Wrinkles Can Show Your Age, So Can HTML Code!

I built my first commercial website back in 2000. A mate and myself landed the deal of a lifetime (back then it felt like it!). The project was for a development being built on the Vaal river at the time, Emerald Casino. We initially got the contract to do the 3D renderings of the development, as well as the 3D animation fly-through for the TV commercial. When our contract came to an end, we delivered the 3D rending and animation, but then, they thought it would be a good idea to have a website (duh right, but keep in mind this was all very new stuff back then) and they asked us if we were able to design and code it. Of course our answer was, "yes", Ka-Ching! - nothing like a phase 2 project.

So why am I telling you this? This was 10 years ago and a lot has changed since then. More people now know what web development is and there seems to be a web designer on every cyber corner these days. Times have changed, we have gone through a dot bomb, world wide economy crash, 9-11, wars on terror, wars on oil, death of a pop icon, and for me the birth of my two children (ahhhh). We grow up, we get older, we hopefully get wiser, and the only certainty in life is that things change.

Code is no different, my first website was built using tables and iFrames - shock, horror, scream!! Okay, before you hurl your cup of coffee at your monitor, to my defense iFrames was still an acceptable practice back then - maybe even cutting edge? Na, not really, but I need a way to somehow justify myself here.

When I took an interest in web design, I did so with the premise that I did not just want to create "pretty pictures" for the web, I wanted to know what made things tick behind the scenes. So I forced myself to use NotePad to code all my websites, it allowed me to get to grips with the code, what caused it to work, what caused it to break. Many "web designers" rely on programs that generate the code for them. The problem with this is that there is no understanding of the mechanics behind the website, which makes updating or tweaking the website problematic.

Anyway to get back to my point, "html code" has changed and evolved, and so the way we code also needs to change. One of the reasons why we did a complete overhaul of our website was that the code was "old". It was using old "coding" technology that nowadays is extremely limiting. One of the main limiting factors was the use of tables. There were tables within tables of tables within tables, you get the point. Tables have their place, but things have moved on. That been said, many companies are still using tables as a website structure which is hugely limiting.

By using CSS, layers and < div> tags you are able to start creating quite dynamic layouts that allow elements of the site to be above and below each other, bringing in transparencies to create some stunning effects. We are no longer limited by tables, now the only limit is our imagination. Our old Afridesign website was past it's sell-by date, we had gotten all we were going to get out of the old girl. It was time to "trade" her in for a new model!

Our new website is completely table-less, (except for two pages which you must find yourself- I am not going to tell you which ones they are!). A table-less website was intentional, we have a lot of content that we needed to display and the only way to effectively do that without overloading the page with content was to deliver it in bite-sized chunks that allows the user to slowly make your way through it. A fully blown CSS driven website allows further design revisions to happen with a lot more finesse. We also have made use of many new custom Javascript and AJAX functions, and trying to plug that into the old site would have been messy. As websites progress, their frame works also need to progress.

In the last 6 months we have dealt with three large websites that are over five years old. They are all very successful websites, and they all generate substantial revenue. However, over the years, "items" have been "bolted" onto the websites, eg. things that were not initially thought of at inception, client requests, etc. In my view, all of these websites were in need of a complete overhaul from the ground up. Their database structures were all over the place, some features and functions within the code have just been commented out and not removed properly and so the list goes on. The point I am trying to make is that out of these three websites, only one of them opted for a complete overhaul.

Now I know that website overhauls are expensive, and you are probably saying, "if it is not broke then don't fix it", however, the bigger your site gets, the more info and data you collect, the more you need to be able to consolidate and streamline the system to allow it to continue performing at its optimum level - before it is too late and you are forced to make a plan. Not to mention security issues that could arise from old outdated code that could be exploited.

The one website that was re-written from the ground up, was so successful that within 1 month of being launched, the company's clients were so blown away with what had been achieved that they ended up getting a whole lot of new business. Their client wanted to convert their entire system, to tie in with our client's porthole.

In my view websites, should "depreciate" in the same way that computer equipment does. The Pentium 2 was great, but are you still using it today? If your website is your business, then what measures are you taking to set aside budget for its revamp / overhaul? Are you talking to your customers to find out what they are using and what they are not using, what they want and what they cannot live with out? The world is progressing, is your website following suit?