"Every era of product design on the web brings with it new design tools, these tools change how we design websites and also influences the next generation of design tools to come. I know it seems like a novel idea for some of you reading this, you might think you design the websites you want to design and you're only limited by your imagination, but you're only half-right."
"Before any design tool ever existed, there was HTML, it was (and still is) the most fundamental building material of the web. When HTML was the only way to design websites we had WYSIWYG interfaces to better move around what was essentially just HTML tags like paragraphs, headings, tables and images. CSS didn't exist yet so all the styling was done inside of the actual HTML itself (remember bgcolor?) and the only way to center anything was to use tables and make their borders invisible."
New generations of web design tools reshape how websites are created and influence subsequent tools. Designers often prefer approaches that reduce friction, leaning toward solutions that are easy to design and develop. The medium imposes constraints that shape design choices and aesthetics. Web design evolved chronologically from plain HTML with inline styling and table-based layouts, to tools that abstract markup and styling. Early HTML relied on WYSIWYG interfaces, inline attributes like bgcolor, invisible tables for layout, and aesthetic features such as GIFs and repeating background images. Simple HTML techniques persist in email newsletters and small projects.
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