The use of generic templates for website layout I find really erodes the credibility of any site. While I understand many here are new and starting out it is my opinion that if you are going to take the time to learn the basics of web creation including HTML, CCS and other such stuff, why not go all the way and spend the extra time to learn actual design as well.

People have such good ideas and information but present them in a discrediting manner by using these generic templates.

For me this shortcut (use of templates) puts all those who use them into the same category as people who want a simple easy way to do things. This so they can simply get a website up quickly and easily to start raking in the money.

Lisa had an article about lazy people http://blog.2createawebsite.com/2008...n-lazy-people/ and for me, in my opinion the use of templates could fall under this same category.

While I am sure there are other issues such as these templates help make a uniformed appearance on various web browsers, and other related reason, these can all be overcome with the proper knowledge and tweaking.

Am I being too much of a stickler on this, and do I need to change my opinion based on new information, if so why?




Note: This post is to encourage a debate over the pros and cons of using generic templates.

Good post

I like the fact that people use website templates because it gives me a market to target but I agree that it's important for anybody into making websites to learn (X)HTML and CSS. Sadly, learning how to code doesn't automatically make everybody a good designer. In those cases I think people are better off hiring a designer to do the work for them than to put their own messy template online or use a free template they find on the net. The website template of a site says a lot about the quality of the site itself so I think it's worth investing in.

I am talking about the standard formats whether it be, a one column, two column or any of the commonly see layouts on a various websites home / front page that appear to be those simple generic “fill in the content” type tablets and ad some clip art or elementary graphics are just a bit much in my opinion.

As I am a newbie altogether it interests me to learn how to build my own templates. I am an enemy of using templates on any kind of program. I think that using a template for a letter,report,website,chart,etc..takes out the personality of the job and makes your work seem less than it is. For instance say you make a powerpoint presentation for a sales seminar and use templates included in ms office, when your employer or supervisor sees it he will automatically think that you are a fill in the blank lazy guy. Now if you work a bit extra on a really cool looking template for a presentation with some extras like animation etc..I bet you´ll stand out for being a superb guy when undertaking projects for your company and comand much respect. Same thing happens when creating a site I bet. While browsing the web I bet you enjoy going through sites like flash sites and such because they are so neat to use. I bet it takes a lot of work to create a flash site but it pays off because people seem to love em. So my opinion is that learning to code is super important and creating something unique is the key to success, always. Now if you could please explain what the different codes do and which I should learn I would be grateful. Give me a few pointers on how to learn to make my own templates since I surelly will have to design my own stuff. Thanks and great thread!

I believe the web is not about how great your site looks, but more about the content that you are presenting. People are searching for information. So your focus should be on providing that information. Content takes a lot of work in itself, I think if your going to be the webmaster of a site than you should learn some basic html,css, and maybe some programming languages and database if your going to be running a dynamic website just in case something goes wrong with your site.

This unformed style of template that you see everywhere I think stays that way because many internet users are used to it and makes it easy to navigate through a website or some probably live by the keyword (K.I.S.S.)

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Erick,

There are many things to learn depending on your interests but all grow out of the basic two: (x)html which lays out the content into headers, paragraphs, etc., and css which sets out the design. Start there. And be sure to go to a reliable learning source (many are not) like w3schools.com.

For all:

While I know I never think of using a template there are others who take templates and learn from them how to do the code. I know Lisa started out that way.

Also, some templates are really just starters that set up the elementary column structure. For someone who is really just learning and wants to focus on content to get going they may be a help. Not everyone has an interest in any of the technical stuff. I wouldn't tell them they aren't welcome to the web world, but I think it helps anyone to learn to do the basics at least.

Looking at the product some put out it is clear that they are going to need some help. Is there any real difference in hiring an individual to do it or buying a template? Getting a unique product of course, but they can change up some images, etc. And there is the cost factor.

Learning to do it yourself is the best. But not always practical for everyone.

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For me (My own opinion) is that your argument regarding applying this KISS (Keep it simple) principal in regards to keeping the actual look of the site simple by using a common everyday used template for your site design because the content is what is important is pure rationalization for complacency.

For me personally it’s about being the best I can be both in all aspects including my content and how it is presented which is an important factor most people overlook. By having a custom designed site that is very professional it only enhances and complements the content which should already be great to begin with. Custom designed means you do the design yourself or another person; it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to hire someone.

I will agree with you on the point that people are searching for content rather than how a site looks but you cannot tell me that these two sites I am providing links to have the same type of professional credibility. Please take a look for yourself and then continue reading the observations below. I suggest you open them both up in separate tabs so you can tab over and review them as this discussion continues.

Professional site example #1: http://www.postproperties.com/

Not so professional example#2 http://www.rampartnersllc.com/

You will notice they both offer the same service, that being apartments for rent as well as information about the management companies. You will also notice these companies are located in the same city. I choose these two particular sites trying to be as balanced as possible. (Same service, same city, same offers, etc.)

Also you’ll notice I didn’t chooses examples of e-commerce sites and I purposely did this because I wanted to emphasize my point, and that is regardless of how great your content is the bottom line is, it is just as important in how it is presented.

Notice on Example #1 the nice soft colors, the very different custom lay out of the main page and the nice flash presentation. The information is basic information.

Now notice example #2 and the very generic template that was used for the main page with no so comfortable colors and the very simple graphics that look like any beginner could have obtained them from a clip photo service.

The one picture of the property isn’t even a quality photo but I guess this was because they had to match the quality of the photo with the quality of the page.

On example #1 their slogan is “Building better neighborhoods” whereas on example #2 their slogan is “Simply superior service”. Remember they are both offering only apartments so where would you rather want your family to live, in a better neighborhood or where the service is better?

Of course in a better neighborhood where the service is probably very similar if not exceptional since after all you will be living in a better neighborhood if you live in example #1’s property. But your argument is that an apartment is an apartment and how it is presented isn’t that important, so their content is their apartments for rent and why they are better.

It is all about presentation of the content, or at least it is to me. I am only trying to get others to exceed in their pursuits through excellence as competition is fierce in every market and these seemingly small details as using a common cookie cutter design are much more important that many might think.

Well...I have to disagree with the anti-template crowd or the fill in the blanks crowd. I don't know how you all started, but I started with a fill in the blanks sitebuilder on the old Tripod Site way back in 2000. I even learned a bit of html.

I then went to Bravenet. Again, a lot of fill in the blanks or use their code, but hey it was all a learning experance.

Next up was Front Page..Oh the naysyers say it is WYSIWYG editor for us dummies, but hey it is what it is...that's how I got my start in doing html. I then got hurt and got a chance to go learn Front Page at a school. Learned quite a bit of html, although I have forgotten half of it these days, and some basic photoshop.

I am now on my third site with Front Page and love it. I even bought a book on it. Although it guides you through the process, it also teaches one html and css.

Guess what? I just bought a CSS Template! Being an old contractor I love to build things, and same with websites. But I find nothing wrong with a template. If you just use a generic one, then you get what you get. But what I do is remake the template in my own image, use my own colors, tweak the layout, change the navigation, on and on...

So anyway...you do your thing, I will do mine. I love templates!

PS: You can also learn a lot about website design, just browsing through templates...Just a suggestion

You are making a point here that is you admit to customizing your template to fit your needs and tweak the colors, and many other aspects. Therefore wouldn’t this be considered a customized design based on a template rather than a generic template?

I have no problem using templates for multiple text boxes and inside pages etc, but on the main page the look of something really special and different there are just no substitutes for this IMHO. First impressions are everything including presentation and uniqueness even on websites.

I must clarify that I am specifically referring to using the same layout template on you front page and not necessarily templates within the site for such things as text and general use. Sorry if that was a little confusing.

I am referring to when you arrive to a website and the only difference between this current one and the past five sites you visited were the colors and the text, but the layout were al the same boring cookie cutter front pages with ads or boxes on one side

I would agree entirely with sgtmac66.

My progression in web design has followed a similar route except that now I have progressed to dreamweaver.

There are so many different templates available and as has been said you can tweak the layout to suit your own needs.

Web 2.0 proponents will tell you that flash is out. The old brigade will tell you that flash is a waste of webspace and should never have been in the first place.

The old adage "content is king" still stands. You have just 3 seconds to persuade your visitors not to click the back button neither of these sites did it for me.

Having invalid html and javascript errors, not rendering correctly in Safari just shows me that the website was made by another set of lazy people. And as regards the colour scheme just look at the page footers.

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Is Dreamweaver all that hard to use?

All these templates you refer to, do you get through Deamweaver or where?

As for using templates I understand the ease and importance of them throughout a site, and am not arguing this, I am arguing the use of generic design layout templates for the main page.


Flash is out as you say and I am assuming Adobe Flash Player is something completely different.

Neither of these site did it for you? I would appreciate your feed back as to why they didn’t do it for you especially the site www.postproperties.com as I personally think it’s a very nice looking site.

Look at the page footers regarding color scheme? Please explain in more detail I don’t understand the point you are trying to make, I am slow at times

thanks

"Lisa had an article about lazy people http://blog.2createawebsite.com/2008...n-lazy-people/ and for me, in my opinion the use of templates could fall under this same category. "

Is this a joke? How ridiculous you sound!

I haven't bothered much with this thread because I use a template, I transferred my data over not long ago from an SBI block builder built site. I have already been criticized by the author of the thread for it, with unsolicited opinions from him.

I have a passion - its snowboarding. I love it, and I am at what is considered "expert" status. This is judged by the following (there is a point):

On the mountain there are 3 levels, runs on the mountain can be green (beginner, easy) blue (intermediate) or black (expert).

* note for you snow sport enthusiasts, I know on some mountains there is also red,but in the interests of keeping it simple!

Back to my story...

My first day ever I went up the mountain I was an expert!

I didn't need to learn how to turn or stop, I was an expert. I could come down steep rocky terrain on my first day... Of course not!! I started as a beginner...

Level Green Snowboarding: Spent time on the easy slopes, more on my butt than doing much else, I was exhausted! The first successful set of turns I made without falling thrilled me - I was making progress! When I felt like - if I need to stop I actually can, another high.

(sidebar - I live in a ski town, I was the only one in my group of friends learning, they were all already black-expert level)

My friends (all much better and experienced than I) congratulated me on my progress, did not say "you're lazy because all you did was turn and stop on the bunny hill(beginner beginner slope)" they said "wow, your doing great I can't wait for you to be able to ride with us, your making great progress!"

Level Green Websites: The day I put my first page ever, wow. Other people from all around the world could see what I had done. Very basic page, built with the block builder in SBI. But i was proud of myself, as a person who in the past was not much interested in computers etc. I had done something I never thought I would...

Website Babblers would congratulate someone at this level, and encourage them to keep trying and get better. Not have a dismissive attitude - you are not where we are so you are not welcome. And we are going to let you know by comments about how lazy you are.

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I didn't do the proper quote thing before, and I am not finished!

Blue Level Snowboarding: I start going on harder steeper terrain, I learn how to do small jumps and other basic snowboard tricks...

Friends say "well done" and show me how to do a jump safely and correctly and things like this

Blue level Website: Upgrading from block builder to template and doing your own html. Also unlike what has been mentioned, to use a template you need to learn html. I have a box in my right column with many links in it, set up in 2 columns. I had to figure this out for myself, this definitely was not in the template. I also have made my own custom boxes not included in template.

(*sidebar I bought my site in Dec 2007, and as I have mentioned in another thread did not work on it until Nov 2008, so I consider my website to be 3 months old, along with my knowledge)

Website babblers: Luckily for the most part are supportive of people at this level. If there is a question on link building they have the tips, some even know a lot about html and help out there when needed. Some offer up building criticism to help the ones at this level improve. They do not tear there websites to pieces and then offer no ideas on how to improve.

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Black Level Snowboarding: Do the black runs, steep and rocky terrain, much more difficult jumps and tricks...

Friends: Stoked that you are up there in the mountain having a blast with them... Still teaching you a few things, difference is you can teach them a few things too...

Black level Website: Do all own html, do not use at template at all. Can offer advise to others, but also still take some advise...

Website babblers encourage and pass on their knowedge

Lets keep website babble as a friendly, up beat place to hang out. Let us not call others lazy.

I wrote this post primarily for those who have just started with website building, in case they are put off by limited abilities. And any others who could be discouraged by this negativity...

So those at level green: Stand up, shout out and be proud of what you have done...

Those at level blue: You have done well ( I consider myself to be phasing from green to blue at the moment ...)

Lazy is someone who wants to make a lot of money online and gets one of those one page websites that all look the same, with a get rich quick scheme behind it. Lazy could perhaps be the person getting someone else to build their website ...

Come on people - encouraging words

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No in some ways it is the easiest tool I've used for web design. What puts most people off and also stops me recommending it to the majority of the people here is the price tag of $399.

I normally get my templates from oswd.org. Other people on the forum have also recommended sites.

Define generic! There are currently over 2000 designs on OSWD, adding that to the other template sites the total number of templates available must be many tens of thousand. Are they all generic?

No they are the same.

That is just my opinion. Flash coding in general is bloated and quite often does does not give any added value. Also section 508 guidelines aim to ensure that such information is also available in an accessible format. Although that only applies to government websites in the US, similar laws in EU,UK and AUS are binding on all websites.


The website was created in 2006 and the template does not appear to have been updated since. To me the site looks like it was built from one of the "generic" templates available then.

The top navbar uses a javascript form-- why? Switch javascript off and you can't use the navigation. If you use the top navigation to say Press Room and then refresh the page you get a popup warning about resubmitting the page. If you go to this page http://www.postproperties.com/Retail...ailSpaces.aspx with javacript disabled it open the "popups" in the same tab without any navigation.

While the majority of the site uses a brown footer image. If you follow the links on the left navigation the footer changes to red,green,cyan and blue. None of these colours are in keeping with the general colour scheme.

The brochure is a PDF document but there are no links to adobe with instructions for downloading a PDF reader and no text alternative.

The site does not validate as html (I would consider that as being lazy as it would take only a few minutes to fix). And finally the site uses proprietory IE javascript in places.

Apart from that it is a great site. On missyb's scoring chart I would give it a "Blue level Website".

Bob

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