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Posted by Jim Moe on 05/08/06 10:32
Michael Laplante wrote:
>
> The philosophy of some people here is that websites should be designed for
> maximum accessibility. In pursuit of that goal, I've seen a lot of -- well
> let's call them bland -- websites. You know the ones -- the one/two/three
> column thing, sometimes with a top-banner, and -- if they are daring -- a
> background graphic somewhere. Essentially, these sites are replicating what
> simple tables do except that tables handle the strain of resized windows and
> / or fonts better.
>
You confuse graphics design, layout design and implementation. Often
these are indistinguishable for many people, some of whom lurk hereabouts.
Graphics design is about how a page looks, its font, its colors, its
message.
Layout design is placing those elements in a way that works for the
medium, the WWW in this case.
Implementation how it actually happens, HTML and CSS in this case.
What you are complaining about is poor graphics and layout design. Many
of us are quite good at implementation, and poor at design.
Obviously in the late 1990s tables were popular for implementation
because it was the only way to achieve more than one column. The HTML
standard was updated (to v4) to current practice, new features added,
other features removed or deprecated.
CSS was created to address layout.
Tables were no longer necessary for layout.
The two standards combined to provide a way to separate content from its
presentation. HTML adds semantic information about the content (this is a
header, this is a list, this is a paragraph, this is a quote, this is a
definition, this is emphasized, etc.). CSS makes it pretty.
Implementing a document this way makes the content accessible to more
than those with young healthy eyes. This is a remarkable achievement.
--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
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