[thelist] Copy site designs... again

Seb Barre sebastien at oven.com
Mon Oct 23 09:54:06 CDT 2000


At 10:24 AM 10/23/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> > From: Steve Cook <sck at biljettpoolen.se>
> >
> > What I really dislike with this site (and of course Neilsson's) is the use
> > of full-page width text. There is no spacing at all around the text, which
> > makes browsing with a larger screen resolution very tiring on the eyes. At
> > least a <blockquote> tag would help relieve eyestrain on such a site. 
> If you
> > think about the extra "tracking" the eye must perform to read such wide
> > lines of text, one can understand how the process tires the eyes more
> > quickly.
>
>i'm not sure i agree with that, only because i surf in 640px
>windows, and throwing in margins would make it too thin for me...
>also, that's not the "correct" use of <blockquote>, as if that
>matters... i'd rather let a user resize his or her window... of course,
>we also know that not all users know how to resize, so...

One thing to mention here:

Keep in mind that if you're in 640x480, you are in a small minority of 
users, and you should be willing to accept that sites are designed for the 
majority, and that as a result your experience may be inferior to that of 
the average user if the site designer chose to target 800x600 as a minimum.

I've strained over the years to maintain web page designs that are friendly 
to all resolutions and colour depths (both on the high end and low end), 
but it's very difficult, and sometimes you just have to commit yourself to 
800x600 or up in order to maintain a design or allow for the amount of 
content intended for the page, and hope that the 640 people understand. 
=)  Similarly, most users who run in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 will understand 
if a site looks strange when maximized, since they are also in the minority.

I have a 19" monitor and I run in 1600x1200 at work.  I never run any 
browsers maximized, because the text is always stretched out way too 
much.  That's fine, I understand it, so I size the window to be about 1024 
wide, which makes most web pages look good..

<tip type="Screen Resolutions">

A survey that shows average screen resolution for web surfers.  Good to 
keep in mind when designing layouts.

http://www.brubakerstreet.com/cgi-local/survey/survey.cgi?survey_name=survey

</tip>
--- -- -
Seb Barre - sebastien at oven.com
OVEN Digital Toronto
Work: 416-595-9750 x 222
Mobile: 416-254-5078
http://www.oven.com/





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