Building a website can be a very beneficial experience, as I mentioned in Why Everyone Should have a Website.  Websites create good reputations online and can help in finding a job. However, many people take the easy way out by using What You See Is What You Get, better known as WYSIWYG editing, WYSIWYG allows users to use a graphic user interface to layout and design a website and not use a single line of HTML or CSS code. Some of the most popular applications that design WYSIWYG websites are: Dreamweaver, Microsoft Fronpage and Microsoft Word. I find it to be extremely ridiculous that anyone who has Microsoft Word could layout a couple pages in Word and export them as .html files, upload them to a web server and call it a website.

I truly believe that everyone should have a website, however I believe it should be a real website and not a poorly done 5-minute WYSIWYG website. WYSIWYG does not produce professional web sites.  It creates sloppy code that does not look the same or even work on every computer, platform, or web browser. The best way to ensure that your site will work with the most systems possible is to use web standards and code cleanly and flexibly.   WYSIWYG can only do very low level functions like display text, images and links while, if you code your site can do many different things, because coding gives you more control.

Some WYSISYG editors like Dreamweaver do not create layouts on a grid, which makes them look sloppy since elements do not line up. This is the reason that some websites look different in different Web browser or on different operating systems. The looks poorly on both the designer and the person or people that the website intends to represent.

It is very important that it  creates a good first impression. WYSIWYG websites give poor first impression because they do not take any effort, skill or time and they may not even display correctly.  This conveys a message that the owner does not care enough to put the effort of building a good website and tells the viewer to look somewhere else for their information.

The only place for WYSIWYG in webdesign is for use in producing content with in a website, because it allows people to write their content as if they are in Microsoft Word which makes it much easier. However, this will not affect the way the page is displayed or how it appears across different platforms because this would be used only for the content of the site. I use that type of editing for my blog posts of Gdovin.net because the site is a valid site that works across platforms but, writing articles does not require me to use code inorder to write a simple post. although WordPress does that option.

In conclusion, WYSIWYG does not educate anyone in how to be a better web designer and does not create professional websites. I also believe that people who design WYSIWYG websites are not professional webdesigners or webdesigers at all!  Websites are meant to be a major asset but, when they are designed using WYSIWYG they are a libaility and hurt who they represent. Schools should not teach WYSIWYG in classes but, teach the future generation how to design a real website. WYSIWYG sites look juvinile, are unfunctional and unprofessional. If you are considering buiding a website do yourself a favor eithe learn how to code or use a content management system like WordPress or Google Sites, because WYSIWYG is not real webdesign, and people who use WYSIWYG tools are noit Professional Webdesigners at all!

A Special Thanks to Michael Plasmeier for asisting me working on this Article.