Years ago designers realized that by using tables they could create pixel-perfect layouts however, tables were never intended for presentation. Hence, CSS was developed during the Web’s formative years to provide designers with the ability to style, layout and present various creative elements on a Web page. Over the last decade CSS has significantly improved providing designers with great control and flexibility over their designs.

The table-based layout approach coupled with nested tables is considered an antiquated and non-standard approach to site design. The table method causes code bloat, additional page-weight, and prevents search engines from indexing the site’s content. In addition, people with disabilities using alternative browsing methods such as screen readers on table-based Web sites often encounter difficulty interpreting the site’s content.

The optimum approach to developing a Web presentation is to separate the data from the design (decoupling), which simply means to structure the site’s content using valid, well-formed semantically correct markup (XHTML), and use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to style, present and position all the various Web elements. Using a CSS document the layout information is centralized, hence changes can be made quickly and globally by default.

This approach provides cleaner, leaner and more optimized code, which translates into faster download time. Additionally, once the CSS file(s) are cached then the entire site will load even quicker because the CSS files only need to load once.

Based on experience this effort to adhere to a standardized technology helps facilitate and expedite the design process by leveraging the latest enhancements in CSS a designer can create a Web presentation that is highly functional; easy to navigate; and focuses on design, usability, accessibility, optimization, and performance without relying on tables.