razorBlog
Web Design Drives Me Nuts
Summery
Writing a website can be like painting a picture, some software lets you do just this, you create your idea graphically and the software turns this into a usable website. This is all well and good as long as the software being used is capable of creating structured clean code, which in reality is the opposite of what you actually get out the other end. Today’s WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors are getting better and better at turning these paintings into code, but one thing they can never do, is replace the designer who fully understands and is capable of writing the raw code. I’m talking of that flare and control you can only get by a manual hand driven task, which can inevitably set you apart from the rest through structured, clean and precise code. Of course the added benefit of actually knowing what you are doing is also nice, something lost in today’s world thrust into a click happy culture which creates a society of sheep simply following the crowd, me, I like to understand why I’m doing something.
I like to think about web design slightly differently than painting a picture, more like writing a book. The painting a picture method uses style over substance which is the wrong path to walk as you are only ever interested with how things look, again common in today’s society. Substance should always rule over looks and gives a good structure for your new website as well as most other areas of life. This type of correctly structured book should follow rules, rules are good, rules that Internet browsers can interpret correctly, independent of computer operating system or browser type. This does not mean that looks are abandoned, the overall look is important for that first impression, but it is that substance that keeps the attention and also draws in. Creating good looks on solid substance is the key.
Throughout this first book in the series ‘web design drives me nuts’ I will show you the door to web design, come step inside and I will slowly guide you through creating your first extremely simple website. Now trust me when I say simple, this will be a no frills example of a website, but more importantly will give you a foundation on what goes where. If you are going to forget nearly everything in this book, at least remember the following important tips, this is not only something that will help you design websites well, but can also be applied to life in general.
- Keep things simple, if you have three ways to achieve the same task, use the simplest.
- Everything has its place, apple pie tastes great and can feed your hunger, but is useless to jack up a car with.
- Never eat yellow snow, it may look tasty, but that is where the huskies go.
- Structure is important, it is what everything in the universe is held up with.
- Leave notes, anywhere and everywhere, your brain only remembers what it wants to, not what you need it to.
- If you have exhausted every other avenue, the last one must be correct.
- Variables are what create ambiguity in any situation, cut down on the variables to simplify your problem.
