Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates, Fourth Edition

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Chapter 3 ■ Things to Consider Before Beginning
Figure 3.14
Third-level page of the site in Figure 3.13 where the right section was removed. Copyright † 2002 by
National Farmers Union. All rights reserved.
Creating a Flexible Design
The look and feel of a site is obviously a determining factor for its shelf life. If the
site looks outdated, it will make the company or individual that the site represents
appear outdated. Another factor that plays into the shelf life of a site is flexibility,
which involves a designer’s ability to add and delete pages and portions of pages.
If a designer needs to spend hours changing the layout of a site because the client
wants to add two sections, but the menu will not support it, then the site has a
poor, inflexible design. If the designer simply needs to add only a few rows of
content in a nested container, then that is a flexible design.
Figure 3.15 is an example of an inflexible design. Notice the menu at the bottom
center of the page. Not only are the items in an area that does not allow much