[thelist] .:new member

[Warden, Matt]

On Jan 30, Rachel Cunliffe had something to say about [thelist] .:new member

>Hi all,
>
>Came across the evolt website and was impressed.. so here I am.
>
>A question for you all.. How do you deal with clients want something that
>is, in your experience,  impractical?  As an example, my client wished to
>have 6 small photos per car and also 6 larger versions of those photos.  I
>designed it so you would click on the small version and the large version
>would appear in a popup window, that would close when the focus when back to
>the main page (so you won't have multiple popups).

what happens if i like one of them and want to keep the window open for
later? i often do this when shopping. keep windows open of my favorite
products/deals/whatever.

i dont think closing a window unexpectedly is the best option. just use
the same window in your javascript, or, if you're using the <a
href="..." target="myWindow"> method, then just keep the target the same.

>Now they have requested I change the design to have the 6 small photos AND
>the 6 large photos ALL on the same page because they believe people will
>find it annoying having to close the popup window (which they don't have
>to).  I have no idea why they wish to do this as it's impractical (slow
>loading, and the small pictures become redundant).
>
>As a perfectionist should I just leave it, and deliver the product they
>want, or ask them to stick with my choice?

what is your target audience? are they going to be bothered by the extra
download time? how big are the larger versions? what about the type of
site? is it a site where the majority of your users will open all or most
of those 6 larger photos anyways?

these are the questions you have to ask yourself. there isn't a clear-cut
answer.

in general, it's better to do what you can to keep the page size to a
minimum.

(but not at the cost of usability)

--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com