Table-based Design

To help me on this assignment, instead of figuring out 3 websites I like, I asked my mom, step-dad and boyfriend for their favorite or most frequented website.

My mom chose RecipeZaar as her favorite website. I checked the source for this site and all I see is CSS styles, no tables.

My step-dad chose Gun Broker has his favorite website. Before checking the source for this site, I could tell its design is based on tables. You can clearly see it by its layout. Checking the source just confirmed my prediction.

My boyfriend chose MySpace as his most frequented website. MySpace is a relatively new site on the web. By looking at its design and layout, I guessed its based on a CSS style sheet, and by checking the source I confirmed it.

My blog, Blogger, uses an internal style sheet, no tables are visible.

I think many sites still uses tables for layout because CSS still seems relatively new. It is going to take some time for people to learn CSS and to convert their web site design from tables to CSS. For me, at first I was very intimidated by CSS. It was only after I took some time to read books and follow instructions on how they work that I accepted them, and now I think its the best way to design sites. It makes the code less messy and improves the readability of the code. Also, with CSS you can set design elements once and apply it to as many pages as needed to build a website - you type less code! Another reason I think tables are still being used to build sites today is because for people who have been building sites since the Web started are just comfortable with tables. Like a lot of other things in life, it take some time to try something new and steer away from what you are comfortable with.