[thelist] re:RE: scrollable content problems, especially in Netscape

Jeff Howden jeff at jeffhowden.com
Sat Oct 4 12:30:32 CDT 2003


lisa,

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> From: Bird
>
> Yes I agree with all the points you mentioned and I
> wouldn't use this on a clients site but this is my
> fun homepage, I live abroad and my friends and family
> want to see pics and news. They are non-savvy website
> surfers, most use IE, non have trackballs and fancy
> mouses, they wouldn't know how to tab and they wouldn't
> want to print...... get my point?
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

no, actually i don't get your point.  i think you missed some of mine as
well.

my list, while long, wasn't meant to be exhaustive.  i summed up my point
with a single sentence at the end; "don't use fancy, schmancy stuff where
solutions already exist."  in other words, using something other than the
tool designed for the job will only lead to problems.  it may look "nice"
(or not, imo), but it forces the user to stop and think about how to use the
interface rather than focusing on the content, the reason they came to the
site to begin with.  the fact that you have to label the mouseover scroll
buttons with "text up" and "text down" should be a red flag that something
is wrong.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> Its for a targeted audience, who want something that
> looks nice!
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

i suspect they're not thinking that mouseover scroll buttons would look
nicer than a conventional scrollbar when they're deciding to visit your
site.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> So please if anyone knows how to fix it rather than tell
> me why I shouldn't use it that would be nice :)
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

i already gave you a suggestion to fix the problem with the content not
stopping at the bottom of the viewport.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> I read this list everyday and the advice is great but
> sometimes we just seem to go over and over why we should
> not do something.
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

some of the members of this list have been in this industry for years, are
considered experts in their field by their peers, and have even written or
contributed to books on related subjects.   if you were to ask why people
are suggesting why not to do something you'll probably find that the
overwhelming answer is that fixing the one problem today will not fix all
the problems in the future.  my personal point for listing all those things
was in an effort to show you that, regardless of what computer abilities you
*think* your audience has, your chosen interface is currently broken in so
many ways and will require hours upon hours of coding just to address a few
of the problems.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> I choose to do this because it is my site that's a bit
> of fun and its not a professional piece.
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

i understand the need to be creative and do things that are fun, but it
shouldn't be at the risk of breaking built-in functionality for your
audience.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> Sometimes people do just want to know is there a way
> around a problem rather than be told not to do it :)
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

and some people want to try to make the web a better place.  to do that we
must try our best to rid it of annoyances like fancy dhtml scrollers where a
normal scrollbar would do nicely, just to cite one example.

.jeff

------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Howden - Web Application Specialist
Resume - http://jeffhowden.com/about/resume/
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