Striking the Right Balance Between Cosmetic and Functional CSS Properties

In late 2019, Cascading Style Sheets will celebrate 23 years of use and implementation. Along with HTML and JavaScript, we tend to take CSS for granted in the sense that we view them as being almost interchangeable, but we should view CSS as a tool with two distinct properties: one related to website structure and the other related to stylistic elements.

In recent years, web developers have been placing greater attention on the cosmetic properties of CSS. There is an advantage to this approach in the sense that it is mindful of branding, but giving it preference over layout and structure is not conducive to productivity.

When we compare the number of variations that can be applied to cosmetic CSS properties versus their structural counterparts, we see a marked difference. Layout and structure properties are not as numerous, and the changes we enact in this regard do not have as much effect on cosmetic properties as the other way around. On the other hand, too many visual changes can negatively impact user interface functionality.

One of the problems faced by web developers who specialize in CSS is related to the complexity created by mixing both cosmetic and layout properties in their coding projects, and this has become a programming standard. While this works well for simple projects such as static pages, it runs into problems with the kind of complex requests made by clients nowadays. Once we start applying changes to cosmetic properties within this combined coding structure, it is easy to lose sight of what is happening to the structure. If we consciously arrange our code structure in a way that separates visual elements from the page layout and functionality, our CSs projects can become more manageable, and we will suffer less when several cosmetic changes need to be applied.

The separation of CSS code into cosmetic and layout categories will not only result in cleaner and more elegant projects but also higher productivity. If we see that our cosmetic changes are impacting the layout, we can easily jump between categories to adjust accordingly. For more information click here https://medium.com/@ESR360/css-at-scale-cosmetic-vs-layout-properties-a1c8acc875d7.