Articles

Articles by Douglas Bowman

Throwing Tables Out the Window

27 Jul 2004 With the CSS waters thoroughly tested by many sites that have taken the plunge, it’s time for us to start cheering from the water below, coaxing and encouraging those who haven’t yet jumped in, to make that jump. There’s no longer any reason to use tables for layout, nor is there reason to maintain multiple versions of a site solely for different desktop browsers. Throw the tables out first. Trust us, they’re not needed anymore.

Sliding Doors of CSS, Part II

@A List Apart | 30 Oct 2003 A follow-up to the popular “Sliding Doors of CSS” (Part I, published at A List Apart) which fills in a few gaps of missing information, and covers additions and variations on the technique introduced in the original article. (Translated into: French I, French II, Italian, Russian)

Sliding Doors of CSS

@A List Apart | 20 Oct 2003 It’s time to push the limits of CSS and raise another bar for standards-based web design. This tutorial walks through a new Sliding Doors technique for creating visually stunning interface elements with simple, text-based, semantic markup. (Translated into: Farsi, French I, French II, Italian, Russian)

Making the Absolute, Relative

3 Sep 2003 Ever wondered how one object positioned with CSS affects other positioned objects inside it? Let’s take a look at how certain positioning requirements can be met by wrapping one positioned element with another. (Translated into: Brazilian Portuguese)

A Design Process Revealed

2 Jun 2003 A detailed look at the process and decisions which were part of a design for the CSS Zen Garden submission titled, Golden Mean. (Translated into: French)

Using Background-Image to Replace Text

7 Mar 2003 Enhance the presentation of type on the Web via a simple CSS trick, while preserving accessibility for image-exclusive browsing and indexing applications. (Translated into: Russian)

Confessions of a Designer

22 Nov 2002 Recounting the downward spiral and early recovery phase of a designer’s switch to the Windows operating system.

An Interview With Douglas Bowman of Wired News

@Netscape’s DevEdge | 11 Nov 2002 An interview conducted by CSS guru and standards evangelist, Eric Meyer, covering the ins and outs of the conversion to a standards-based design for Wired News. (Translated into: Japanese)

Behind the Wired News Redesign

@Wired News | 10 Nov 2002 A technical explanation written for Wired News readers to cover what we changed, why we changed it, and the technology and standards behind it all.

Ad Banner Design

@Webmonkey | 28 Jan 1999 Cramming all that copy into a small banner can be a tight squeeze. Here’s a few tips and tricks to help get you started.