> how can they even know what is possible to create using HTML, CSS, etc.?
Anything is possible. It doesn't mean a particular idea is good (see: the topic website), but anything is certainly possible.
> It has to start somewhere. Who was behind the web back in 1993? Marketing departments?
For big companies? Yes.
> Are marketers the ones who know what can be done with HTML, etc., and what cannot?
Implementation is beside the point. Even if the Camper "experience" in the original link loaded quickly and was implemented perfectly, it would be bad.
> If a marketing department asks a web developer to implement something that the developer knows will be an annoyance to end users, and then he decides to tell them it is not possible, does the marketing department not accept this answer?
This is the difference between a good marketing department and a bad one. The good ones will take the feedback and the bad ones won't. It's also the difference between a good organization and a bad one -- if the org makes it a habit not to talk to engineers until the idea has gone through revision after revision, UX, etc, then there's too much inertia to overcome (say, 3 months of designing, UX development, intended to be launched in tandem with a meatspace campaign, as an example).
For giant companies, the web site is a piece of their action, and often times not the largest piece. The web team (the ones who implement) are pinned to the timelines of other rollouts (in-store campaigns, billboards, magazine ads, tv ads, and so forth). So while a certain idea might not be best, there may not be time to change it -- or (consider this) the web experience might not be the most important to a company that does 80% of their volume in meatspace.
Thinking that the web site & web team should be the gatekeepers of customer experience in a multichannel business that isn't focused online is a myopic view. In spirit I'm right there with you dude, but in practice (can you tell I've worked at giant companies?) it doesn't work that way.
Anything is possible. It doesn't mean a particular idea is good (see: the topic website), but anything is certainly possible.
> It has to start somewhere. Who was behind the web back in 1993? Marketing departments?
For big companies? Yes.
> Are marketers the ones who know what can be done with HTML, etc., and what cannot?
Implementation is beside the point. Even if the Camper "experience" in the original link loaded quickly and was implemented perfectly, it would be bad.
> If a marketing department asks a web developer to implement something that the developer knows will be an annoyance to end users, and then he decides to tell them it is not possible, does the marketing department not accept this answer?
This is the difference between a good marketing department and a bad one. The good ones will take the feedback and the bad ones won't. It's also the difference between a good organization and a bad one -- if the org makes it a habit not to talk to engineers until the idea has gone through revision after revision, UX, etc, then there's too much inertia to overcome (say, 3 months of designing, UX development, intended to be launched in tandem with a meatspace campaign, as an example).
For giant companies, the web site is a piece of their action, and often times not the largest piece. The web team (the ones who implement) are pinned to the timelines of other rollouts (in-store campaigns, billboards, magazine ads, tv ads, and so forth). So while a certain idea might not be best, there may not be time to change it -- or (consider this) the web experience might not be the most important to a company that does 80% of their volume in meatspace.
Thinking that the web site & web team should be the gatekeepers of customer experience in a multichannel business that isn't focused online is a myopic view. In spirit I'm right there with you dude, but in practice (can you tell I've worked at giant companies?) it doesn't work that way.