Alex Burr
Happy Naked Day!
It's time for another "CSS Naked Day!"
What is it, and what’s the point? CSS Naked Day was created by a fellow named Dustin Diaz, a web guy with an interest in standards, semantics and accessibility.
The idea is that web developers will strip their sites of CSS for one day. To the non-webbers, that means removing the “style” code that defines page layout, backgrounds, images, colors and fonts. What remains is a plain black-and-white text-based version of the site.
With the “pretties” gone, does your site still make sense? If a visitor can still read your pages from top to bottom, and can still get a clear understanding of what the content is about and how it all relates, then you’ve done a good job of organizing your data and crafting your pages. The important stuff should be up top. Sections should be clearly introduced. Lists should look like lists. Tables should look like tables.
The naked site is a reveal to the world that “Yes, I understand how to organize information. Yes, I recognize that web design is not desktop publishing. Yes, I am aware that simply making text large and red does not mean it is important – it’s the structure of the document that does that.”
The informational craft is a decidedly different (though related) skill, and an important part of web development that is often neglected or overlooked.
My underlying HTML structure is pretty smooth, although I’ve learned a few things in the past year-and-a-half or so since I went the XHTML/CSS route. There are actually a lot of things about the organization of my site that I am in the process of rethinking. All signs point to a redesign in the near future.
Stay tuned!
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