Surfing the Web Without CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are one of the best features of the web. CSS lets you (mostly) separate your presentation format from your content's code. I've been uisng CSS almost since it was developed in the mid-1990s, and I can't imagine doing anything on the web without it.

Still, there are good reasons for wanting to see what a site looks like without CSS; the main one being to check accessibility features. So it's probably a good idea to test your website without CSS.

Jon Kantner of CSS-Tricks wondered what would happen if he browsed to several major sites with CSS disabled. The results were interesting, to say the least.

CSS is a key component to the modern web. As we’ve seen up to this point, there are a number of sites that become next to un-unusable without it — and we’re counting some of the most recognizable and used sites in that mix. What we’ve seen is that, at best, the primary purpose for a site can still be accomplished, but there are hurdles along the way. Things like:

• missing or semantically incorrect skip links
• links that run together
• oversized images that require additional scrolling
• empty elements, like list items and button labels

He then goes on to provide best practices to follow to make sure your site works when CSS is disabled or not available. 

This is a good article and I learned a lot from reading it.