Advantages and Disadvantages of CSS Everyone Should Know
Nowadays, designing a good user experience (UX), meeting customer needs as quickly and conveniently as possible is essential. That’s why website owners leave no stones unturned to make their website’s aesthetics decisions align with the functional part. The most basic of these related aesthetic decisions is the implementation of CSS. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) make the pages of a website more presentable and help decide on web pages’ layout. It’s a cornerstone technology that lets you control the look and feel of your online website, all from one place. Therefore, it’s essential to point out the advantages and disadvantages of CSS. However, if you are not aware of what CSS is and what functions it serves, here is a brief guide.
What is CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)?
In fact, it is a file that describes how each of the elements on the page will look like, a collection of layout formatting rules that helps website developers control the appearance and display of the website they are working on. CSS language lets them define the styling decisions such as:
- the position of the images ;
- the font size;
- the color to the background;
- elements that have an impact on how a website will display on your web browser.
Besides, using the online editor, you can organize, tidy up your style sheets, and easily compress the CSS.
Benefits You May Appreciate
- With CSS, the designer can implement earlier functions not defined in a page’s HTML(used for the creation of the web pages). Moreover, HTML and CSS work hand in hand to create a great website.
- The best thing about CSS is its capability of introducing uniform changes on all the pages of a website. Developers work to define a style in a cascading style sheet, and they can use it throughout several pages by just referencing that particular CSS file. Hence, the amount of styling work is saved, and repetition is eliminated.
Three Possible Ways to Use CSS
There are 3 ways to connect CSS styles for your site:
- Inline styles mean applying CSS rules to a specific element. Thus, it affects the visual look of an individual component.
- Internal styles – adding <style> tag in the <head> section of the HTML document. It’ll affect all elements on a page.
- External stylesheets – adding a link to an external .css file containing all the necessary rules. It’ll result in affecting all elements on a website.
When you have an overall image of CSS work, let’s look at its advantages and disadvantages. For the role it plays, CSS does have both sides of being.
Advantages and Disadvantages of CSS
Before we begin, it is essential to note that CSS is a functional language that enables responsive designs on a website. Its usage is what determines the advantages and disadvantages of CSS.
Advantages of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
Saves Time
Let’s consider an example. You run a website with 40 pages or more and want to implement some new strategies to improve the website’s content(for example, you need to change the text size from 14pt to 12pt or vice-versa). How much time do you think it will take to make the size changes to all those 40 pages? A lot!
This is where CSS comes to the rescue as a savior. It offers you to define the changes in a single CSS file and reference all those 40 pages to that same file. As a result, your entire website will start reflecting the size changes.
All in all, it dramatically simplifies page making and reduces time spent. You can spread one created style file over many pages to describe the elements’ appearance only once.
Helps to Make Spontaneous and Consistent Changes
Considering our very own example from the first advantage above, imagine that you have to make more fluid changes to your content. Again, with a single style sheet, you will be able to ensure that the changes look consistent on all the pages and aren’t messed up.
If it were not for CSS, you would have to take notes of changes made to one page and reference it while you make changes to another page, constantly going back and forth. Imagine the amount of exhaustion and brain activity required to justify the consistency of these changes. However, with CSS, your changes are well applied consistently.
Wider Design Variety
CSS is much more powerful than pure HTML – it applies multiple styles to a single page depending on the circumstances (the size of the user’s monitor, the device used – PC or mobile).
Improves Page Loading Speed
Code density on your website contributes to its speed. The larger the code, the slower the website’s loading. Just so you know, that visitors are quick to abandon a website if it takes more than 2-3 seconds to load.
Only a few code lines are required to make changes to a large number of pages on the website with CSS. Since there is minimal code, the website database remains uncluttered, eliminating any website loading issues. Also, pages start to load faster when the browser caches the stylesheet on the first visit to the site, and further, on subsequent visits, only the data is loaded, which is beneficial to page speed optimization.
Implementing CSS along with the choice of the best website builder is a great way to keep visitors hooked on your website as they won’t have to wait up for loading.
Device Compatibility
CSS changes are device-friendly. As people use a wide range of smart devices to access websites over the internet, there is a need for responsive web design. Usually, websites based on CSS serve to make your web pages more adaptive and display in the same manner on all devices.
Ability to Re-Position
CSS lets you define changes in the position of web elements present on a page. With its implementation, developers can position HTML elements at the place they like in order to align with the aesthetic appeal of the page or other similar considerations.
Makes the Search Engine Better Crawl Your Web Pages
CSS is a secret SEO tool for your site. The truth is that the search engine bots generate inaccurate details when they crawl through cumbersome HTML code heaps. However, with CSS, the website design attributes are defined, and there is less code on the site, making it SEO-friendly.
Besides, if you are an expert, you can use CSS to help the search engines better assess your content for improved search engine rankings.
As a result, using CSS makes the document’s structure a lot easier, which is better for both users and search engines.
Disadvantages of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
Cross-Browser Issues
Implementing initial CSS changes on a website is accessible on the developer’s end. However, you will have to confirm the compatibility if the CSS displays similar change effects on all the browsers. It is simple since CSS works differently on different browsers.
Confusion Due to Its Many Levels
The programming language world is indeed complicated for non-developers and beginners. Moreover, different levels of CSS f.e. CSS; CSS 2; CSS 3 can be pretty confusing for most of the users.
Be Ready to Fix HTML Tags
In practice, it is often necessary to fix not only one CSS file but also HTML tags associated with CSS selectors. It sometimes significantly increases the editing time and testing as well.
Different Layout Display
If browsers are outdated, the same CSS data may be interpreted differently by them.
Vulnerability
If you have worked with CSS, you probably know that it is easily accessible because of its open text-based system. An accident or a mere act of mischief with the files can end up disrupting the display and formatting of your entire website. To undo the changes, you only need read/write access to the intended website.
Advantages and Disadvantages of CSS – Conclusion
CSS is a powerful tool and foundation for almost any website. Without CSS, it is simply impossible to imagine the everyday activities of web developers. Today it is a generally accepted development standard that all development companies accept without exception, clearly showing its importance and necessity.
It empowers a web designer to make extensive changes to a website’s web layout through a single file. It lets you design a light yet responsive website fast to load and great at impressing the audience with its display. Implying in the context of the advantages and disadvantages of CSS we discussed, it is fair to establish that its benefits surpass the disadvantages without doubts.
