Posted by Michael Laplante on 05/09/06 00:19

"Jim Moe" <jmm-list.AXSPAMGN@sohnen-moe.com> wrote in message
news:xaKdnS8GE_Y5BMLZnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Michael Laplante wrote:

> Accessibility and fluid design are not bound to each other. Fixed width
> designs are as accessible as fluid designs.

I think this is a case of semantics. I'm defining accessibilty as used by
many of the regulars here define it. Accessbility = fluid design. Me, I
agree with you.

That is the beauty of
> separating content and presentation.
> See <http://www.csszengarden.com/>. The HTML code is a bit contrived to
> allow the presentation of CSS possibilities. But as you can see, one HTML
> file, many presentations.

But not "fluid" in the sense that if you re-size the windows, re-size fonts,
for a particular design the layouts don't work. There has been a decision
made to trade off fluidity for aesthetics. For that reason, others here
insist that site is not "accessible" because those individual designs only
work in a narrow range of variables. . . THEY certainly equate accessibility
with fluidity. Go pick on them! :)

> So your layout design choice is to emulate a print brochure

Not quite. For commercial reasons, I'm making a decision to put make my site
less "fluid" for the sake of image branding -- very important to
manufacturers of luxury autos. In fact, the marketing departments would
probably impose a lot of those decisions on me, e.t. colour schemes, logos,
size of logos, fonts, etc. I'll design in as much fluidity as I can within
those limits but fluidity takes a back seat to other considerations.
(Whether that makes it less accessible is debatable -- which, I think is
your point. I personally don't disagree with you but many others here would
judging from popular sentiment.)

In my trade college scenario, branding has minimal significance so I
probably have much more free reign with respect to fluid design.

For a personal website, where there are no commercial considerations, I can
do whatever I choose because it's only me that I have to please.

> Again, you confuse the two aspects, fluidity and accessibility.

I think they are separate too. My initial position was predicated on the
ng's popular definitions, not my personal one.

M

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