Tag Archives: Standards

Form Layouts With CSS

Laying out forms with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a complex topic. In light of many developers doing their first overall CSS layouts they often bail when it comes to laying out forms with CSS and avoiding both tables and line breaks. The code example shows the following: Well-formed, semantic markup CSS for layout and presentation Ensure that the form is both usable (easy to read/use) and presentable No tables or line breaks To avoid the line breaks we simply use the CSS “clear” property. This property says: “clear all floated elements to the x side of me”. So for clear: (read more...)

Objectives in User Interface Design

At work we are currently re-doing the architecture of our user interface (UI) layer. We sat down to discuss what our objectives should be in doing this initiative, and I found the objectives so compelling that I think it could apply to any user interface. Below are the major objectives in constructing a UI: consistency, usability, navigation, visual appeal, interoperability, performance, and accessibility. I should first say that this list and its corresponding description are not intended to be exhaustive. I realize that there are many layers of complexity in this endeavor. Also, you’ll see how inter-dependent (read more...)