Joy Of Code - Web Design Training and Consulting
Joy Gems Newsletter

Just The Opposite Is True

By Bud Kraus
bud@joyofcode.com
Joy Of Code
Creator And Instructor

v3 i9
Originally Published: May 3, 2007

If you think that using web page design standards blocks your ability to create aesthetically pleasing web designs, then I've got some news for you!!

In my humble opinion - and that of countless others - Just The Opposite Is True. Using web page design standards is the approach to making beautiful, stunningly appealing pages.

What do I mean by web page design standards? I mean following the rules for using Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language, Cascading Style Sheets, and other Internet technologies being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c.org). That's right. I said that awful word - rules - and as one who has struggled with authority all of my life, the idea of following rules seems crazy.

And it is until you come to the matter of web page design.

What's a practical effect of using standards? You can free yourself of all the tag soup garbage that bloats your pages with...

  • tables (and absurdly nested tables) that are impossible to work with 5 minutes after they were made;
  • fake spacer and shim (transparent) images to artificially hold your made-for-print design together;
  • outdated markup (such as the FONT tag) when CSS is what should be used for all styling requirements.

Break the rules and you just end up with a mess from both sides - what the user sees in the browser, and what the designer sees from the source code side.

The bottom line is that, by using design standards, we put the user - not the designer - in the center of our design. Plus, we can make pages that are more than a little attractive. That's having your cake and eating it too.

Don't take it from me. Here are some examples. You're going to miss the point if you don't look a little bit under the hood - at the source code - and see how they do it.

CSS Beauty Gallery asdfasdf

The CSS Beauty Gallery is a gateway to a number of beautifully crafted sites using standards. Just amazing stuff!! Some of these examples are about web design firms (such as happy cog) but you'll see the possibilities just the same.

W3C Sites

Who better to show us how it's done than the W3C Sites? The collection here is by, and about, web designers but they're not just strutting their stuff. They are showing you just what is possible by following the rules. I love Tyrcha.com. (Yes, it passes validation too, in case you wanted to know).

Other Galleries

What does this all add up to?

Today's web sites are being designed without the tag soup you get with nested tables, fake images, and outdated code. That growing practice doesn't seem to hinder the ability to create eye popping, engaging web sites, does it?