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Subject:Re: Theory? (of Web design) From:Ed -dot- Hawco -at- acecomm -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 5 Oct 2001 12:57:14 -0400
Sandy Harris said:
> Then there's format.
>
> Try looking at his site with two or more different window sizes. It
behaves
> correctly, the HTML flows to properly fill whatever space is available.
> Compare to brain-dead sites whose "designers" deliver whatever they
imagine
> might be appropriate (usually 800 by 600), completely ignoring the actual
> space available. Look at microsoft.com or daleen.com, for example, on a
> big monitor and watch how they leave a large chunk of screen unused.
While I agree with your post, there's one issue I take exception to... I'm
one of those "brain-dead" designers who designs for a specific resolution,
and here's why: One of the issues with HTML is the difficulty of creating
an aesthetically pleasing page in the same manner as printed pages. We all
like a good layout using lots of white space, but on the web this is
difficult. One way to simulate this is to use table-based formatting that
constrains the width of your column.
This is particularly important on the web, because on-screen reading has a
comprehension level about 30% lower than on-paper reading, so "enablers"
like good layout are very important. NOBODY can comfortably read a
paragraph with lines that are 200 characters long! I constrain my columns
so that lines break after a comfortable amount of characters (70 or 80,
sometimes as few as 40) to enable readibilty.
Who cares if there's a bunch of blank space for those few people who insist
on using their browsers in "full screen mode"? Space is free!
e
d
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed Hawco
Senior Technical/Marketing Writer
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