Lockamy Heather Web page Deconstruction Prior- 344a
The history of web design may not be a long one, but the techniques have evolved and expanded since the first pages were being designed in the early 90's with simple text and HTML. Moving on from simple text websites designers began using tables to organize their websites, adding more complexity and variability. But table-based design had its limitations and CSS, or cascading style sheets, was developed. CSS opened a new world of options and proficiency to the web design world, and although the industry was slow to switch over, CSS has become the new standard, as seen with programs like Adobe Dreamweaver. The diversity of web design can still be found on the internet, with all types of websites being used for all different purposes, and both table-based and CSSbased seen throughout. Table-based web design is perfect for displaying text and information in a structured and easy to follow way. There are minimal graphics used and the main goal of these sites is to present clear and legible info. The need for simplicity in table-based web design is crucial because the sites can easily become too complex and way too large with nested tables and too many graphics. Anything beyond basic tables set up to convey information is going to be inefficient and cumbersome. Table-based design also causes problems for search engines making it hard for them to understand what is going in on the web page. They are still used in the industry because of people's familiarity and their fundamental usage for information display.
You can see in the examples that web pages that use table-based design have a very simple structure with few graphics. The majority of the website is made up of text and the color scheme is simple and easily readable. These web pages exist to relay information to the reader as directly and simply as possible. CSS is designed to separate for the designer, the content of the website from the presentation of the website. Prior to CSS, the design elements for a web page had to be explicitly described throughout the html. Instead of having to describe every single font color, border, alignment, or background style, CSS lets web designers create style sheets and reuse them, eliminating the need for repetitive programm...