The CSS gallery dilemma

Things aren’t looking so hot over at the Stylegala front. As of late, the site has been full of comments basically saying that the quality of Stylegala and its gallery are not what they used to be. Examples from the past couple weeks (not cited intentionally):

“I have a comment that may not be taken lightly but might need to be said. The reviewers and new stylegala contributors are not as (hmm, can’t think of a friendly word) good as previous stylegala reviewers/contributors. As simple as that. They don’t know what great web design is because they are not great designers themselves. Thus, weaker designs will make it in and the overall quality of this site will lessen…and has lessened remarkably since the takeover.

Sorry to hurt anyone’s feelings but it’s true. The sites reviewed just keep getting worse and worse.”

“Perhaps I’m just in a bad mood today, but I really want to come on to Style Gala and be inspired and learn something new, and this featured site does not provide any of this. I think the bar needs raising - if a site is not either visually or technically pushing boundaries leave it off …”

“The standard of gallery sites on Stylegala has gone through the floor, quite literally. Ive been coming to this site since the beginning but the standard has dropped of late. This site is over-wrought and extremely busy and in my opinion not of ‘gallery’ standard.

We’ve seen the ‘wicked-worn’ look site done before & alot better executed. The last three featured sites in my opinion are heralding the deathknell of stylegala as one of the respected design sites. I smell marketing deals not quality design.”

These are just a few examples of the negative feedback long time visitors have been giving for quite some time now, and the usual response from the current administrators at Stylegala is just, “your comments are not welcome on gallery pages, please take these comments to the forums.” While there is nothing wrong with that sort of response, it doesn’t indicate that the complaints are actually being heard or acted upon, and Stylegala continues to operate without any real signs of improvement.

Is it R.I.P. Stylegala? CSS Vault seems to be doing a little better, though they are stuck in a rut right now working on redesigning and mimicking all the money-making features other galleries have. CSS Beauty is probably at the top of the game with lots of community offerings and hardly any bad comments in their gallery. Then you have CSS Mania which prides itself on simply being updated way more often than any other gallery. There’s a ton of galleries from that point on, but you get the drift… Stylegala is not doing too well.

I have always been critical of CSS galleries, because more often than not they are all about promoting sites purely for their visual appearance than the overall “design.” If you look through many of the CSS galleries, you will find that most, if not all, sites entered are purely eye-candy and not necessarily accessible, usable, or even good examples of using CSS. I think a lot of designers are bothered by this, but they keep going back to these galleries hoping that someday, galleries will start rewarding design for more than just pretty pictures.

The reason why Stylegala is suffering so heavily, however, is that it used to be the king of CSS galleries. It was considered to have the highest standard for what made a great site design, and anyone who managed to get in was granted immediate celebrity status. I never really agreed with any of this, but for a long time I actually wanted to see any of my own works make it in successfully. I don’t feel that way anymore. The reviewers at Stylegala just focus way too much on visual design nowadays and are too quick to overlook obvious flaws in accessibility, web standards design, and even aesthetics in the sites they feature. I know it’s a pipe dream to think that any perfect website exists, but as far as CSS galleries go, the only complaints ever made should be about the visual design of a site, not the underlying markup. That’s where the standard should start.

There are alternatives to the “visual eye-candy” inspiration galleries, but unfortunately they don’t get much attention. I really don’t know why, but it might have to do with the fixed-width trend in standards-based design that refuses to die. Or it might just be that people don’t like alternatives. I figured that unique sites would get more attention, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Just check out accessites.org, which is a review site for highly accessible and usable web designs. They have a very complex reviewing process for all the sites submitted and every entry in the gallery is a top example of how to make a website that is as accessible as possible. Then you have my own project, Liquid Designs, which does all right for a gallery but still doesn’t get the recognition that (I think) it deserves. I started it because I was tired of the fixed-width trend in CSS based design and it’s definitely well known, but I know it’s a fact that there are a lot of designers out there who just don’t like it. It seems like it’s a favorite for designers who actually try to work with liquid designs and a waste of time to all the designers out there who only work with fixed width sites and always will. Point is, there are alternatives to the usual eye-candy galleries, but they aren’t nearly as popular as the major galleries. Don’t ask my why.

Back to the topic of Stylegala, I know that Stylegala does fine regardless of what happens simply because of the strength of the domain and all the money it brings in monthly. I’m not too crazy about the fact that unique, more focused galleries will never reach the level of top galleries like Stylegala, but I can’t change the minds of users. I just hope the Stylegala admins respond to the negative feedback they have been getting before it’s too late.