The W3C has a new website, and it sucks

The old W3C website was horrific scene. So by those standards, this new version is a significant upgrade. And normally I wouldn’t be so disappointed about how this one turned out, despite some of the repugnant design decisions (what’s up with that shadow/bubble on the logo?). But I had the distinct pleasure of seeing some of the early design comps at AEA Boston in 2008 and they were gorgeous.

I’m not sure what happened between those comps being developed by Ethan Marcotte & Airbag, and the final site, but something went awry. Horribly awry.

On top of that, the site’s CSS doesn’t validate.

Ironically, as has been pointed out in the comments to the W3C Blog post W3C Site Launch, the CSS used does not validate. It does seem a bit odd for the W3C site to have errors, so I can understand the people who think this should be fixed as well.

All I can say is what a shame.

[Via Konigi]