5 Reasons Tables for Layouts are BAD!

1. Complicated & Difficult to maintain2. Often slow to load3. Tables can hurt search engine optimization4. Tables don’t always print well5. CSS redesigns are more efficient

Reason 1

Fact: Tables are Complicated & Difficult to maintain

If it is not data that could be managed on a spreadsheet, images or graphs will be difficult to upkeep.

Resourcewebdesign.about.com/od/layout/a/aa1111oza.htm

Table used for graph will be difficult to maintain.http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/graphs/29.htm

Reason 2

Fact: Tables are often slow to load

Resourcehttp://www.alaskanchefshawn.com/Pix.htm

http://www.alaskanchefshawn.com/Pix.htm

Here, a screenshot of a of a site using tables to

load images is taken before the images

loaded.

Reason 3

Fact: Tables can hurt search engine optimization

Data inside of tables can be considered less important than data of other sites.

Referencehttp://webdesign.about.com/od/layout/a/aa1111oza.htm

http://www.seobythesea.com/2008/08/search-engines-extracting-table-data-on-the-web/

Information in tables will not be given priority by search engine spiders.http://www.lib.purdue.edu/rguides/studentinstruction/evaluation/websiteevaluationchart.html

Reason 4

Fact: Tables don’t always print well

Tables can be too wide to print, to make tables print, browsers will cut tables off and print sections below.

Referencehttp://webdesign.about.com/od/layout/a/aa1111oza.htm

Reason 5

Fact: CSS redesigns are more efficient

Redesigning a website using tables is significantly slower than redesigning a website using CSS.

Referencehttp://www.velvetblues.com/web-development-blog/

http://www.chromaticsites.com/blog/13-reasons-why-css-is-superior-to-tables-in-website-design/

Examplehttp://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/03/24/align-images-html-tables-for-wordpress-blogs/

One of NY Times worst rated siteshttp://pol.illinoisstate.edu/jpda/charts/bad_charts1.htm#NYTimes

Summary• There are better ways to layout images than tables, for example,

CSS.

• CSS layouts for images will load faster.

• Less priority is given to data if it is inside a table.

• User experience may be poor if they find it difficult to print your information as it appears on page.

• When using external CSS style sheets, it is much easier to maintain visual consistency throughout a website.