I’ve been hanging around CSS tricks which I didn’t visit for quite some time. It happens that Chris Coyier, Css Tricks editor, made a survey on the use of CSS frameworks. These are used to rapidly prototype website designs. I have jotted on some of them around on the Web Design Bureau : 960gs and Blueprint. As things go on, these are useful tools but I don’t use them as I have my own way of developing websites and writing my own code. I also have a tendency, when I am the code master, to code things from scratch following specific design patterns.

Now, if you don’t use a framework, it doesn’t mean you’re a dork. You might just not have time to try and master a tool or have difficulties that any developer has to dive into other people’s code. I, for some time, thought that I was not doing a good thing for not using frameworks and I have tried some of them. I would like to stress that frameworks should be used for rapid prototyping, I don’t think that they’re good groundwork for complete integration. You might want to have complete control over your code.

All in all, my thoughts were confirmed in reading the CSS Frameworks survey results. I don’t have anything against them but I just like to control and throw my own code. The poll confirms that over 50% of the Web designers (answering it) do not use any framework. Others do use frameworks but the results are disseminated among a variety of those and many build their own. If we look at things the other way round it also means that around 30% of Web designers are using frameworks, meaning that these are gaining as design patterns and standards.

I think that it takes time to master a framework and this is whart hinders their progress in the community. It might change with time and who knows, I might myself be in the new riders of frameworks.

If you’re a keen reader of the Web Design Bureau, you might have understood that I don’t like Flash. Its not an aversion to Flash in itself nor am I preparing to burn a cross down with Flash written in Comics Sans on it. It is just that I don’t like Flash the way certain designers use it without thinking about accessibility, usability or even website performance in its broader sense.

I want to stress that I left Flash at my University days. I keep a distant eye on the technology but did not want to become an expert in it as other more interesting technologies like CSS 2 and DOM scripting were taking the Web to a new level. If there is an expert on the plane, please speak up to clear any inconsistencies in these words.

Adobe Flash in itself is a great technology and tool. You can build highly interactive applications, wonderful animations (just check out 2advanced), and tight websites but it still bears major drawbacks in terms of SEO and performance. One of the stepping stones I saw Flash engineers put was the possibility of mixing server-side scripting with Flash back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Flash wasn’t locked anymore and people didn’t have to open sources and recompile a whole site or animation when a change had to be done. But that looks like it was the last thing they tried to do to really improve Flash.

The one thing that certainly annoys me is the fact that the whole team of Flash gurus over at Adobe did not find a way to make the technology more usable, more accessible, hence more search engine friendly. Versions keep coming out but none of this is present until the day Google announced that it had found a way of reading the vectorial content of Flash to index it. The technology is still budding for this type of indexation but it is giving some serious results. But how come Adobe itself is not involved in the research ? This really beats me . Its just like having a baby and waiting for someone else to change the diapers.

We are now in a world that is led by trends and buzz. Just imagine, a smart guy had the superb idea of building an Ajax app on Crazy Egg (click on any “sign up” button) and everybody is running around to have the same thing on their websites. If Flash could go beyond this huge indexation and accessibility obstacle it could get back into the race and, who knows, become once again the hype it used to be when search engines were not the rulers of the Web World. The problem with Flash is that it is going the same way as Javascript, too powerful for some and not enough for others.

Just like Ajax or podcasting, I think that Flash can have its “real” days of glory but the trend is still waiting. One day, for sure, Flash will be the new hype but for the time being it is better used with less presence and helped by standardised and CSSed pages by its side. We’re still waiting to see when Flash will become a trend.

Mark Boulton’s Practical guide to Designing for the Web is already considered as a stepping stone in Web design and I hope that the winners of the PDF book giveaway will take great pleasure in scouring its pages. The contest was a real success and it is a pleasure to read all your comments. These are really inspiring and unveil the Web as a real up to date way of acquiring new information and skills while keeping books as a classical yet favourite tool. This will keep Steve Robillard’s hopes high as, I’m sure, books will never go out of business.

Now back to the prizes. We had 71 participants and the whole draw was done on random.org where the list of participants was uploaded and the list randomized in one single draw.

So, as you can see, the winners are:

• Corrinne
• Jonathan Chacko

Congratulations to both of you. Please send me your full name via email as each book is personalised. I’ll send you the links for downloading them. Thanks to all who participated and stay in touch for other giveaways coming your way soon.