[thelist] How excusable is the use of frames?

martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
Thu Aug 16 08:56:27 CDT 2001


Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Subject:  Re: [thelist] How excusable is the use of frames?





>>Both impacted frames' cost/benefit analysis significantly. This was a
>>knowledge development, not a fashion one.

>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.

Sorry, by 'cost' I meant 'making the site a worse thing' - disbenefits
generally.


>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.

Not sure how this adds benefit beyond a consistent site design. And
meantime, the association between URL and page has been broken.

>It's just that the "frames are no good" call seems to have become a dogma,
>and I don't like dogma's.

Granted, but it's not just 'fashion'. Like any kind of learning curve, it's
better
to learn best practise as dogma, and then develop an appreciation of
the subtleties behind the dogma than to reject that best practise out of
hand.

My advice over any usability issue is "Do it like best practise [which in
most
cases means 'Do it like Jakob says'] until you really understand the issues
well enough to make an appropriate judgement call".

Cheers
Martin


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