[Adium-devl] Website design

[Dan]

At 9:56 PM -0400 10/1/2008, Andre-John Mas wrote:
>On 1-Oct-08, at 15:42 , Zachary West wrote:
>>The fixed-width argument is very important: the Xtras site uses the
>>same layout, and absolutely cannot have a fixed width.3eee
>
>Just to add to this: tthe problem with fixed-width is that you 
>always have to ask yourself what is the smallest screen size you are 
>going to accommodate. That ends being a limiting factor. Being able 
>to adjust to screen size is certainly a more elegant approach, even 
>if it is more of a challenge to achieve. BTW I noticed that Apple is 
>using fixed width and is using 1024px wide as their minimum 
>supported screen size.

ug.  Apple's web site sure is a great example of how NOT to do it.

1.  It's not a full 1024px wide.  It's actually just a bit wider than 
a 17" monitor at 1024x768 minus the space used by a vertical dock. 
So if you use a vertical dock... the fields on the right side of the 
page are AWOL.  Kindof looks like it was designed by a PC user.  To 
actually use the site (and reach the search fields), you either have 
to hide the dock and resize the browser window, or you're stuck 
scrolling left to right constantly.

2.  On some pages, it uses an off-white / beige background and gray 
text that provides little contrast.  On other pages (no consistency 
across the site!) they use a black background and dark gray text. 
Both combinations are almost impossible to read.

3.  On many pages, in addition to the poor contrast, tiny font sizes 
are also used.  Once you hit cmd-+ a few times, so you can read 
things, the page is a disaster.

Please....

Use a consistent style across all pages.

Let HTML do what it does best - flow things to fit the window.

Use a high contrast combination of light background and dark text.

And please provide the navigation area on *every* page.  Never strand the user.

FWIW,
- Dan.
-- 
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth