As far as literature on the subject I think it’s relatively scarce, especially in print. And even when writing this post I couldn’t find anything detailed on the subject; just a passing reference from time to time in accessibility articles. So, that said, I hope to delve deeper soon, perhaps in the next post.

I agree about what you’re saying about content managers, but how do you get around this? I’ve struggled to find a solution, especially when you hand projects to clients for them to maintain. You can’t teach them how to code from scratch. Even if you tried, I’m sure semantics would go out the window after just a few updates if you’re not keeping an eye on them.

Usability and accesibility are certainly hurt by having Content Management Systems take over the backend, but I personally don’t loose sleep over it. I feel like having those things are great and I strive to enforce them in my personal projects, but the lack of the things you mention don’t seem to affect too much in a commercial project. If it did, it should be identified prior to launch and should be prioritizied and enforced on updates. My two cents.

What you are saying about content, I couldn’t agree more. The good/bad part about the internet is that anyone can write. Now I don’t pretend I’m the best writer ever. Far from it. In fact I wish my English was half as good as my Spanish, obviously. What I mean is in terms of content of writing, there is so much stuff out there that, at least for me, it becomes more about filtering the tons of junk from the decent stuff. In that regard I see why social bookmarking sites could be great, but fail only to generate more trash. There is a certain web design magazine that I won’t name that insists in producing these top X lists. I find it to be nauseating.

Documentation, now that’s a tricky one. If you are writing a serious piece, then yes, back it up with a bibliography. That is a brilliant idea and something that I think should be addresed more often and I personally haven’t thought of myself. My only caveat is that online, with the notable exception of known and respected figures, everything smells fishy to me. In a world of wikipedia-based “truths”, I find that the only credible sources come from people that are well established in the “real” world as well. I really like this idea, and I’m going to try to incorporate this myself.

About adding better markup to enhance the usability of a site, can you think of any literature on that subject? Also, what do you think about microformats and how do you think it fits into this?

balance, balance is the word that pops into my head. good content followed up by a good design. i think sometimes we get lost in the behind the scenes details when all the world sees is the end result. yes the behind the scenes stuff is important, do not get me wrong but the content is important as well. you can have the best looking site in the world but if all you have for content is “lorem ipsum dolor sit…” you are not going to have many repeat visitors.

i think that equal effort should be placed on content as well as design. a well designed site with good content is so refreshing to see that i tend to feel more relaxed when i find one, like walking into a bookstore, i can take time to poke around check out the site and not feel rushed to leave. it is nice to see one.

.mikeo