somewhere else. They are certainly welcome. There are a million other Websites, but if they want to come to my Website, it is a personal visual experience.

On the other hand, when I do sites for clients, we use alt tags because if that's part of the intended audience, then we certainly provide for them.

SIMS: Is your background in typography or graphic design? You mentioned that you came into it from typography, and I believe you invented the Tekton type face?
SIEGEL: Yes, I was the designer of Tekton. So I came through typography and type design. I was a type designer for many years.

SIMS: For computer type faces?
SIEGEL: Yes. Digital type. I licensed fonts to Adobe and Hewlett-Packard.

SIMS: And you came into the Web that way?
SIEGEL: Designers were forced onto the Web. The good news about that is that type design is a very visual, very aesthetic endeavor, but it's very technical. So those of us who got onto the Web early were able to do remarkable things quickly because we were used to solving technical problems cleverly to achieve visual results. C O N T I N U E D . . . 3 of 3
SIMS: In working with the Web interface, what's been the biggest limitation you find to this 2-D limited frame reference that people are looking at this entire universe on?

"The Web is a visual wasteland. Come on. How many great Websites are there? Let me tell you, it's pretty bleak."

SIEGEL: I'm not a big 3-D person. I'm not interested in rotating lozenges or fly-throughs of data, or I don't have to read my New York Times as an image map on the side of the Grand Canyon. I'm really interested in good, flat typography, great colors, composition, balance, white space -- not the sort of kitchen-sink rainbow design you see on a lot of Websites. One of the biggest things that I've pounded my shoe on the table for -- and I have to say that I've been part of the HTML committee with the W3C that defines HTML for two years now -- what I've stood up for is absolute positioning so we can, pixel by pixel, know where we're moving things and having relationships between visual objects and, if possible, knowing what viewing situations people have so we can create different viewing environments for different viewing presentations for different environments. That would be cool. I would love to have a different style sheet for people with a large monitor, for example, or people with different numbers of colors, or for people with WebTV or people who see a Website on, say, a small appliance. Pixel-level control is what designers need to do great typography.

SIMS: And a protocol control for absolute positioning, if implemented through a sophisticated browser -- let's cross our fingers and hope 5.0 -- means the designer has absolute control over the way the page looks.
SIEGEL: We'll have real layers. We'll say this is behind that and that is behind this. This is all something that was figured out many years ago in the computer world, Postscript has been doing it for over 10 years. Layering things, accurate positioning of things behind and in front of each other, clipping regions, clipping paths, those kinds of things. Plus were going to have lots of interesting dynamic content where things will move, or pop up, or drill through and much of this will happen on the foundation of what is called the CSSP positioning standard that's coming out now. That's where you get Dynamic HTML. DHTML is very promising but it's not here yet. Right now, it's really a demo on the 4.0 browsers.

SIMS: Are you a little worried about the possibility of too many bells and whistles with moving Websites with Dynamic HTML?

"If a visual experience is a good way to ruin the original intentions of the Web, then I'm glad I did it."

SIEGEL: It's going to be a visual disaster no matter what! It's already a visual disaster. The Web is a visual wasteland. Come on. How many great Websites are there? Let me tell you, it's pretty bleak.

SIMS: You wrote in Web Review, "The Web is Ruined and I Ruined it."
SIEGEL: Well, many designers, and I'm not sure how this happens, and it happened to me, too. Somehow, your design education gets set back about five years once you get on the Web. Your visual aesthetic sensibility gets knocked down, and I'm not sure why it happens, but it takes some real will power to get over it and to make a visual experience.

If a visual experience is a good way to ruin the original intentions of the Web, then I'm glad I did it, and there are plenty of people who are rumbling not only behind in my footsteps, but plenty of people who have already passed me up and are doing amazing things that I wouldn't have thought of.