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Posted by Len Philpot on 01/01/06 01:40
In article <LVytf.5302$nA2.2691@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>,
teacherjh@aol.nojunk.com says...
> ... and what advantage is there to you, if the web designer decided that
> you should not be able to move that border, and therefore had to
> horizontal-scroll for every line of text you read? And just because you
> (one user) don't mind this, that doesn't mean that other users (of which
> there could be thousands) wouldn't appreciate the ability. This is
Or vice-versa.
> especially true when the user needs to increase the font size, and
> therefore needs more room on the pane of interest). Of course there is
> a tradeoff, what is the advantage (to the user) of not letting the user
> make that tradeoff?
Design of any kind involves /many/ tradeoffs. There are extremes - From
very pretty but useless, to functional but ugly. I shoot for somewhere
in the middle. (at least some) Assumptions must be made, so I pick
reasonable defaults.
At work, we have about 1300 users on our network. That's a reasonable
sample, ranging from teenagers to retirement age. The _vast_ majority of
them are just fine with 11pt text at 1024x768 on 17" CRT monitors. A few
use smaller fonts, others larger. More than a few use the same settings
on small laptops and even 15" CRT monitors. In the absence of compelling
evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to go (excessively) out of my
way for 3% of the market. Note that I'm not saying I won't make
resonable efforts, but making a website with all the personality of a
legal brief isn't what I'm interested in doing.
I'll choose reasonable defaults and keep from extremes.
> As for tabbed browsing as a substitute for the ability to resize frames,
> one still cannot see both tabs at once, nor can you see your spreadsheet
> at the same time as a web page on limited screen real estate if you
> can't resize gracefully, which includes resizing frames.
See my last sentence above - There's no way to anticipate and allow for
/every/ circumstance.
> Now for the visual aspect - it is a flawed premise that web sites should
> be designed visually. It's an attractive premise to clients, who think
> that users all have (or should have) a 21 inch monitor completely
> devoted to their web site, but unless the client is going to follow the
> user around with an appropriate piece of hardware to play their website
Who said anything about assuming a 21" display?
Whether or not you agree, the web *is* a visual medium (in addition to
whatever else it may be). If you choose not to design visually, you're
still making the choice to design visually, albeit just badly. Good
design doesn't have to involve lots of graphics nor whiz band effects. I
tend to go for 'less is more', but I do like something more than 12pt
Times Roman on a white background. From a functionality standpoint, IMO,
nothing is very functional about a bland website.
> To repeat what others must have said many times:
> The designer has no control over...
> 1: the size of the user's screen.
> 2: the other work the user is doing at the time.
> 3: the visual acuity of the user
> 4: the information the user is actually seeking (which is often
> different from what the client wants the user to seek)
> 5: the bandwidth of the user's connection
> 6: the speed or bugginess of the user's hardware
> 7: the present load on the user's machine
And to repeat what I said above, choose reasonable defaults and keep
from extremes.
> and many other factors that contribute to the usability of a site.
> Removing the ability for the user to compensate for any of this by
> resizing windows or frames (or any other way) is an act of contempt for
> the user.
I thought frames were evil? Sounds like you're promoting them. :-)
(my last $0.02 on this aspect of the topic, since it seems to have come
down to a matter of opinion and how trade-offs are divided up)
--
-- Len Philpot -> len@philpot.org <--
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