Having seen thousands of websites, I always pondered why new companies are still designing in tables. On their website they state that they know the latest technologies, are efficient with code and compliant...etc. Yet, when you view there site it looks fine, but they give 100+ errors. For some reason, errors seem to show up more in tabled layouts. You will see a site design in all tables if you view their source and there is nothing but <td><tr> on the page. It is okay to use tables for some specific modules or only partially when needed, but to make an entire layout on tables in not intelligent design at all.

Enter CSS
There are many ways to design a website effectively. With CSS, the tableless layout can be very flexible. One line of code can change the page layout completely. And this is a good thing, because once tables are placed, you have to go back into the html just to change it. Having designed all my layouts using external style sheets I can say that it does take more time and you will get a bunch of headaches. Usually the headaches will be from how much we all hate IE and why does everything look different in certain browsers. But the more time spent on a tableless layout, there is less time for modification in the long term.

The effective web design process has many aspects. Each one might seem trivial, like it may not make a difference, but in reality, every little detail has an impact on your overall web design. One often overlooked detail in effective web design is font.

If you have gone about creating your website the correct way, you will have a lot of content. After all, as many professionals say, “Content is king.” However, as we discussed last week, hopefully it is arranged tastefully and does not end up looking cluttered at first glance. As you well know, that first glance is extremely important; it could be all it takes for a user to either decide to leave your page in a hurry, or to explore every aspect of it.

For the users who do appreciate your effective web design and decide to stay on the site, what makes them stay? Have you ever pondered this important decision? Aside from organization, loading time, and worthiness of the content, font plays a major role in this all too important decision.