Stripped Away

It was definitely an experience playing around with CSS on the Web sites of Carnival and Viking Yacht Cruises. This tool really showed the power, usefulness and usability of these sites. All these sites are only really comprised of HTML, XHTML, HTML-5 code and so on. It's just a splatter of text and links. CSS really helps the end user experience by polishing it up, making it more enjoyable to visit.

I really like Carnival's blue and white theme. Not only does it have that "ocean feel," but blue tends to be more calmer and relaxed. It doesn't hurt the eyes, and the colorful pictures make it more exciting and fun when shopping around for a cruise. And that's what CSS does. It helps with form and function. CSS creates the form that encompasses the function beneath. Stripping everything away, and leaving just the function visible makes for a much different experience.

Viking Yacht Cruises felt more like a blog than a professional Web site. Even after stripping away CSS, the general layout of the page remained. This told me that not much was done to present the Web site in a more attractive manner. It seemed like form never even existed here.

What I learned is that even though function is important, form and presentation is what sometimes drives a user to explore the site page after page. Having compatible formats for different platforms (browsers, mobile devices) will enable users to be delivered the same content in a more efficient away. The look and feel, from colors to pictures and to text size, all set the mood.