I learned HTML coding in the mid 90’s by using NOTEPAD and Internet Explorer. I did not know then I’d later become a web designer and that was not why I learned. I was trying to get my weekly football pool, LOCK OF THE WEEK, online and that was really my main motivation. I succeeded in both the short term and in the long term as I really enjoyed HTML, already knew Photoshop, Illustrator and design thus a career of making websites was born. After several years of making a living from what the web looked like, I shifted my attention to WHAT the web said. The marketing aspect of content, the “findability” aspect of content, and the who, what, when, where, why and how of web content was created and set adrift on the world wide web to gain attention and ultimately customers. That naturally led to management and overseeing large web projects. At first I did it in the corporate world where all my resources were in-house and my solutions were tailored by the staff we had - a core group, myself included that all had been in our positions a good while. How we did things was a given based on our technology. On the corporate side it was all about the “if” and “why” we’d do something.

Now I am on the agency side managing large web projects. Much of my technology is outsourced. The result of sourcing those vendors has resulted in a re-education in what I knew of web design and development and in particular the subject of this entry - Table-Based HTML Web Design versus CSS controlled XHTML layout. If it is possible to feel “old school” about a topic concerning the web, clearly this is one. Turns out, in a medium barely old enough to have a Diploma, I am “old school” in my training of HTML table based design. The new kids on the web block are using DIVS, SPANS, and CSS to layout their pages whereas HTML, or XHTML, are being used for content only.

Ingenious, elegant, complaint, web 2.0?

Yes, yes, yes, yes…but very, very time consuming, especially for people that originally learned to make HTML in tables. In the agency world time is of the essence. If we can take a comp from Photoshop/Illustrator, slice it in Dreamweaver (programs that are designed to work together), move it to the web and bill then everybody wins, including our clients. However, if we have to take those same comps and convert them to CSS and HTML, despite HOW good the person doing it is, it takes time. And changes take time. Moving a graphic of some text in a web editor is not the same as moving a DIV in a CSS document, and checking the HTML. Then moving it again in the CSS document and checking the HTML version again. Then moving the DIV back because you moved it too far last time… you get the idea. TIME CONSUMING.

Enter Content Management Systems

The CMS world is one which EVERYONE feels they need their content managed. Newsflash: YOU DON’T, you need a static site, and a blog…but I digress. In the CMS world, everything is laid out with CSS. Packages that developers build upon are very “widget,” “extra,” “extension,” etc. driven. That type of design makes adding these already very plug and play type site enhancements even MORE plug and play. Development has never been easier. But design for such sites, has never been more cumbersome.

Maybe the future holds a CMS platform that works in the middle? The long and short of web design and development is you don’t’ want the guy that programs your web and the guy that designs the visuals of your web to be the same guy. It’s tough to be a talented programmer and an adequate designer, unless you are designing only for usability and making a cookie cutter template site which many people are, happily. But what about those clients that don’t want that web 2.0 look? What if they want their site, to be an extension of their packaging or brand? While any design can be sliced into DIV’s and CSS, does it REALLY make sense for those clients that have 10-20 static pages, and maybe one or two form elements? Usability geeks would say yes, compliance geeks and CSS advocates (of which I am one) would say yes, CMS fans would say yes… but dollars and sense/cents? Would say, NO. From Photoshop to the web via HTML tables can, and will always, be FASTER and in the agency world, time is money. The solution would be a CMS that integrates with Dreamweaver that a designer could wrap his brain around or CMS developers that are more inclined to work with table based HTML. Neither exist and I am not holding my breath!