[thelist] Useability/design Opinion's sought
Christian Heilmann
lists at onlinetools.org
Tue Mar 22 19:36:19 CST 2005
>>really easy. I think the best article about links I read so far is Jukka's
>>"Links want to be links": http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/links.html
>>
>>
>
>I started reading over this article, and before getting through the
>first page, something occured to me. This guys links are aweful, simply
>god aweful. And his page looks terrible.
>:)
>
>In particular, the top menu structure of links is bordering on
>unreadable, due to the overwhelming effect all that bright underlined
>blue text creates. Also, studies have shown that columnar text is easier
>to read than text which spans the entire monitor screen. Most people
>simply leave their browser open full screen, and it is difficult for the
>eye to follow the long path back to the next line and find it properly.
>
>But if your text is contained within a nice column, like alistaparts,
>the eye doesn't have so far to go.
>
>Also, I think one should give the reader the benefit of the doubt. For
>example, in a menu/listing type structure, it is usually obvious that
>these are links, and hence a more subtle (and readable) color/font might
>be preferred.
>
>
>
Could be, but this is
a) A matter of taste
b) A matter of audience. "Studies" show a lot, as another one may prove
that multi column layouts are harder to read[1]. ALA for example could
be tough with a screen magnifier , as the main navigation is far to the
right. Then again, ALA is about web design, hence fitting the audience,
although the new design caused a lot of uproar in the comments[2].
Apart from your last paragraph being off-topic (the question was about
links _in_ text, not about how a menu should look like) it is far too
easy to generalise in both directions.
My stance about liquid vs fixed layout is to question yourself: What
pisses your visitor off more easily: The need to make the browser
window smaller until the text is easy to follow or to scroll
horizontally when the designer-defined "best line length" just is not
available?
Personally I use 1280x a lot and never have my brower window open to the
whole size. I do enjoy the option of having my sidebars open and read a
page without horizontal scrolling though.
>All of this is very interesting. There is a definite fine line between
>"design" issues and "useability" issues. Is it our duty as web designers
>to try and "show the way", and create sites that are more
>asthetic/ergonomic/easy on the eyes ?
>
>
>
How can you? Making assumptions? I do a lot of usability testing in
my job, and some of the things we assume to be very ergonomical,
aesthetically pleasing and easy baffle a lot more people than one may
think. It depends what you design: Do you design a site like a brochure
or do users really need to interact with it? The best option is to
offer the visitor a chance to customise the page to her needs.
One example that really got me thinking lately was this:
http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/portal/index.jsp
The left hand navigation moves the current section up when you drill
down into a sub section (Click environment for example). At first I
was very confused by that behaviour, but then I considered the benefits.
- The section navigation will always be "above the fold"
- Non-sighted users and Keyboard / Switch access users don't have to
tab through a lot of irrellevant links before they get to the next
section inside this one
Clearly a bold new concept that could become a web design pattern,
given the acceptance of the users.
>The original designers of the web were not usability experts. When they
>decided on "underlined blue" as representing a link, they consulted no
>cognitive research studies.
>
>
Actually these were the first browser developers. The designers
(technical designers that is) of the web simply defined a link as a
text connecting this document either to another one or to another
section of this document. My first browser was lynx, and that one did
not show links as blue and underlined :-)
[1] http://www.alistapart.com/articles/lowvision/
[2] http://www.alistapart.com/qa/
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