[thelist] defined table width and accessibility

Ian Anderson ian at zstudio.co.uk
Wed Jun 1 09:55:59 CDT 2005


aardvark wrote:

>documented, no... but i do have experience in testing these for my 
>clients or specific projects... years ago i even wrote up an article 
>about testing screen sizes vs. window sizes for desktop browsers 
>(http://evolt.org/Screen_Stats_2/)... i've just continued that kind 
>of testing internally with clients...
>  
>
Yes, I think I read it some time ago. It's good to have quantified 
statistics for the prevalance of small displays. But this doesn't 
address UA behaviour, does it?

>many of them can... we have some PDAs we've used to test, and in some 
>cases, they ignore it... but the thing to remember is that if you are 
>relying on a fixed width, then likely so are your images, and other 
>elements... that's when it all falls apart...
>...
>  
>
>the Dell Axim at my desk is 240x320, and with so many sites 
>targetting higher and higher resolutions (800x600 and greater), you 
>should see how it breaks them...
>
>for the most part, the content is still available, but the images are 
>scaled or displaced...
>
>  
>
This is the sort of thing we need, I think  - actual documented behaviour.

Thing is, what is the matter if the images *are* scaled or displaced? 
Why is this a bad thing? If the content is still available, transformed 
to better meet the limitations of the device where possible, surely this 
counts as essentially a near perfect result?

What do you want, all four columns of the BBC web site scaled 
proportionally to fit 240 pixels? What *does* it look like in your Dell 
Axim? It would be brilliant if you could post a screen shot or digital 
photo somewhere for the education of the unwashed such as I...Perhaps of 
BBC home page contrasted with stopdesign.com - similarly complex layout 
grids, totally different way of building them...

Cheers

Ian



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