A List Apart

Gives me a warm glow seeing ALA in the gallery after all these years. It sure is a great design - it enforces it's authoratative feel, whilst managing to look accessible to newcomers. You can definitely see Jason's signature detailing throughout.

The new design is definitely classy, but I find the layout a little too wide - my eyes are lazy and don't like moving too far when reading articles.

Plus I think that the logo positioning makes the homepage feel like it's using 4 columns - one too many for my liking.

I for one (and probably the only one!) wouldn't mind a stylesheet switcher so I can read articles in the old style..

I don't know about everybody else, but I find this design a breath of fresh air. I didn't like the old ALA design at all and it resulted in me not reading the site as much as I would like to. All that's going to change now :)

And the design layout suits the ALA concept of an online magazine. Love it!

This one is really great! Jason has an unbelievable sense for typography. Great job!

All i can say, it's about damn time!

Love it!

Every now and then I see a website I just fall in love with. This is one of them. It's great to see new life in ALA, as I look it up every single day to see if there's a new article. I think it's a classy layout with some nice CSS tricks. For example; look at the header links of the articles. They're centered, and when there's more than one line, the bottom border falls behind the background of the next line. The fonts used are not that original, but there are some great typographic tricks which makes it fun to read. I'm just wondering why it has a new URL. Is it just 'not finished yet', or are they moving permanently?

A very nice looking site indeed. It immediately gives the impression of authority and style.

Typography is especially good, and I really like the rollover for the 'No 201' graphic next to the logo.

Nice stuff.

I can really appreciate the new design as a reader - the spacious layout and great typography make it a lot easier on the eye.

You can definitely see Jason's signature detailing throughout.

I love how I'm still finding little extras here and there.

All-in-all it's a welcome change, and what I hope will be a triumphant return for the magazine.

Hm... This design doesn't screen originallity like it's previous one (in my opinion). Nonetheless, it's supurbly crafted and all the comments saying Jason left little nuggets of beautiful design here and there are right on the money. Well done ALA, and nice review David!!!

The new design/layout is awesome, the design "trinkets" are nice...my only real complaint is the new organization of sections.

I can't just click CSS -- I have to click "Code" > "CSS" > [ some article ].

It's not anything I'm going to lose sleep over or rant 'n' rave about, just a slight adjustment for someone who's gotten used to the old means of content organization (though I have a feeling I'll grow to love it).

At least now I can buy a t-shirt touting the need for careful coding. :)

The ALA redesign is really, really beautiful . I wondered briefly if it will show up here, but now I wonder no more!

Not bad but nowhere near deserving of all the hype! Nice layout but the nav text looks crap - far too big. A lot of peeps say my designs are under-stated but this lacks impact IMAO.

Right! First of all I LOVE ALA - I always have done. BUT!!!!!!! I'm going to be the first here to disagree. The layout and design looks just like a blog. Everybody on here is always harping on about blog lookalikes - ALA is another blog lookalike no matter what way you look at it. There are thousands of sites with a similar theme. How can anybody here say that this design is "really really beautiful"???? I just surfed on over at blogger and within 5 mins picked at LEAST 10 sites that look like ALA. I surfed over at jareddigital.com and guess what - he's got a whole range of layouts that look almost identical. Wkae up and smell the coffee! A superb website - YES! A beautiful design? COME ON! If this design was the design of some personal website then everybody would be flaming it for being a clone. How ca anyone possibly say it is beautiful on one hand and slag similar designs on the other. This is just double standards and reeks of a big "club" mentality!

Ah but the design is in the small touches. I have not seen any site to use the diamond bullet style, nor the particular way that the background color shows up with underline yet not completely, on a:hover. The color-scheme, the footer, the particular way that the header graphic changes on mouseover. If it was not put together so well, it may well look like a blog. But this goes beyond blog design into the realm of newspaper/magazine layout typography. What is design but the individualistic styling?

*Chokes on coffee* What a bunch of hypocrites you lot are. You slag off blog 3 column designs ALL THE TIME and now all of a sudden this is "awesome & beautiful". Looks like all the other blogs if you ask me.

Must be the content ;)

I agree. It's just another blogalike. Looks like the ryder cup website.

"1024 layout is no longer a tabu in the world of accessibility and standards" ABSOLUTE RUBBISH!!!!!! Since when was it considered good practice? Oh - and yes it does look like a blog!

See, I think that the people who are complaining about it looking like a blog are just nitpicking.

I mean, seriously, it's an online publication. Blasting it for looking like one is like blasting the New York Times for looking like every other newspaper.

Mediums eventually find their natural state. Newspapers. Or TV news stations - they all have the logo and the running banner across the bottom. Cars all seem to have four wheels, a gas pedal, a brake and a steering wheel. That doesn't make them all the same.

What sets each apart from the other is the details. ALA put together nice typography, little details that enhance things and most importantly, great content.

And the new branding is great. It says "classic" but also still pushes some boundaries.

While I don't think it's perfect or necessarily groundbreaking, I would say that it isn't just another blog. And it doesn't have centered content with drop shadows on the side. :)

The new design is ok but I'm not really impressed.

Seems like a mandatory addition to this site just because it's A List Apart. I seriously wonder whether this design would be here if it were Joe Whatever's weblog.

But who cares, A List Apart is about the (excellent) content anyway...

First. I like it! Nice and clean and well thought out. However as mentioned numerous times above and also in the review, not neccesarily ground breaking.

"I think the people complaining are nit picking."

Not sure but I think it's less about nit picking and more to do with the standards community and the whole club mentality in general, we've seen the whole Hoorah for the community on lists and forums before and I guess theres a bit of backslapping going on. I wonder though if the site wasn't "alistapart" whether it would have generated such discussion.

That said. I think it's great. Vast improvement on previous versions, nice and readable and Rocking content! Nice work!

Nice review by the way.

I seriously have to question whether some of us here really know what design is. Design is not decoration and design is not totally new and groundbreaking. Rather, it's contextual problem solving for issues of interaction and communication. With the ALA redesign, we have an excellent example of design - contextually appropriate and effectively communicative.

As Dave Simon point out, not in so many words, some of you seem to be mistaking decoration or innovation for design. And that's a mistake. ALA is an online publication. This redesign allows ALA to do its job very well and in a dignified and largely unaffected manner. Kudos.

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that those harping on how common-looking ALA's design is are work-starved freelancers who think design is about expressing their inner voices, while those who appreciate the effectiveness of the redesign are well-employed, successful designers. Any takers?

Meh, the site is a beautiful peice of work. I've always thought it was rediculous of you lot to bitch about "blog layouts" when half (if not more) of you just have blogs. It's like the pot calling the kettle black.

Awesome work on the new ALA! You've managed to make a website that does it's job better than ever before.

Blog--hah!

Surely some blogger invented the 3 column layout; now every designer is banished from using it.

Surely no one can design something that doesn't look like something else.

Surely Andy can't be the only one here with an insightful comment.

Surely I've read hundreds of comments to the effect of "I've seen this before." So, sorry, I've read that before too.

I agree with Andy that the site allows ALA to do it's job well. Probably better than the old design did. However that doesn't mean I have to be blown away by the design.

It's funny really that some designs seem to be appreciated specifically by other designers while a lot of people who don't call themselves designers just shrug and move on. I don't claim to be a hot shot designer. Heck, I've never done any design jobs for money at all. I'm usually hired to code back-ends. I just like design, I like to design myself, sometimes with success, sometimes without. It doesn't really matter.

In terms of usability this new design is a success. It delivers the ALA content very well. However I happen not to be head over heels in love with it like some others seem to be. I look at it like a volkswagen. It does it's job and it's extremely good at at it's job even but I'm just not blown away by it's beauty.

Does this mean I should not say this just because I'm not 'a succesfu

@Andy

Hey, I appreciate the effectiveness of the redesign, yet I'm still a work-starved freelancer. At least for the moment.

But I know what you mean.

Look at it this way, folks. The content, purpose and audience drive what the design becomes. You wouldn't design a six-fingered glove unless you were designing for Christopher Guest in the Princess Bride or the XHTML hand on the t-shirt from ALA.

Why try to force everything to be revolutionary, when it should just be what it is?

My first impression is that it is three columns including the logo 'list' that is 'apart' on the left but then I discover there's another column if I scroll. So although I have a great love of corny jokes (the cornier the better:) I would prefer 800 width.

I love it! Reminds me of http://particletree.com/

Much of the colors remind me of www.speakup.com

And I love the comment trolls that hop on the bashing bandwagon... This design is amazing.

The ONLY downside is that it's not amazing AND groundbreaking. But you can't take away from a great design if it isn't groundbreaking.

Oops. I see I posted the wrong URL to SpeakUp. Here's the correct one:

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/

Two reactions:

1. It's lovely: just that much cleaner, fresher, and more carefully crafted than what one ususally finds on a content site.

2. I can't stand using it. It's just not pleasant (yet?) to use a site that devours 1024px (and then overflows the top navigation off the side if you dare to enlarge the text).

So as a dedicated ALA fan, I hope they'll consider taking their own advice about creating flexible, user-centered designs.

I agree with Tyler, it looks quite similar to particletree.com except for one big difference: particletree works fine on 800x600 while ALA doesn't. It should really since usability and accessibility is a big issue at ALA...

Mmm, ruby.

Andy - will you please make up your mind. Having just read some of your old comments you are always bumming up sites because theydon't look like blogs. Now... you're bumming up a site because it does look like a blog. Lack of consistency in your reviews matey.

Now...i don't like the new ALA because

1. It's less accessible than before - 1024???

2. It's less usuable than before - more clicks to get to the same content.

3. They now have advertisers who they "believe in". This is probably the first steps to the demise of ALA

4. They now have a shop - again it's the start of bad things to come. Look at cssvault...seems more interested in selling mobile phones and advertisers than adding content for its visitors.

5. It looks just like every other blog on the planet.

Hello Martin,

Sorry, no lack of inconsistency at all in my observations here. Yes, I love it when an individual’s portfolio site is un-bloglike because it further demonstrates the creativity of the designer in question. That’s largely the point of such sites. I also enjoy it when a designer takes a departure from the norm with his/her site to show off what is also an appealing variation on the standard layout grids. Great stuff!

But hold on a sec, …ALA is not one of these sorts of sites. Rather, it’s an article publication; a site where the content is the point. It is not a site where the design is supposed to leap to the fore, as is common with a personal showoff site. In fact, design is just the grease that facilitates communication and is not supposed to even be conspicuous in the communication process. This is, by the way, the very definition of successful design. Context; it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Wow amazing. I've learnt so much of what I know from this site. Well done to them. The new design is pleasing to the eye.

Somone mentioned Ruby? Was it done with Ruby?

Give me back the direct links to categories pleeease... Geeks adore efficiency, and having to go through a select few major categories to find (say) CSS specific articles are a pain. Especially after having seen the previous ALA.

Other than that, awesome design. May not be the most original, but beautiful nonetheless.

It's no mistake the ALA guys aren't hyping up the technology or code behind the site, and rightly so in my opinion. They present conversational articles instead of code snippets this issue, and the emphasis should be on these.

In a blogosphere saturated with how-to snippets that get filed and forgotten, there's room for some timeless big picture design articles, and this is where ALA fits in for me.

As for the design, this is a 'gallery' so perhaps that's why we talk so much about the visuals. I think the design has matured well, and the simpler IA encourages serendipidous browsing of the archives and related categories. If this was an aim of the structural redesign, it's done a good job. Although it means more clicks to get from the front page to the CSS articles, your horizons might be expanded on your journey there.

The negative responses all seem to say the same thing: There's no wow--as if good graphic design is all about wowing the audience. ALA is a publication first and foremost. You don't open a magazine to check out the fancy new page-numbering technique, you open a magazine to read it.

That said, the graphic design of this site is excellent. Great typography. Simple. And it does what good design should always do: get out of the way of good content.

Pretty ordinary really, boring colours (its all cream and brown) wheres the contrast. If this wasn't an 'insiders' site it wouldn't have even been included in the gala, let alone be one of the highest rated.

This is an online magazine, it's the content that's the star, not the flair or wow factor of the design, like a design studio site would be. The colors, I'm certain, are subdued intentionally as to not overshadow the articles and content.

I think it's smart design, clean, neat and tidy. The folks at ALA do not need to try and impress us with spectacular design, as we already know their level of creativity and stature within the design community.

The site is a testament to design not needing to be groundbreaking to be impressive, only that it serves the purpose of delivering the content in context. Design is the backdrop or stage for the play, the story is what drives it.

Who is Jason, and why is everybody here kissing up to him? This site is a blog. Period. Jason implemented a great 3-column blog. Good job, Jason! Now let's focus on the content. Isn't that why people read blogs?

I was wow'ed... >.< Maybe I don't read enough blogs. Well, I know I don't read enough blogs. And I think this was put together by a team, design, coding, etc.

People have different tastes in terms of presentation, color and style. This is exactly what some like, and exactly opposite what others like. Just so happens I like it.

Neat and clean, like said above has authoratative feel

I love this site for its content, hence I think the simple design/layout does justice to that.

Not sure about anyone else, but, I get a big blank screen when I click the link to the site...I love ALA and would love to behold the new site. Any suggestions???

A beautifully designed site, indeed. While I wasn't blown away by the design, I feel it's exactly the sort of look and feel I would expect from a source such as A List Apart. Classy, professional and down to earth.

I especially like the new logo with the wreath behind it. It sets the tone for the rest of the design.

And FYI, the site has gone life. No need to use the textdrive.com URL anymore.

err... so wheres the site then?

i lookie but no noookie..

checked (18.45 GMT)

It's sad to see the comments listed here. As a designer you learn that design is more than flash and sparkle. I've seen wonderfully designed sites that totally lose points from me cause it has No Content. Design+Content gets huge bonus' in my book.

I look at more than just what the site looks like. It shows a lot of skill to take a site such as ALA and completely revamp it. There is a lot of problem solving that goes into something like that. When I'm approaching a design (please note:as a graphic designer) I have to look at many ares and think 1. Who is my target audience 2. Who is most likely to see this product 3. How can I effectivly and effienciently showcase this product.

ALA has done this and has made a very SOUND design. Sure it didn't catch my attention and I didn't think wow. But the design is pulled off effectivly. The whole loose hang up about the 1024 res. My mom who has the worset vision even uses 1024res. It's not a big deal and doesn't lessen the design

Great site and design.

For everyone that talks about accessibility, screensize, etc.

Read their tagline:

"For people who built websites"

Do people who build websites have a rez of 800x600 or less?

Do they increase their font size to 72pt and need the website to accommodate that?

Do they need a wow-me site to read an article?

No.

It needs to be easy to read, nice on the eyes, clean simple, effective. That's what it does.

Great job to everyone involved.

What Ian said.

It's a typographical treat and a half in my book. ALA is a resource that has helped me loads and, regardless of wether I 'like' the redesigns, will continue to help me loads in the future with it's forward thinking articles and content ... horrah!

Weak and uninspired. Good design? Maybe...but safe, common, and nowhere worthy of this praise. This "insider club" is getting old...time for a little rebellion. We can only take so much of this "club" dictating acceptability before the rest of us realize we don't belong. This crap happened 4-5 years ago with Joshua Davis. And before him David Carson. Flavor of the month...

I understand why some people feel annoyed : this is A List Apart ; you'd expect a web-site Apart. Instead you get a modern, very well crafted site, but nothing Apart.

This being said, this is a very neat design - every detail has been thought through (I love the footer and the highlights (including those of the logo & number issue)).

It takes advantage of 1024 display, but what happens if you're in 800 (as I am here within my agregator) ? You miss the search column ! Big deal ! You can go in 800 and increase the font size quite a few notches : you still only miss the search column, and it's still readable. This is a very nice approach to three column : the third one is for extra-stuff that can be left out.

(Is it me or have some of the comments in this thread been very childish ?)

I need to ask this because I see the same comment so often...

It looks like a blog

Is there something fundamentally wrong with a blog layout for what happens to be for the best part a blog?

I really get tired of reading that comment.

If that is the best critique one can offer a designer that is designing for content that rightfully belongs in a design of this nature, then why bother saying it?

It doesn’t help the designer to design a better blog because a blog is a blog (zine, whatever), do you say the same thing when you see a newspaper?

(I don't like it, it looks like a newspaper)

hmm... I wonder why?

Fair dinkum, I’d like to see half of you do it with the grace these guys do. Top job and well done to all who worked on the new and improved ALA, Keep up the good work!

Hahaha. Fight the power Jonah Charson.

I, like many others, like this redesign of alistapart. I pride myself on great typography and the designer of this site has employed typography very well. So, kudos to you for that.

The only problem I have with this site is it doesn't invite me in. The design could be a little more inviting and fun. I think now it has too much of a "oh brother, I have to work to read this article" look.

JMHO

"I surfed over at jareddigital.com and guess what - he's got a whole range of layouts that look almost identical."

Angela, please don't drag me into your anonymous tirade. And at least spell my URL right. Thanks.

I'm pleased with the ALA redesign. The old layout make reading very uncomfortable, and the new design makes the content much easier to read. That's what it's there for, right? That being said, the visual design seems a little plain. I like the attention to typography and the general layout, but, as I heard elsewhere, it lacks some focus. A bit of visual "punch." An icon here, a graphic there. Something to lead the eye and enhance the written word. But I go to read, and the new design makes me want to read, so "mission accomplished," I say.

I think it is an excellent redesign and long overdue. Great work; this is definitely an inspired solution.

Good focus on the content and it's all so very easily digestible.

While this is a nice design, it is not without flaws. One of which would be a poor (not great) use of typography.

Why is the menu link font size about as big as the headlines? - Why are headlines centered in one column and left justify in the next?

I could list other problems, none of which make this site awful... it's just not great. However I would say that the markup is excellent. The hype around this site is of course due to Jeffrey Zeldman. Jeffrey talks about separating presentation from content in his book. Most of us would agree with this concept, Then why not separate the markup from the design? As I said the markup for this site is great - The design is isn't.

Jonah Charson, post your portfolio and show us your strong & inspired design—surely it's timeless and doesn't follow any trends. Maybe you invented graphic design?

' Great work; this is definitely an inspired solution.'

Inspired? Wonder who they were inspired by...

Really nice... finaly a change...

It looks to me that the print people got a hold of it. Instead of a website that stands on its own two feet, it looks like it's there to support a book or mag. It takes a backseat now. If the kings of internet fashion dictate that 800 x 600 is dead, then we all must obey.

There is a cycle that all things manmade go through. ALA I think is starting to peak. Business concerns will shape the site now, not web design theory.

It's a shame that he totally disregarded 800x600 users. That totally turns me off. Just ignoring us. Good content or not, if it's hidden, I CAN'T SEE IT!! That's a pretty big problem in my eyes.

Top notch, as usual, when you put togheter a staff like that (JSM, EM, Big Z.). Congrats to the authors.

Most of the negative comments are centred around usability and accessiblility - ironic for a site that up to the point of redesign pretty much defined those terms.

I too am disappointed there's no zoom layout or fluidity to the columns, and by the fact that you need a 1280px wide display to remove the horizontal scrollbar in the 'faux columns' article.

None of which would be of any significance, except they're the very topics that define the truly excellent content.

I like the site and learnt a lot from ALA. These guys are really pushing the boundaries. As for the accessibility, their credo so to say, i am very disappointed:

In Internet Explorer 6 on a PC the site looks crappy and buggy: headlines big as Godzilla taking almost the screen, same with zeldman.com or meyerweb.com. Sure in Firefox, Safari on the Mac in general it looks beautiful, but hey the rest of the world uses the **** PC, with the terrible IE.

Use pixels as units and check your work on IE 6 you Gurus of web design !

re: Ebi Fleck

You must have the IE text size set at something other than Medium, because it looks almost exactly the same in IE as it does in Firefox for me , and i'm using medium (the default). Admittedly, you can't enlarge the text size without having 'Godzilla headlines' but otherwise it seems to be fine.

On the redesign as a whole, I must say it's absolutely fabulous. No issues here - it's my new favourite design!

Oh my, 68 comments and going?

Well, just wanted to add my thoughts.

First-off. I like it. Clean, simple and clear. Typography is well-balanced and fits the scheme.

Even though I don't like centered headings they are acceptable in this case, as it's a pretty conceptual design. Even while it's a modern layout, the style is very class and old.

No advanced graphics, yet there's depth in the design.

The bold move to create it for 1024 x 768 isn't new, and it doesn't exactly render the design useless in lower resolutions, there will just be some extra scrolling. Since there are many other brand sites optimized for 1024 x 768 we can only guess that those users (unfortunately) is becoming used to horizontal scrolling as well. I don't want to make assumption about a user in advance, also why I tend to focus "the layout width" on readability and flexibility instead (around 25-35em). All up to the designer in the end, if he thinks he can neglect a part of the audience.

Is it truly the case, that - with this layout of 1024 x 768 - part of an audience is neglected?

The scrollbar in this case indicates that the site holds more content than the viewport displays. So ... scroll to the right and view it ...

I do ask myself whether the issue here is about accessability or usability. Isn't it more a matter of accommodativeness in this case? It's more comfortable to have the entire content visible at once and within your desired viewport size. The rest of the content is just one knack away.

I like the design very much. I

find the site neither complicated nor uncomfortable to use. Besides which, I often ask myself whether the "don't make me think" route is the only valid choice when working with accessability and usability in mind. I have the feeling that the latter two are often mixed with the connotation that everything has to be as simple as possible while simplicity is not a synonym for accessability or usability in my humble opinion.

Will stylegala PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE link up another site. This is becoming BORING. ALA the web gurus got someone else to redesign their site. End of story. Lets move on. YAWN!!!

Some thoughts on the 1024 issue...

Who the hell doesnt have a monitor that isnt capable of viewing 1024? I've been using computers for a very long time and over the last 3 or 4 years (maybe more) I havent seen ONE monitor that ANYONE uses that can't at least display 1024. So the argument is voided and should never be an issue...EVER again. :)

Ok, I can already hear some dimwad saying " uhh, well what about the gov't office that still uses windows 95 and 13" monitors?" Well, those people are used to the web looking like junk by now and need to get with the times. If they can't oh well, we can't always cater to the .05%'s needs and ruin the good for everyone else.

That's my rant...PLEASE people, get over this silly 1024 issue!!!

Just a quick one - the 1024 issue for me is NOT about "screen resolution" - it's about the width I keep my browser window. I'm running at around 1650 wide here, but my browser window naturally gets resized during the course of the day to just under 1024. I don't know why, I don't think about it, but to me a "natural" width of a page should be about 1000 or less. This isn't based on screen res, on research, on anything other than gut reaction. Without thinking about it, I size my windows to around 1000px, cos that "feels" right. Anything more than that starts to take up too much screen real estate and feels bulky.

So lets get this in perspective - the issue isn't anything other than aesthetics. I like ALA, I like the design, but I think it could have worked equally well at 50px narrower, and would have felt much better because of it.

my 2cents :)

I like hte layout, but i dislike the navigation. Not how it looks, but how it loads. He uses a onload state to slow down the navigation. A navbar that loads slower than the actual site is a bit hmmm weird. Apart from that, very classy, simple and pleasing to the eye layout:)

Very nice site. I disagree with the comment above: you have to know where you are before you decide where you're going.

And as an aside: I just inadvertently googled the letter "a". Before I even realized my mistake (0.15 seconds later), A List Apart had come up 5th out of three billion one hundred ninety million sites. Good SEO, I'd say!

3 billion? i dont belive , give me link please to result pages

'give me link please to result pages'

Give you a link to a Google search for the letter "a"? What? How lazy is THAT?!

:)

'Give you a link to a Google search for the letter "a"? What? How lazy is THAT?!'

PRICELESS :-)

Amazing. A List Apart is actually #3 now, right behind Apple and yourDictionary! :)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=a

There, a link for the lazy. :P

Yawn, is anyone from Stylegala alive? ALA is great, we know it! Can we move on and get some new sites on here?

Great site but you must keep it fresh. And it is, whenever I have enough strength to sit for a while in front of a computer I make a point of checking you out.

Got my shirt today!

I'm with Angela and Jonah on this. It is good design. There it ends. It is not beautiful. ALA is aimed at designers and developers and therefor has the obligation to be in the forefront of design. It is not.

So it is not even targeted properly at the readership.

At first glance it seemed boring to me, but as I move through the site it becomes more interesting.

I like the typography, it's like a quality newspaper which Im sure was the aim.

ALA has always been a great resource but the broken links are really getting on my nerves, they need fixing ASAP.

The link appears to be broken or the site must be down. Guess I will try this one a little later.

The design may not be astonishing but the color contrasts and font selection is perfect.

This site reeks of good taste. Everything about it is pleasing to look at.

What can i say, the perfect blend of great content and beautiful yet functional design...

Little remarks on this website.

Great articles and functional design. One of the few I visit frequently.

This a site every new CSS designer should read as it contains textbook articles such as CSS tabs and CSS boxes. Superb.

one of the best sources for inspiration and explanations on the web – a must for everyone who wants to create standard conform websites!

... and I really like the new layout!

I'm not sure the two columns on the right are that great in terms of layout, but I like the overall look and feel. It's an exercise in restraint and class, and of course, the content is top notch.

A List Apart is in every designers bookmarks, not because of the layout but because of the content, and I think that if the design wasn't so easy to navigate most people wouldn't find the content and the site wouldn't be as successful.

Every day, a new star is born. I turned my head, blushed, fluttered my hand up to my collarbone prettily, and gulped the last of my champagne. I know when I’ve been beaten.

I like the site and learnt a lot from gala. thanks

mdaaaa......

Very nice site. I disagree with the comment above: you have to know where you are before you decide where you're going.

And as an aside: I just inadvertently googled the letter "a". Before I even realized my mistake (0.15 seconds later), A List Apart had come up 5th out of three billion one hundred ninety million sites. Good SEO, I'd say!