The Internet is still the modern day wild west. Billions of people work, play and design on it everyday. Should everyone be allowed to do this? Yes, no, maybe? 

lets take a look at two Modern Day web designs.

The Good

http://www.cbs.com

I recently noticed this home page redesign for the mammoth network CBS. I think its gorgeous. The information on the homepage is laid out upon a grid structure, everything is right in front of you, and its accessible. I'm not sure about the large menu when hovering over the nav icons, but the designers of this site did a  great job of presenting the information a viewer is looking for right when they get onto the page. 

The best part about this site.... its built upon these three modern day web standards:

1. XHTML (structure)
2. CSS (presentation)
3. Javascript (behavior)

The three of these programming languages are the bread and butter of any modern day website, and CBS.com's homepage has got it right. Its not perfect (nothing is), but its a huge step forward for any company trying to survive on the web today.

The Bad and The Ugly

http://preview.howdesign.com/GeneralMenu/

I got an email about HOW magazine redesiging their website. They are a design print magazine. I love the magazine, its designed well, its full of some great content, and its one of the larger periodicals most graphic (and web, myself) designers read.

Well... they aren't up to speed on modern day web design yet. The site isn't even close to being aesthetically pleasing compared to their print magazine. The entire site is structured the way a site from the 1990's was built... tables within tables within tables to present the data. This is not a good thing for many reasons(too many to explain here). HOW is slightly using the three key elements of modern design, but not in the right way. The information is structured better than the old site, but not in a way that is pleasing. I wouldnt say the site is "Ugly", but aesthetics are mostly opinion anyway.

The Final Showdown 

When are companies going to learn that modern web design is not a trend? Structure, presentation and behavior are standards that will continue to take the web into the future and beyond. yes, the web is still the wild wild west, but we have come along way in the past 15 years. One thing technology has taught us is that if you dont keep up with it, you'll be left in the dust...literally. its time to learn how to design and develop for the modern day web before its too late. You'll know its late when your business starts to dwindle and your online customers start to go elsewhere.