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Posted by Davιmon on 05/09/06 19:38
Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesmiths.com> arranged shapes to form:
> Michael Laplante wrote:
>> "Jim Moe" <jmm-list.AXSPAMGN@sohnen-moe.com> 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.
>
> Accessibility implies fluid design, but that's not to say that they're
> "equal"
>
> All that can be said is that non-fluid design reduces accessibility.
>
> Remember too that accessibility is subjective. "Usability" is
> objective. It's the ability for anyone (designer included) to use the
> site.
Not sure it's as black and white as that - useability also covers how easy
it is to learn to use, whether it provides a consistent mental-model etc,
and is very much defined by the individual /user/.
> "Accessibility" is the capability for different people, with
> different limitations of technology or personal ability, to achieve
> usability as good as the optimum.
Not really, 'accessibility' is about addressing specific access
requirements that disabled people have. The capability spectrum of
normally-abled people and technologies is covered by useability.
>
> You state a reasonable requirement, that your luxury car brochure
> should not be rendered with childish fonts. Now if that's an
> _essential_ requirement, then I simply suggest that you don't put it on
> the web. Stick to print media if it's vital for it to look like print.
>
It is an _essential_ requirement, and one that is more than adequately met
by the technologies available. However, the web and multimedia means it
isn't an _essential_ requirement that somebody has to be able to /read/ it
at all - and should the user require non-visual then alternatives can be
given.
>> 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.
> A good accessible, fluid, design doesn't force your content to
> downgrade. For adequate levels of skill and features (OK, so CSS font
> handling is admittedly poor) then the fluid design loses nothing that
> the "sliced up bitmap in a table" rubbish of a few years ago could
> offer. It also _gains_ a useful level of access for my phone, or my
> short-sighted grannie.
>
Someone using a phone is not the same as short sighted granny.
My phone doesn't have a keyboard, and Google is practically useless because
it takes ages for me to key in the bloody search box. Different platforms
do have different useability requirements - just stuffing the same
'flexible' html page down the phone isn't going to meet those challenges.
> Even if
> it does only have one font, and that's Comic Sans, then your choice
> (for any implementation) is "Show it in Comic Sans or don't show it
> at all). It's "fluid vs. forbidden" as a choice, not "stylish
> vs. ugly"
>
It's more a case of a scale of "1 size-fits nobody - fitness for purpose".
In your example the device is being restricted in its fitness for purpose -
the end user is going to have a Comic Sans experience, associate that cheap
experience with your products - so perhaps it is better not to display
anything at all, or perhaps special-needs and kids content, which leaves
out complex language.
> The crucial thing isn't about "breaking presentation", it's
> about "presentation to places you otherwise won't reach at all".
> When I read the brochure on my phone, then it might not show the
> photograph of the dealership, but it should still give me the address.
That's a content issue not a 'presentation' one.
Different platforms do often neccessitate different content. So the
argument to design the same content in an amorphous 'flexible' way, rather
than provide different content for different media, kind of vanishes...
--
DavΓ©mon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
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