A List Apart: In Search of the Holy Grail

ALISTAPART.COM: I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t name it. I don’t mean to overstate its importance or trivialize the other and rather weightier Holy Grails.

But the name’s out there, and we all know what it means.

Three columns. One fixed-width sidebar for your navigation, another for, say, your Google Ads or your Flickr photos—and, as in a fancy truffle, a liquid center for the real substance. Its wide applicability in this golden age of blogging, along with its considerable difficulty, is what has earned the layout the title of Holy Grail.

=> Read the full article in A List Apart here.

A List Apart > Home Page Goals

ALISTAPART.COM: When I set out to design a website, I do it backwards. I start with the design of the smallest, deepest element: the story page or search results. Then I work backwards to design their containers: section pages, indexes. Then, lastly, I work on the home page.

I do this because each container needs to adequately set expectations for what it contains. If the home page says one thing, but the internal pages say another, that’s going to lead to a user-experience failure.

=> Read the full article in A List Apart here.