CSS is the “TIM GUNN” of HTML

You’ve seen it, Tim Gunn racing around to each station on Project Runway telling all the designers to “make it work” to create a spectacular piece. CSS is the same! CSS styles HTML to give it variety and pizazz!

Two months ago, if you would have asked me ANY questions regarding website design, coding, or HTML I would have laughed and said “that’s why WIX is so popular”! Now that I am two months in, I still am a beginner but at least I understand how coding creates the framework for a website.

How does this make the internet better? If you didn’t have the pleasure of being around for the eighties and nineties, I’ll offer some insight. Much like Madam Smith’s french class in high school, learning a new language can be rough and intimidating. Not like, “I’m terrified I will have to go to the restroom during this class because I just drank a tall glass of water”, I’m talking “you walk into an already started show and you realize the incredible hulk is sitting in your seat and you need him to move so you can see your baby girl perform” intimidating.

While HTML and CSS are not for the faint of heart, it is designed to make our lives as website users easier. Initial web browsers were as plain as the soggy bake potatoes you get from restaurants where the employees hate their jobs. As web browsers evolved, so did that of the visual aesthetics of the web pages.

I am one of the lucky people who have had the opportunity to see this process unfold. In 1994, web developers were adding their own code through HTML. Only four long and boring web years later, CSS was released. Don’t think for a second that this meant websites were instantly transformed into the user friendly and easy on the eyes. Some websites really missed the mark on style and usability.

An example of this is: http://acme.com/. This website looks more like a sitemap than an actual website. The colors class and you have to skim through all the information to attempt to find what you are looking for. While this would have been an incredible website that would have blown my mind more than twenty five years ago, this site misses the mark.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have a well designed website that is simple and yet exactly what the user needs in order to find what they are looking for. Let’s take a look at https://www.flyhyer.com/. You can tell immediately what the company is and how they serve their customer base. Navigating through this website appears to be a top priority and as a student of web design myself, I will be taking notes and working to emulate that same experience for my users!

What are YOUR favorite websites and why? Drop a comment below and let’s see what’s out there.

REFERENCES:

Hyer® - personalised aviation - book or share a private jet. Hyer Aviation. (2021, September 5). Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.flyhyer.com/

Knight, A. (2022, August 25). 37 of the best website designs to inspire you in 2022. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-website-designs-list

Acme Laboratories. ACME Laboratories. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2022, from http://acme.com/

Thomas, V. (2021, November 21). Bad websites - the 40 worst websites on the web. San Francisco Web Design. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://thomasdigital.com/bad-websites

A history of web design. KrishaWeb. (2019, August 31). Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.krishaweb.com/infographics/a-history-of-web-design/

Historical timeline. History of the Internet. (2020, April 2). Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://internethistory.org/historical-timeline/

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, September 14). Tim Gunn. Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Gunn