October 14, 2002, 12:25 PM ET
Discussion about Wired News redesign
The folks on the online-news discussion list have been discussing Wired News' recent all-CSS redesign. I posted this comment today:
> But the Wired site is ugggggly. No sense
> of serendipity. And hard-to-read black-on-white
> text on the left.I respectfully disagree.
You may think Wired News' design is ugly, but the beauty -- rather, *one* beauty -- of CSS-based design is: You can make sitewide design changes in a matter of minutes.
So if enough Wired readers complain about the color scheme, site designers can change one or two lines in a file, and, voila -- problem solved.
(It's not quite that easy on a table-based layout with hard-coded font tags, as I'm sure you know. In fact, in most cases, it's a huge headache.)
The folks at Wired News haven't just redesigned. They've built a framework.
> Likely designed by programmers who were
> responding to a study -- rather than by the
> business-side folks who want to keep folks
> visiting the site on a regular basis.How's this for good business practice:
- Saving time and money on development
- Saving time and money on maintenance
- Saving time and money on production
- Saving money on bandwidth
I'd say those are good things. Adopting CSS is not only a good technological decision; it's a smart business move.
Regarding "keep[ing] folks visiting the site on a regular basis":
- CSS cuts down drastically on page load time.
- CSS lets designers do more than tables will allow (with few exceptions).
- CSS enables user-level site customization. Examples: alltheweb.com/alchemist, waferbaby.com/mybaby.
And, to address the issue of legacy browser support, two points:
- Designers need to accept their designs won't look the same in every browser. This is the Web, not paper.
- When viewed in legacy browsers, smartly coded CSS-based designs that "degrade nicely" are acceptable. Frankly, on many news sites, I'd rather view a plain, text-only version than attempt to navigate the cluttered "real" version.
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