Why are Grid Layouts still seeing such poor adoption?

Question

Having recently become a convert to Grid Layouts, I find myself looking at more and more sites' code and seeing that grids are still grossly under-represented.

While I accept that grids might not always be the only right solution for every web design situation, I think that they are a tool that should be seeing higher rates of adoption than they currently enjoy.

I think if I'd known more about the design approach earlier, I would have saved a considerable amount of time and effort. But Grids don't seem to have the sort of exposure that, say, CSS standards do. Why should that be? Is it even a problem that some people might be missing out on a design approach that could potentially be a better solution to a problem they're working on?

Answer 1

The "Grid Layouts" you speak of, are nothing "special". What you are actually talking about, are "CSS frameworks". These "Grid Layouts" should still be using CSS Standard

You also did not mention the most popular CSS Grid Framework - YUI Grids CSS

I think the reason people normally don't use a framework, is that they don't want to be locked into something with limited customization. Also a big reason is that there is no guaranty that the framework will be around forever, and once it is gone, your knowledge with that framework is useless.

There is also some Criticism of CSS Frameworks on Wikipedia:

• Lack of flexibility outside the limitations of the framework
• Bloated source code
• Additional HTTP requests for multiple files
• Lack of substantial additional features beyond what is already available with CSS

Also I think that most web developers just like to write there own HTML/CSS.

Answer 2

I'm going to preface this by saying I personally have no strong feelings about grid-based layouts one way or the other. However, the reason other people may not want to dig into them is that it's a major time investment. For example, if you look over the docs and tutorials for Blueprint, it's clear that figuring out how to use it and applying it effectively for one simple project is going to cost you at least an afternoon, and that's assuming everything works exactly the way the docs say it will. If everything doesn't do that, you could be looking at several days of Googling and forum posting. Nothing against Blueprint or grid-based layouts. It's just the nature of these things.

So for all that risk and effort, here's the payoff: every element in your layout lines up on a grid.

The debate over whether that's worth the effort could go on for years. I'm not going to touch that one. Let's just say it's debatable.

Answer 3

I don't like them. The 960 grid sites don't work well on the iPhone/iPod Touch. And they're terrible on my Blackberry. I prefer a fluid layout that works well on smaller screens.

I don't mind if they show up as 960 on computers, but for Pete's sake, serve me something fluid on mobile. If everyone used this, I'd be happy.

Answer 4

I think we don't see grid layout to be so popular because to use any CSS framework you already need to know CSS on decent level, in case anything goes wrong, or because you gonna need to style your elements anyway.

So the question that asked why somebody who already decently know CSS will start using framework.

I think the best way to use framework is to rip some parts of it (like form styling) and use it with your own developed things.