
Ask HN: Why are academic websites so bad? - rememberlenny
Many syllabus website I see from top universities or university program webpages are plain HTML. Is there an underlying reason why these sites don&#x27;t use a basic design template and refined layout?
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enkiv2
Plain HTML is preferable, if you don't need anything fancier.

The real reason may be that universities hire students (who may or may not
know anything about web design) to work on their main pages, and course pages
are usually maintained by professors. However, ultimately, if you want your
page to be accessible to people with crappy computers it makes sense to avoid
the kind of bloated nonsense that passes for "good web design" these days.

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livatlantis
That's one of the reasons I like 'em. And this is a designer talking! Sure, a
nice simple base CSS could fix line width, letterspacing, general kerning...
but I'd much rather take plain old HTML that I can access from pretty much any
browser on any OS anywhere in the world, than the Javascript-fueled
"immersive" websites laaaarge images and fancy effects anyday.

Having said that, of course, I should concede that the choice isn't binary.
Still.

