Archive for the ‘Scattered Thoughts’ Category
If you are using tables, you are out of a job
In case you didn’t know, I usually source out my design work because it’s my weakest skillset. Why should I agonize – and take forever to come to a decision – over what color scheme to use or design elements to incorporate. It adds a lot of stress on me because the design is so very important because people are visual creatures. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I’d rather use my time on something I have more confidence on – making sure the design markup is clean and as close to W3 compliance as humanly possible in order to set the sites’ SEO foot in the right direction.
A few months ago I had a designer I had worked with previously contact me inquiring if I had any upcoming projects. We had collaborated well on our last project and everyone was satisfied with his work. And yes, he used tables in the layout but that was still acceptable then. Using <div> was still “cutting edge.” I told him I would hand off the next design project to him. After a couple rounds of revisions, the client was satisfied and I told the designer to slice it up and send me the files.
So I unpack the Zip file, fire up my trusty old Dreamweaver MX and open up index.html and here’s what I see:
Whoa. I’ve gotten so used to seeing <div> now for page layout that seeing the <table> markup really did cause a small shock. Even worse, it was only html and not valid xhtml. Well, ok, that’s easy enough to fix. So I have this sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach that I have paid this person for what is really sub-par work. You wouldn’t know it by looking at just the design – it looks fine. Do that right-click > view source and that’s when it gets ugly. I see something that stops me dead in my tracks:
You’ve got to be kidding me. A ‘spacer.gif’ as a means to control page layout? Really? Um, I’m actually speechless on this one.
What it all this boils down to is one thing: laziness. Laziness on the designers part for not keeping his skillset up with the changing times. Keeping up with all the browser differences, CSS techniques and W3 recommendations can be time consuming and frustrating – but necessary for your career. It’s obvious to me that whatever graphics program he uses, he just used the quick “auto generate” html button. I know this because back when I tried to design my own sites, using my old Paint Shop Pro, if you used the auto-generate html it spits out <table> and ‘spacer.gif’. I knew the very first time I tried this that it was NOT the right way to do things – and back then tables were the norm.
So just an FYI to any designer who I may work with in the future – I will ask for live sites that you’ve worked on so I can right-click > view source…..
