Designing CSS Web Pages
September 18, 2002
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The ability to use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is fast becoming
a vital tool in the web professional's toolkit. But understanding
how to use CSS is not intuitive--it requires a new way of thinking
when it comes to building web pages. Learn how to build pages by
using relative design techniques: understanding
the relationship within the dynamic space of the web rather than the
fixed-design "old-school" notions that have been in use for so long.
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From the publisher:
Go beyond the mechanics of CSS to how to think in the language of web
design, and avoid the common pitfalls. Full of examples and deconstruction's
to aid in understanding CSS and its application. The ability to use of
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is fast becoming a vital tool in the web
professional's toolkit. But understanding how to use CSS is not
intuitive--it requires a new way of thinking when it comes to building web
pages. This book encourages web designers to look at the perceived
limitations of the web as a new challenge to their design skills--without
relying on HTML for presentation of pages. The overall theme is to instruct
readers to build pages by using relative design techniques: understanding
the relationship within the dynamic space of the web rather than the
fixed-design "old-school" notions that have been in use for so long. The web
site will include all of the files needed for the exercises and additional
information of interest to web professionals including, but not limited to,
recommended readings (suggested books, web sites and online articles),
full-length interviews and a listing of CSS tools
Chapter 1: Planning and Structuring Content
Sometimes, people and businesses get lucky on the Web. They create a Web
presence that garners exposure and a high volume of traffic. Their Web presence
then goes beyond log files or hit meters to connect with people. A site becomes
a destination when it connects others with personal stories—a respectable
place for instant social commentary or the most respected brand for online
shopping for everything under the sun and then some.
However, without proper planning, any site that does become successful will
not be able to leverage that kind of luck for long. In fact, you are more likely
to achieve the success you want online through hard work, planning, and
structuring of your message than a lottery ticket of a Web site. To ensure that
your Web site meets its goals to become a success, it's important to
strategize as to the rationale behind its existence.
In this chapter, we will look at factors that will help you reach your
intended audience with your message before you put pen to paper for sketching
out designs or code markup between a body element. Afterward, we will
look into how to get your content ready for Web delivery and the application of
design, the presentation of your message, through Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS).
Know Your Audience
Design consists of more than visuals, graphics image formats, sound files,
and typography. Design requires planning, and one rule binds print designers,
architects, movie directors, car manufacturers, politicians, and Web designers.
That rule is: "Know your audience." Because one kind of person
doesn't make up the millions of Web surfers, not one manner of Web site
design can reach this audience.
When a client hires you to build a Web site, you should solidify the goals
the client has for their site. Determine the site's intended
functionality—the client's needs against his wants—so that you
can examine your client's competitors. Examining competitor sites in this
context is an expected exercise of design strategy. Exploring how a
client's competition reaches its audience is a good way of determining the
status quo for doing business in your client's industry. However, if you
apply a similar design to a client's site as a competitor, you are
shortchanging the client. Doing so means that you are failing to differentiate
the client's brand and to attract the competition's customers. In
addition, you might just be adding to the stockpile of bland Web sites. In
essence, you are wasting money and time instead of approaching the Web
site's design from the audience's point of view.
People make judgments in the way they communicate with others, from wrongful
discrimination to giving genuine courtesy. Their perceptions of whom they are
talking to dictate interactions, such as conversations (or the lack of
conversations) in every part of social life. First impressions are important in
every occasion from job interviews to blind dates. The same can be said for how
you craft the message for your Web site. If the design does not reach out and
inform at the start, it's not effectively doing its job. To quote Jan V.
White's Color for Impact: How Color Can Get Your Message Across or Get
in the Way (Strathmoor Press, 1997), "'First-glance value' is
not just a catch phrase. It is the very kernel of functional communication,
given today's frantic competition for attention... Content and form are
one. Design is a lubricant for ideas."
Print designers, architects, film directors, and Web designers, for example,
work through a design problem like a consummate negotiator who is trying to
create paths for understanding the material. By negotiating a compromise between
art, function, and experience, designers and developers work on the visuals,
content, and backend portions of a Web site, which make up the inherent
experience of surfing the Web site. (This isn't your father's graphic
design job.) The kinds of visuals and tools that designers use to successfully
bring that experience to users depend on with whom they are going to communicate
on behalf of their clients.
Customer Types: Toma-to or Tomäto - Page 2
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