CSS

CSS, Cascading Style Sheets. What does it do? It allows us web developers/designers to use something other than HTML tables to organize information. It has the power to actually move things to the positions we want to organize our information in a more presentable way. The trick is to use CSS in moderation to keep the website accessible. In WebAIM's article it is said that, "it should be noted that authors can easily create INaccessible web sites using CSS. There is nothing magical about CSS that eliminates accessibility barriers." Accessibility is a huge factor, how many times have I said that now?, for web designing. If a user visits your site and has trouble accessing the information they require, they're much less likely to come back. We live in a very fast world where clicking 4 times is a significant increase from clicking 3 times to navigate through a site. We need to always keep our users in mind with everything we do, and CSS can help greatly when used properly.

So how does it look to us as the designers? Looks like every other code we have worked with. Just like HTML, the code needs to be closed but instead of only using < and >'s it uses { and }'s as well. In HTML.net's article, the example they give us is:

     <style type="text/css">
          body {background-color: #FF0000;}
     </style>

All that code did was make the background color red, which is easily seen within the code.

I myself honestly see myself having problems with CSS. I can see myself going overboard with it and just making a website too difficult to maneuver. Plenty of practice will only help me with this worry.