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Is your web designer still using html tables for page layout?

There once was a time last century when web designers discovered they could use HTML tables to define page layout, this was mainly as a result of the early web browsers not supporting Cascading Style sheets (CSS) - the correct way to mark up web page layouts. It solved a problem at the time but it's really no more than a bodge to get a desired page structure.

Modern web browsers have good support for CSS which is the correct way to define page layout according to web standards, and there's really no excuse for not using it in this day and age.

So what sort of "web designers" typically still use HTML tables for layout?

• Those using only a WYSIWYG editor and not understanding the underlying HTML/CSS code
• Amateur "bedroom" designers making a bit of cash on the side
• Web design agencies employing poor quality coders and designers
• Your mates son who has a copy of Frontpage!
• Designers who don't keep up with times
• Flybynights who are "giving web design a go"

Tables are still valid!

HTML tables do have a purpose - to display tabulated content. Think of this as content that has headings and rows, and any web designer worth his or her salt will only use them for that sort of purpose unless they have a very very very good reason!

The down sides of using table based layouts

• Can cause accessiblity issues for some users
• HTML tables can take longer to render, therefore your pages load slower
• HTML tables produces excessive code, slowing your page loading times
• It increases your bandwidth usage and hosting costs
• Not necessarily compatible with modern browsing devies such as mobile phones, PDA's etc

So next time you have a web site created, or your existing one updated, ask your web designer if they still bodge it using tables, or code semantically correct and accessible web pages using CSS for layout.