[thelist] How excusable is the use of frames?

Peter-Paul Koch gassinaumasis at hotmail.com
Thu Aug 16 07:59:31 CDT 2001


> > From: "Peter-Paul Koch" <gassinaumasis at hotmail.com>
>[...]
> > I'm not so sure a frames site costs more than a noframes one (we don't
> > charge more for it). As to the benefits, you might be right.
>
>it's a cost-benefits analysis... it's proven to be cheaper to maintain
>SSIs with navigation than a multitude of frames, for example, on
>every site i've ever touched...

OK, it hasn't proven so in the company I work for, but I assume it is a 
valid concern for others.

>it also includes user responses (can
>users bookmark your product page? no? then they are less likely
>to come back for it)...

This is very true, in fact it's the single most important problem with 
frames. I often considered ways to solve it, but I haven't found any yet. 
Sure, you can write a script that refreshes the frameset to one that 
directly points to the to-be-bookmarked page, but it isn't really 
user-friendly.

I once worried a great lot about the frames on my own site and did a little 
survey. Although it ran for a month, I only got 5 responses. 3 respondents 
liked the frames, 1 didn't like them and 1 didn't care. I decided to leave 
the frames in place.

> > More generally: to keep certain concent in a static position on the
> > screen while other content can be scrolled or reloaded. To me this is 
>the prime benefit of frames.
>
>and that's why you'll see many web apps use it effectively... but if
>it's just keeping marketing stuff in place (logos, banner ads), it
>doesn't help the user, it often adds confusion...

True, but banners in general do that, not just banners in frames.

> > Another one, to my mind, is that frames give the user a better feeling 
>of continuity. Clicking a link reloads the content frame, but the rest of 
>the frames still show the same as before, so that the user is very certain 
>he isn't going to another site.
>
>that's not a benefit of frames... that's only a benefit for a poorly
>designed site...

Dunno. What I mean is that the user doesn't see a blank screen for a little 
while when switching pages. While I agree that a good design can help a lot 
(and the user having experience in using the WWW even more), it's a thing 
that needs to be considered.

>in fact, if the site gets indexed by an SE, it's quite
>likely a user coming from an SE will get a frame page, which often
>has no branding or nav... no, frames aren't the answer there, proper
>branding is...

By 'branding', do you mean that you don't see the corporate logo and don't 
know which site you're on? It is a real problem, but I see it only as an 
extension of the bookmarking problem.

> > It's just that the "frames are no good" call seems to have become a
> > dogma, and I don't like dogma's.
>
>did you read that URL i posted last night?  it addresses a lot of
>these points, none of which has been disproved...
>
>Some Caveats with Using Frames
>http://evolt.org/article/list/22/293/index.html

Read it just now:

1) Bookmarks: you're right, see above.
2) Security: not such a big issue, since frame busting scripts work fine 
nowadays (though I agree that you have to write another script to prevent 
something happening that wouldn't happen when you use frames).
3) Naming: True, but the real cause is sloppy coding, not the frames as 
such.
4) Search engines: extension of the bookmarking problem.
5) Interface: extension of the bookmarking problem.
6) Accessibility: include a NOFRAMES bit that contains a link leading to 
your main page or site map.
7) Design: can be worked around, although the issues are of course valid.

In general these issues (except for the bookmarking) mean that you have to 
pay more attention to what you're doing when you make a frames site, they 
don't mean you cannot make a framed site.

Anyway, my only point remains that frames are not evil by definition.

ppk

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