I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Started

[tedster]

I wish someone would have just sat me down on the first day I started to code a site and 'splained this to me!

H - T - M - L means HyperText MARK-UP Language. It was not created to be a layout program, no matter what perception your favorite WYSIWYG editor may be trying to create. It's a way of marking up a document with a standardized code so that lots of browsers on lots of platforms can read the document and get the logical sense of it.

So if I start by thinking about creating a graphic beauty, the way I would when creating a print brochure, well, I'm in for a huge battle. But if I start with a document and think about how to MARK IT UP so that it makes a kind of universal sense, then I'm more in tune with the way the web was created.

The funny thing is, HTML and CSS have grown so sophisticated, that I can "almost" do the print brochure thing and succeed -- at least in appearance.

But you know what?

People's eyes slide right off that ultra-slick page. It's just too perfect, somehow. There's no humanity to it, no warts-and-all honesty. Just the way we all tune out corporate speak when we run into it, we also tune out corporate-look. At least I know I do. And I've learned that my slickest designs may get praise, but they don't get the best results.

So now when I develop a website, I start with the document, the content, as the center pole. And I mark it up so everyone gets a fair chance at it. And I give it a nice aesthetic setting, whatever fits the topic. But I don't get carried away.

Even in print or TV, a super slick bit just doesn't communicate the core message. Oh, I may enjoy the art, or the cleverness, or the sexy model or whatever. But so often, I just can't remember what they were selling!

Today I do what I didn't do when I started out on the web. I remember what the "M" in HTML stands for. I begin with the content, not the "look". And my sites are working pretty well. All except for a few pretty boys I created early on.

That's why my motto is: Slick Ain't Sticky!

[korkus2000]

I also wish that I had known that. I looked at web pages like they were a Quark document instead of a word document. We can do some amazing things these days, but as you say we can have a site look to perfect.

[BlobFisk]

Excellent post Tedster and some spot-on points.

I've noticed over the past 6 months or so that I am shying more and more away from the ultra-pretty design towards a more content oriented and user-cetric design. Typically a fluid layout with emphasis on content, ease of navigation, useability and accessibility.

Some clients may complain that it's not as flashy a design as so-and-so site - but with a little explaination most come around. It is still possible to employ htMl and CSS to do these ultra-slick designs, but content (still) is king.

Browsers just interpret Mark-up.... it's not a hard and fast rule that they stick to for design. And as we all know, different browsers interpret in different ways.

[kiwanji]

It looks like the professionals are finally coming full circle just like "normal" people do. When I have my students start creating pages on their own they almost always employ the most hideous designs possible because they fall in love with marquees, animated gifs, blinking this and that and dark background colors. I try to teach them about quality design, that the human brain is conditioned to see dark writing on a light background, and that things moving will catch an eye for a moment but then quickly turn distracting then annoying. The students come full circle when they get over those flashy elements and start focusing on content. Looks like some of us are reaching that point also.

I have seen some amazing displays of animation recently, but their purpose was lost on me. Look at the snickers web site for a great example of creating what I like to call a show-off web site (http://www.snickers.com). This company is trying to sell candy but the common user doesn't have a clue how to navigate their site.

I have decided that in every site that I design, simplicity is the key. The more "stuff" you put into a site, the more likely it is to break on you, or in our case, the more liekly someone's browser will run screaming from the design you worked so hard to create.

[martinibuster]

Good post.

Even in print or TV, a super slick bit just doesn't communicate the core message.

Communicating the message is the core mission of many web sites.

Finding the information is what we, as surfers, are trying to do.

It follows that anything you do to make the content available, to make it rise to the top, is a plus. That's why I like a minimalist approach.

[Nick_W]

This is an area I'm passionate abuot. As both a web designer (and I use the term loosely ;)) and as a user.

I'm currently putting together the backend of a 'directory type' site and I'm thinking on and off about design. I'm leaning toward serious minimalism, one graphic: the logo, clearly marked and colored sections, simple breadcrumb navigation and a 'information orientated' look.

If there's one thing that's for sure about the web it's this: Users don't care for gimmicks, (or slickness as you say) they care about INFORMATION. Give them what they want I say...

I love what you've said here tedster it's music to my ears ;)

nick

[tedster]

I'v been thinking about this ever since I posted. It feels like a hard won understanding to me, as if I had to climb up a mountain to see the whole view. That's why I thought it might be a useful post for people who consider themselves "New To Web Development." I still feel like that, even after 7-8 years.

My difficulty in seeing the whole picture probably came because I wasn't very involved with the Internet until a few years after the WWW appeared. I didn't think about developing websites until 1995 or so.

By then the importance of the document was beginning to be obscured by the flash and dazzle of all those pretty pictures and layout possibilities. Developers were all carried away by "cool sites".

But anyone who was an old hand at the Interent and already onboard as HTML developed -- they naturally understood that the document is the centerpole. Or, as we say today, that Content Is King.

[chiyo]

Our pages with nothing but a title, H1 and maybe H2 tags and single P tags and one link at the bottom to the home page do best in search engines. They also are extremely readable in all browsers. Quite simply, the simpler the mark up, the less opportunity for browsers to be quirky.

It no longer amazes me why pages written 8 years ago go much better in search engines than those written more recently.

There is a way to provide pixel perfect layouts and brochures - that is PDF - specifically created to allow designers to produce documents exactly as the designer intended. But even PDF is not really a Web format. Its a format used for distribution digitally of course, but its only tangential. I come from a publishing background, and I saw how all the publishers took up PDF instantly because it gave then the security that HTML didnt - they retained 100% control over presentation and layout. Maybe Flash also offers the same now, though Im not sure.

Ive spent a lot of wasted time trying to make pages LOOK the same layout wise in all browsers. What i should have been concentrated on was whether the MESSAGE was the same, and to "let go" enough to let the browser (and the user) control how it actually LOOKS.

[ScottM]

I am so glad to hear these things!

One of the pleasures of having an informational website is the content. It's fast loading and people can get what they want. No fancy graphics....just the facts sir.

I'm STILL struggling with any graphics program. If I have to spend more than 3 minutes on a picture...I'm just ticked off. Make the picture/logo and move on....

Navigation is becoming more and more important to me as I find more and more users are coming in via the interior pages. That is a hard one to fix. It makes each page a potential 'index' page.

I've also had very good luck having navigation on the right-hand side for informational sites.

I'm also surprised how many hits I get off of links at the very bottom of a page. Very surprising.