The Forgotten

Beginning before even think of adapting to web standards never did occur to me. I’m not sure about the rest of you but the article written by Gex Lemon at Juicy Studio, HERE has reminded me of the main practice in CSS.

His article titled Div Mania was an explanatory on how most people today have used excessive DIVs without knowing. It hit me when I read that and really went, “oooohh yeahhh..”. I’ve admittedly use so many DIVs that I’ve not remember them to function only as a container. Basically, all I’m saying is that I’ve been using so many DIVs that sometimes they might’ve not beed needed.

I’ve used the DIVs to such an extent that I’ve forgotten there is a SPAN tage to be used. Gez has reminded us by saying:

The div element … doesn’t have any meaning other than the fact it is a container element.

That line definetely struck the mallet on myself for being such an imbecile. I’ve been coding DIVs without knowing it should only be used as a container element. Anyway, in his article he also taught some important declarations. There was a tag I’ve not heard though sadly can’t be used coz Internet Explorer doesn’t support it. Here’s an example:

Adjacent Sibling Selectors

Sibling elements are elements that share the same parent. Adjacent siblings are siblings that are immediately next to each other that share the same parent. Adjacent sibling selectors are denoted with a plus sign, ‘+’. The following example would apply a pale yellow background to all h2 elements that immediately follow a h1 element that share the same parent.

Example: h1+h2 { properties }

If you’d like to read on, click on Div Mania.

The Perfect Blog Layout

Isn’t conceived and given birth in an overnight effort. Since blogs emerged and are now being taken seriously by corporate bodies, blog designing is evolving with the need of standards compliancy and functional purpose. It’s maturing quicker than we think as more corporate blogs arise and adding to that, some companies are even hiring writers for their blogs.

So, with that cleared out. Let’s start what’s really needed in search of that ‘perfect’ blog layout. Well, you’d definetely need to figure out the content and try to narrow that down. Once that’s done, you’d want to see your competitors online who blog about the same thing. Then add something unique to your entries every time you’re posting. Even an additional cartoon to illustrate how you felt while posting might help.

Now comes the fun part with lots of work. But not to worry, there’s a very good guide that’s been written by Peter @ Almost Cool, HERE. I simply enjoyed his article and it gave me more confidence to make sure I’m producing a functional design for my upcoming revamp later.

In his article, his guidance on how to come about the perfect layout is a contextual visualisation to success. Whilst reading it, images were already forming in my mind on what needs I’d have to fulfill in my revamp later on. He strongly suggests that ideas should be sketched, arrow-ed, labeled, and scribbled if possible.

A perfect layout should be able to provide a richer user experience. One such example, as I quote Peter:

“Real” design flows from the content. It supports and augments it through non-verbal connotations and subconscious cues. It leads the user’s eye where you want it to be led.

I believe that the more columns you plan to use, the harder it is to guide to user’s eye. However, not to worry since colors can sometimes do wonders for you. I’m not really prepared to explain in detail my whole process on designing a blog but would place that somewhere atop my list after the revamp.

In the meantime, is your blog layout functional enough?