What do you think my website’s design says about me? (See also the site for my crypto library which probably has more viewers than my personal site.)
What it says to me is:
“I’m a smart programmer who wrote this page by hand. If you’re a programmer, you know that you don’t need me to spend time on CSS to display technical information. If you’re not a programmer, this web page isn’t for you… go away.”
What a non-programmer will probably think:
“WTF??! Was this page made in 1997? I’m getting the hell out of here...”
Since your website is for programmers, and plenty of programmers don’t bother with CSS on their personal pages, your web design actually may be appropriate. Flouting CSS could be a form of costly signaling, because it will scare off non-programmers. Furthermore, it signals that you feel you have better things to write than CSS.
However, nowadays I’ve noticed that programmers are often using blogging software for their personal websites, so I don’t know how long bare HTML will be an effective sort of web design among programmers.
Here is lukeprog’s comment I was referring to.
What it says to me is:
“I’m a smart programmer who wrote this page by hand. If you’re a programmer, you know that you don’t need me to spend time on CSS to display technical information. If you’re not a programmer, this web page isn’t for you… go away.”
What a non-programmer will probably think:
“WTF??! Was this page made in 1997? I’m getting the hell out of here...”
Since your website is for programmers, and plenty of programmers don’t bother with CSS on their personal pages, your web design actually may be appropriate. Flouting CSS could be a form of costly signaling, because it will scare off non-programmers. Furthermore, it signals that you feel you have better things to write than CSS.
However, nowadays I’ve noticed that programmers are often using blogging software for their personal websites, so I don’t know how long bare HTML will be an effective sort of web design among programmers.