Search Engine Optimization Web Design & Usability Internet Marketing
Why Table-less design is better...
Table-less design:
You may have heard buzz around table-less design, especially if you're currently considering a redesign. Let's try to unravel the mysteries of each design approach and ultimately prove that table-less design is better in many ways, as detailed above.
In the beginning, tables existed in HTML for one reason: to display tabular data. That is, to display information that was best presented in columns. It wasn't long before designers started setting borders to "0" and using tables to lay out images and text. This quickly became the most utilized means of designing visually rich websites. However, tables are now actually interfering with building a better, more accessible, flexible, scalable and functional websites.
Remember that originally the Internet was a medium for academics, researchers and the military to share information. It didn't take long for some to realize this new medium was an ideal new marketing and revenue vertical for their business.
Of course, the early Internet was visually uninteresting until a group of workarounds were published in 1997 changing the Internet landscape forever. Unfortunately, you see, these workarounds, while revolutionary at the time, do things that impact usability today.
Such as, mixing presentational data in with content, making file sizes unnecessarily large and increase bandwidth usage. They also make redesign of existing sites and content labor intensive and expensive. Maintaing visual consistency throughout a site is more difficult. And, finally, table-based pages are also much less accessible to users with disabilities and viewers using cell phones and PDAs to access the Web.
Again, these methods were the best solution of the time, but modern browsers are much better at rendering Web standards. In short, we do not need to use these archaic methods any more. Instead of nesting tables and filling empty cells with spacer GIFs, we can use much simpler markup and CSS to lay out sites that are faster to load, easier to redesign and accessible to all. And, using structural markup in our HTML documents and Cascading Style Sheets to lay out our pages, we keep the actual content of our pages separate from the way they are presented, thus making redesigns of existing sites and content is much less labor intensive and much less expensive.
Why? In order to change the layout of the site, all you need to do is change the style sheets. Pages do not need to be updated individually. Considering that many corporate sites have literally hundreds of pages, this can mean weeks are saved in redesigns.
This new approach also reduces the sizes of your pages. Users no longer need to download presentational data with each page they visit. The CSS style sheets that control layout are cached by viewers' browsers and do not have to be uploaded over and over again. This result is faster site loads and lower hosting costs.
Since all pages within a site are pulling from a single style sheet, it is extremely easy to maintain visual consistency throughout a site, strengthening your brand and making your site more usable.
And, perhaps most important to table-less design is the increased visibility on search engines. Minimizing your markup and using header tags will also help improve your search engine ranking, by reducing your code to content ratio.
This is a huge boost to sites wanting to climb the ranks of Google!
If you are interested in converting your site to table-less design, click the request for quote button below. We'll be happy to talk to you more about the advantage of table-less design and how a little work now will save your hours, days and weeks in the future!
- makes pages load faster
- lowers your hosting costs
- makes redesigns more efficient and less expensive
- helps you maintain visual consistency throughout your site
- achieves better search engine results
- makes your sites more accessible to all viewers and user agents
You may have heard buzz around table-less design, especially if you're currently considering a redesign. Let's try to unravel the mysteries of each design approach and ultimately prove that table-less design is better in many ways, as detailed above.
In the beginning, tables existed in HTML for one reason: to display tabular data. That is, to display information that was best presented in columns. It wasn't long before designers started setting borders to "0" and using tables to lay out images and text. This quickly became the most utilized means of designing visually rich websites. However, tables are now actually interfering with building a better, more accessible, flexible, scalable and functional websites.
Remember that originally the Internet was a medium for academics, researchers and the military to share information. It didn't take long for some to realize this new medium was an ideal new marketing and revenue vertical for their business.
Of course, the early Internet was visually uninteresting until a group of workarounds were published in 1997 changing the Internet landscape forever. Unfortunately, you see, these workarounds, while revolutionary at the time, do things that impact usability today.
Such as, mixing presentational data in with content, making file sizes unnecessarily large and increase bandwidth usage. They also make redesign of existing sites and content labor intensive and expensive. Maintaing visual consistency throughout a site is more difficult. And, finally, table-based pages are also much less accessible to users with disabilities and viewers using cell phones and PDAs to access the Web.
Again, these methods were the best solution of the time, but modern browsers are much better at rendering Web standards. In short, we do not need to use these archaic methods any more. Instead of nesting tables and filling empty cells with spacer GIFs, we can use much simpler markup and CSS to lay out sites that are faster to load, easier to redesign and accessible to all. And, using structural markup in our HTML documents and Cascading Style Sheets to lay out our pages, we keep the actual content of our pages separate from the way they are presented, thus making redesigns of existing sites and content is much less labor intensive and much less expensive.
Why? In order to change the layout of the site, all you need to do is change the style sheets. Pages do not need to be updated individually. Considering that many corporate sites have literally hundreds of pages, this can mean weeks are saved in redesigns.
This new approach also reduces the sizes of your pages. Users no longer need to download presentational data with each page they visit. The CSS style sheets that control layout are cached by viewers' browsers and do not have to be uploaded over and over again. This result is faster site loads and lower hosting costs.
Since all pages within a site are pulling from a single style sheet, it is extremely easy to maintain visual consistency throughout a site, strengthening your brand and making your site more usable.
And, perhaps most important to table-less design is the increased visibility on search engines. Minimizing your markup and using header tags will also help improve your search engine ranking, by reducing your code to content ratio.
This is a huge boost to sites wanting to climb the ranks of Google!
If you are interested in converting your site to table-less design, click the request for quote button below. We'll be happy to talk to you more about the advantage of table-less design and how a little work now will save your hours, days and weeks in the future!
