On Thu, 26 Jun 2025 10:10:39 -0700
Joseph Sinclair via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>
wrote:
> If you really want to see great examples of CSS styling, the "CSS Zen
> Garden" (https://www.csszengarden.com) is a great site where every
> example is the exact same HTML with different CSS. I learned a ton
> from those designs back when it was new.
All the "looks" on "CSS Zen Garden" prioritize pretty over all else,
including readability. All strike me as hostile to the visitor seeking
information. All three examples you cite are non-responsive, so they'll
look terrible and require horizontal scrolling on every line when
viewed on a mobile device. Naturally, when CSS Zen Garden was new this
wasn't an issue, but today you'd get fired for doing this.
> A few particularly
> interesting (to me) examples:
Comics style:
https://csszengarden.com/099/:
Definitely cute, and a great
way to make a comic book if you change the CSS so the page is
responsive (viewable on a small mobile device), but useless for any
thing else. Also requires a heck of a lot of artistic work (or money to
buy images or unauthorized copying of images), and requires HTML and
CSS skills beyond what most people have.
> Horizontal layout: https://csszengarden.com/058/
This is interesting: I never would have thought of it. Horizontal
scrolling takes the place of vertical scrolling, and the visitor
needn't horizontal scroll line by line if section widths are correct.
But vertical scrolling became the way to go in the early 1990's or
before, so browsers implement horizontal scrolling requires
Shift+mousewheel as opposed to just the mouse wheel. In the case of
this particular website look, fonts are small and weak, with less than
ideal contrast for people with less than acute vision.
> Post Office Style: https://csszengarden.com/052/
Tiny fonts, low contrast in many places, and an absolute disaster on a
mobile device.
All three:
Overkill. Requires much more CSS modification than needed for any
informational, sales or marketing site, or most interactive web
pages/apps.
My friend the late Noel Henson once told me "Instead of
making websites that do their job, i.e. inform clients or customers or
potential customers, they are now platforms where website designers are
just trying to show off to other website designers."
I think Noel's words perfectly explain the design priorities of CSS Zen
Garden.
SteveT
Steve Litt
444Domains.Com
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