March 03, 2004 | View Comments (19) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: Why LockerGnome should avoid moving backwards.
First Matt reported about it, then Shea offered his suggestions. LockerGnome is giving up their sweet CSS implemented site for god knows what. But this statement is not a good sign:
Is this going to be a step backward? In a way, yes. I’ll certainly miss certain aspects of our ultra-hip CSS implementation. However, until 99% of the installed browser / e-mail client base supports the same standards, we’re gonna leave the fancy-schmancy stuff to other online resources.
Shea suggests that they go to a hybrid layout. I suggest they stay with the CSS layout, especially if they are talking about simplifying their code structure. I am okay with a large site going from tables to hybrid to all-CSS, but this one irks me. I am guessing LockerGnome’s audience is mostly equipped with the latest browsers and therefore only causing more confusion to why someone would want to go back to tables, especially when they are going for a cleaner layout.
It is going backwards and it does not help anyone. You create a wonderfully complex layout in CSS that works for me in Firefox and in IE 6. Hell, I just checked it in IE 5 and the site looks fine! What is going on here? I can understand (maybe) going to a hybrid layout if the design is just too hard to implement in CSS, but how many times does this occur?
Here is my humble advice: don’t let it go. You have a community that would be more than willing to help out. Stick with CSS, especially if you are going for something clean. You obviously have experience with the previous design. Sure I have had my own feelings hurt by layouts that I just couldn't get working in CSS, but, but, but LockerGnome already has the CSS design...I am lost. Of course they never really say they are going to tables, but this goes for anyone wishing to take a step backwards. 103% of the time my opinion does not matter, but it would be nice to have the number of CSS sites grow, not decrease.
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/168
My take on the post is that they seem to think that their current layout is causing some people to not find what they used to be able to find so easliy:
"We're going to unbury the menus and options and chalk up the past few months to experience."
They also seem to be putting CSS at fualt for this current design, when really the problem seems to be poor planning. They could have just as easily taken their previous design and kept the same structure, using CSS to implement it.
"You might recall the somewhat-simplistic design of our site before we dove head-first into Cascading Style Sheets."
They may not have realized that they could still have that same simplistic design AND use CSS.
To me it seems to that they are blaming poor usablity on CSS when it is really the fualt of the design(er).
Jeremy Flint (http://www.jeremyflint.com)
Well they certainly have a very ugly site. The fact that they realise this themselves must be good. I don't see what all the fuss is about. If they blame CSS for making their site ugly (I don't know what it was like before), I can understand that. Maybe they think they had more imagination in tables than they do in CSS. It's up to them whether they go back to tables and blame CSS. It'll reflect on them, not CSS. Certainly the loss of an ugly CSS site is no loss at all. Personally I would be glad for all the ugly CSS sites to go back to ugly table sites. It's not a religion.
Joel (http://biroco.com/)
I think the key may be "e-mail client". Trying to get any HTML email looking good can be a chore. I've never tried, but attempting to use CSS in an HTML email should be properly nasty.
Bill (http://bill.simonifamily.net/)
Agreed Bill, but they still could have kept a CSS version of their site while making a hybrid layout for their email campaigns.
Vinnie Garcia (http://blog.vinniegarcia.com/)
^^^^^ exactly. Email should have nothing to do with a site's design.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
no, they should shoot the jackass who decided to do html emails in the first place. plain text. rich text if you absolutely must. but I don't need a bloody web page in my mailbox, and neither do you.
nuff said.
JC (http://http;//www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
The latest:
All the layout is based on tried and true HTML tables. I did skip on the use of the font tag, so that might at least garner me a quick death.
This is a joke. Hell, horses were a tried and true means of transportation, why not go back to using them?
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
Given the petrochemical energy crisis, global capitalism, and pollution, I think going back to horses would be a good idea.
Joel (http://biroco.com/)
hmm. the first one's manufactured, the second is wonderful, or would be if governments would stay the hell out of it so it can self-balance, the third one wouldn't be improved by moving back to horses. They have considerably more...output... than a car does, and require a helluvalot more fuel. Kinda like hydrogen fuel cell cars... usable in small numbers, but wildly inefficient en masse (they use petroleum to create the hydrogen for fuel cells. Maybe someday that'll change, but likely not for a long time)
JC (http://http;//www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
perhaps the ongoing net-wide competition to outdo each other with high design CSS'd sites is persuading people that CSS is just for 'fancy' designs.
i'm struggling to think of a reason (other than to garner publicity) that would be good enough to cause me to revert to a table based design. they must either have a problem with their architecture, implementation, or both.
using tables means that it is impossible to place the main content at the top of the page, unless it is in the first cell.
(html 3ish for email isn't it?)
pid (http://www.pidster.com)
Just to clarify, pid, you mean 'the top of the file,' not the top of the page, right? Top of the page is visual and if you follow the pattern of most websites, there's some sort of header and/or navigation there. Top of the file is easy with CSS (though the SEO-alleged benefits of that may be bypassed if you have a lot of CSS code first) but possible with tables.. but a real pain. Can't remember how to do it off the top of my head, but it had to do with 2 or 3 nested tables with varying colspan and rowspan.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
JC -- You say the petrochemical energy crisis is "manufactured"? You mean not real, just hype? I can't see that, thing about reliance on a fossil fuel is that it takes a long time to create it and when it's gone there ain't any more unless you conqueror a new planet. As an American of course you are by definition propagandized on that point, you need a holiday in Europe to see these things more clearly. And let's not forget, horseshit is good for the roses.
Joel (http://biroco.com/)
Yes, it's hype. Reliance on it is bad, because of the assorted pollution factors, but there's no shortage. There's also an increasing body of scientific research that disputes the 'rotted dinosaur' theory and suggests that oil is a naturally occurring substance that seeps up from deep underground all around the world, but appears to be concentrated in places such as texas, alaska, the middle east, etc because of higher pressure or something, similar to the way artesian springs operate. (which explains why 'dead' oil wells often are found partially refilled). And Joel, my dear euro sir, I treat propaganda with the utmost contempt and trust our beloved government about half the distance a cockroach can spit. The german kind, not the madagascar kind.
Horseshit is good for the roses, but far, far better for the bacteria. Improved medicine isn't the only reason industrialized nations don't suffer from the sorts of epidemic diseases experienced in centuries past.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
On the end of oil, I wonder what could have prompted such faith in it being an everlasting supply? Maybe it's something they put in the burgers.
Have you seen David Goldstein's book "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil"? Interview in Newsweek:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4287300/
I doubt it will make much of a dent in those who have what is virtually a religious faith in oil though.
Joel (http://biroco.com/)
Doesn't look like the redesign has been made site wide, which gave me a chance to compare the old with the new (but old?). I find the new table-based layout to be just as confusing as the old CSS-based layout, but without any sort of visual appeal. For that matter the design lacks functionality and organization (or at least it appears that way).
Jesse Wilson
hmm. it was ugly before. it's ugly now, and a bit more boxy. It doesn't seem any harder to use, but I'm not a regular there.
Joel, I'm not sure I follow you. The religious faith, as it were, is that the supply of oil *is* limited ... that's what keeps the prices artificially inflated. It's most likely not running out, according to the deep hot biosphere theory... but that doesn't mean it should still be used in aeternum. The shortage or lack thereof does not mitigate the unpleasant effects of its overusage.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
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#1
At this point all we can really do is wait and see what's coming. Hopefully they'll pick up on some of this feedback.
Matt (http://photomatt.net/)