[thechat] rebel without a clause

Ben Dyer ben_dyer at imaginuity.com
Tue Oct 29 12:23:01 CST 2002


At 10:40 AM 10/29/2002, you wrote:
>It just struck me that the Web is going backwards.
>
>In the name of accessibility we are taking away an awful lot of the fun.

Well, you won't get sympathy from me...but that's because I was just
thinking that we have the opposite problem.

Example: I got one of those nifty little T-Mobile Sidekick (or Danger
Hiptop or whatever you call it) devices and the browser is great...when you
go to a site that looks like they put an ounce of thought into the design
for multiple user agents.  On most sites, it's simply a bear to
navigate.  One of the sites that actually looks the most reasonable on the
device (without a separate mobile page like Yahoo!, Google, Mapquest or
Amazon)?  Slashdot: the epitome of function over form.

Now, granted, I understand it's not everyone's target audience and that
mobile devices don't really count towards accessibility, but it's really
frustrating to see that it wouldn't take much to modify the site to work on
the device.

But, the device itself isn't perfect either.  All of our lofty attempts to
make tableless designs crash and burn on the device.  Stock MovableType
templates have all sorts of overlapping layers and one-word-per-line blocks
of text.  It's like they just decided to pick and choose what they'd render
with CSS and it ends up just looking like crap.

Anyways, just a POV from a oft-frustrated user. :)

(And, as for the T-Mobile Sidekick, I absolutely love it.  It's wonderful
what all they've crammed into that little $200 device.)

--Ben




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