In the left corner: Tyler Tate’s 1KB CSS Grid, a lean framework sporting 14 classes and the familiar conventions for enforcing a visual grid via CSS.
In the right corner: Vladimir Carrer’s 1-line CSS Grid, an experimental framework sporting a single class to cut nested column widths in half. The solution is mindblowingly brilliant, but does it work? Design tends to work in thirds, not halves. You decide.
Whether or not it’s a coincidence I chanced upon these two extremely simple CSS grid frameworks just days apart, news of these two solutions makes the CSS framework “scene” a lot more interesting. And accessible. I can imagine many front-end developers shying away from heavyweight frameworks because there are too many features, most of which won’t be utilized, and there are too many conventions, most of which aren’t easy to remember.
I’m not even going to get into how using these frameworks leads to unsemantic, presentational class names and lots of <div> soup reminiscent of <table>-based layouts. Let’s just be glad people are streamlining the application of design principles for the Web, namely grid layouts. When a better way comes out—maybe it’ll be display:table, maybe it won’t—we’ll adjust then.
In the meantime, we need to let our arsenal evolve. Balance out the spectrum with lightweight frameworks like these. Then add diversity as well. Look at the Javascript libraries—the tiny moo.fx, the venerable Prototype and Scriptaculous, and the designer darling jQuery—each one caters to a specific need. What other kind of grid frameworks do we need? Fluid? Do-it-yourself? Highly reputable? Unobtrusive? Oh, what will they think of next?
Eric Meyer has started poring over the WaSP community’s suggestions for CSS3 with a series of posts on his weblog—3 so far in less than a week. The original feedback compiled by Fantasai is a monstrous read in itself, but all these are worth perusing if you care remotely about the future of web design.
It’s comforting to have one of the gurus like him to really go over this. Although he didn’t promise to address every single point on the list, what I’m seeing so far is extremely comprehensive. More importantly, we have a strong figurehead that’s rolling up his sleeves and setting up these blog posts as the stage for discussion with people who are not necessarily involved with the W3C and other stakeholders like the browser vendors.
Between debating over specific CSS features (e.g., containing floats, center positioning, selector blocks) and looking at the bigger picture…
Maybe CSS isn’t the place for this. Maybe there needs to be a new layout language that can be defined and implemented without regard to the constraints of the existing CSS syntax rules, without worrying about backwards compatibility. Maybe that way we can not only get strong layout but also arbitrary shapes, thus leaving behind the rectangular prison that’s defined the web for almost two decades.
I don’t have a concrete idea to propose here, because it’s not up to us any more. A solution was worked out over the course of several years and then found wanting by the implementors. Really, it’s up to the implementors to figure it out now. I personally would like to just lock the browser teams from Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, and Apple in a room and not let them out until they’ve defined something that works and they’ve all agreed to implement soonest. I might even supply food and water.
…we have to keep talking and stay restless but hopeful. We may not be able to give the final word on the next version of HTML and CSS and the web browsers, but we can talk about what could go into them while the W3C listens.
IE6 is declining. HTML5 is gaining traction. JavaScript libraries and CSS frameworks abstract the process of squashing browser bugs and incompatibilities. And progressive enhancement reassures us that we don’t have to serve up exactly the same features in ancient browsers.
And maybe we can stop acting like the current technologies are our handicap and take the plunge. Okay, maybe splashing water all over might not be a good idea at once. Try dipping your toes. Try your left leg. Try wading. The key is to at least try.
For those who couldn’t attend the An Event Apart conference at San Francisco, held last August 18-19, head over to Jeremy Keith’s journal for an excellent retelling of what went down.
Words are enough to give one the impression that the talks were brilliant. Let me quote some passages based on the blog posts at Adactio:
Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman:
You should not be designing just to make other designers jealous. It happens a lot in design but it happens in development too (I’m looking at you, Ajax). Good design is invisible. It’s about the character of the content, not the character of the designer. Let’s get away from showing off get to empathetic web design. It means user-centred design but by abandoning that label we can side-step the religious wars between UCD and agile.
The Lessons of CSS Frameworks by Eric Meyer:
If you’re going to use a framework, it should be yours; one that you’ve created. You can look at existing frameworks for ideas and hack at it. But the professionals in this room are not well served by picking up a framework and using it as-is.
Storytelling by Design Jason Santa Maria:
Design for the web has chiefly been driven forward by technology rather than message. Maybe it’s time to go back and start asking what are the stories we are trying to tell. The form of design should be driven by the story.
Web Application Hierarchy by Luke W.:
We make sense of the world in terms of relationships. We don’t know when we smell because we’re used to the smell, but other people notice because our smell stands out. It’s much the same with sight. We can associate or disassociate things using contrast, distance and size. We can use contrast in visual weight to guide the eye and create a flow.
Shepherding Passionate Users by Heather Champ:
When the universe gives you lemons, make lemonade. When there was unannounced downtime on Flickr, they turned it into a colouring contest: print out these circles, colour them in and the winner will get a prize. Over 2000 submissions were uploaded. The level of creativity was startling. Every one participated ended up getting an extra three months on their account.
The Framework Age by Liz Danzico:
User-centred design and participatory design are great ways of involving the users in the design process but that’s still different to actual use. It’s time for a new way of working: designing for improvisation (but remember that no one single process will ever be successful).
Implementing Design: Bulletproof A-Z by Dan Cederholm:
Rounded corners are usually a pain in the ass. But you can do them today with namespaced webkit- and moz- border-radius declarations. … What about other browsers? Well, they don’t get rounded corners but so what? Rounded corners just degrade gracefully to rectangles.
This roundup actually covers only day one, so be sure to subscribe to Adactio for the next round of talks for day two.
