CutCodeDown - Minimalist Semantic Markup

What's Wrong with YOUR Website?

How I sound when trying to help
people with their websites

I'd say around 80% of the time someone asks for help on a website, there are a number of stock responses I end up giving -- to the point I end up sounding like a broken record. To see the exact same mistakes in coding, design and accessibility repeated over and over again is beginning to wear thin -- so I'm just going to list out the most common issues I see. From now on I will be linking to this article and just listing the numbers...

Follow the links below to go to each of the sections in the article.

*NOTE* for now only sections 1 through 4 have been posted, links will go live as each section is added over the coming week.

PART 1 - Layout and Design

• 1.1 • Fixed width layout
• 1.2 • fixed metric fonts
• 1.3 • Illegible color contrasts
• 1.4 • Serif Fonts
• 1.5 • Overuse of Webfonts

PART 2 - Markup

• 2.1 • No DOCTYPE
• 2.2 • Multiple DOCTYPE/HTML/HEAD/BODY declarations
• 2.3 • Pointless META
• 2.4 • overstuffed keywords META
• 2.5 • Nonsensical description META
• 2.6 • Useless TITLE tag contents
• 2.7a • DIV for nothing
• 2.7b • Classes for nothing
• 2.8 • Pointless TITLE attributes
• 2.9 • Improper use of numbered headings
• 2.10 • Tables for layout
• 2.11 • Non tables on tabular data
• 2.12a • There are more tags for tables than just TR and TD
• 2.12b • There are more tags for forms than INPUT, BUTTON and TEXTAREA
• 2.13 • Non-semantic markup
• 2.14 • "Risky" Comment Placement
• 2.15 • Code Bloat

PART 3 - JavaScript

• 3.1 • JavaScript Libraries
• 3.2 • JavaScript for Nothing
• 3.3 • AJAX replicating frame behaviors
• 3.4 • JavaScript doing CSS' job!
• 3.5 • Static scripts inlined in the markup
• 3.6 • Tracking Scripts
• 3.7 • Supplanting form functionality

PART 4 - CSS

• 4.1 • Failure to grasp point of CSS
• 4.2a • Lack of resets and/or initialization of values
• 4.2b • Bloated framework masquerading as a reset
• 4.3a • Redundancies
• 4.3b • Wasting time declaring default values
• 4.4 • "Single Line" formatting
• 4.5 • IE Conditionals for CSS
• 4.6 • Failure to set line-heights properly
• 4.7 • Minimalism vs. Byte obsession

PART 5 - Coming Soon

... when I get around to it.

See Also: (other articles)

• HTML, CSS and JS Frameworks, INCOMPETENT NONSENSE!
• What's Wrong with HTML 5? Gee Mr. Peabody...

Also beware that some of these are still being rewritten, so the above list is subject to change.