Tables + CSS for me

[Tonearm]

I've learned a lot about the current state of web design over the last few days, and I've decided a layout with a basic table design at its core utilizing good semantic markup and dressed up with CSS is my best option. This is for a retail site. I'd like to discuss this with anyone who thinks a tables + CSS design is not the current best option for a three-column retail site.

- Grant

[TheDoctor]

What's your user base going to be like? I mean, are you expecting anyone to access your site using a mobile phone? If so, you need a fluid layout.

I assume that you're writing off NN4 users. Contrary to popular mythology, the use of tables in NN4 is not problematic. And, while you can easily hack CSS so that your page presents an NN4-style appearance to NN4 users and something else to other people, there's no equivalent with tables (see messages 1 & 16 in this thread [webmasterworld.com].

And remember that tables-for-layout is not semantic markup. The only semantically-correct use of tables is for tabular data.

There are plusses and minusses whichever approach you take, and you'll have to make decisions on the basis of your specific needs and constraints.