Website tut

Murdernickle

This is quite true...monitor res is definitly increasing. I know the old standby of designing for 640 x 480, but for me, anymore I design for 800 x 600 and if i'm doing a site that is more than likely for high end users such as the photography site i'm wroking on hich is more of a showcase piece rather than anything else, I'm designing for 1024 x 768

Jeff · Mod Joined: 23 Jan, 07:17 Posts: 765

Murdernickle

yusufjee · New User Joined: 21 May, 02:40 Posts: 3

To my knowledge, if you build pages in percentages instead of pixels, you can get 100% width pages. i.e <body width=100%> instead of 800px.

Jeff · Mod Joined: 23 Jan, 07:17 Posts: 765

Murdernickle

That's my downfall... i believe graphically intense sites grab the attention of anyone visiting and make them want to click around to find out more.

Now dealing professionally like with a retail site, simple is better due to the 3 click rule (you know...if a person can't get to what they want in 3 clicks they'll probably leave).

Jeff · Mod Joined: 23 Jan, 07:17 Posts: 765

Murdernickle

but but but.... i like pretty! haha

DewDrop

Yeah, there's a lot of debate about fixed-width vs. variable, tables vs. divs, the pastel/simple look vs. graphic-intensive (what ever happened to 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'?). There are a lot of great looking sites that break every rule in the code book, and well-coded sites that are nothing but some tiny text on a vague, translucent, undefined background image.

In the board I was in before this one (which should have been called FlameTheNoob), graphics were considered outdated and the pastel look is 'in'. I really don't know what they've got against graphics.

But I really don't think there should be the mentality of one-look-fits-all. I realize sometimes you have to consider if your site is likely to be viewed on a tiny PDA screen, but what about creativity? Do major magazines use only those colors that the color-blind can distinguish? Should we code/design for the lowest common denominator?

Heck no! (I'm getting just slightly philosophical now)

Yes there's still a lot of people on dialup, but that shouldn't rob other people of seeing what the web can really do. That would be like saying nobody should make sports cars because most of the world can't afford them.

Which brings us to the point of considering having different versions of a web depending on expected visitors. This is where the CSS/div approach has a distinct advantage. You can supply different looks and features just by making one style sheet for each. (see Zen Garden for sample)

Yet there is a trade-off: a highly flexible layout can be a graphics nightmare.

So I think the best thing to do is let the web owner decide where their priorities are, not the pastel purists or the accessibility extremists.

Jeff · Mod Joined: 23 Jan, 07:17 Posts: 765

Wow what a great post DewDrop,,,
I wish l had more time to discuss respond right now, but l will be sure to later this evening when I have more time...

in any event, l agree with you on so many levels; however, lets say that your site is set up to sell a product. Now selling your widget on your site pays your bills, keeps food in your belly and the a roof over your head (which makes up 65% of all websites at least) -- In that situation personally l think it is time to do everything in your power as a designer to make your pages available to as many people as possible - and if that means creating a dull page that loads uber-fast then so be it.
Anyway, great post once again -- l'll offer my thoughts on your other great points later this evening...

DewDrop

Gee... thanks!

Maybe I should consider writing posts for a living . Shocked

(especially after viewing those awsome flash sites with eye-popping graphics)

Jeff · Mod Joined: 23 Jan, 07:17 Posts: 765

DewDrop

Funny you should mention AJAX, I just joined this board. The programs are pretty crude right now but I think it's a great idea.

By DHTML are you referring to the J in AJAX? I'm torn about that. I've been trying to do pure CSS and can do simple mouseovers with it, but sometimes JS just can't be avoided. Gotta actually learn it instead of always grabbing code snippets from all over.

DewDrop

Just thought of another web design issue (should this be a new thread??).

Text vs. graphics.

The biggest problem with text on a web is the unpredictability. Any given user may have ugly generic fonts, change the overall size, colors, etc. This is supposed to give the user control over how a site appears, but this causes obvious headaches to designers. Your design quickly breaks if the user likes abnormally large text, or changes link colors.

The only way to control that is to make the text into graphics, i.e. gifs or jpgs. But the downside then is that bots crawling your site can't pick up keywords. But that can be handled with putting a lot of those keywords in your meta tags, so it's probably not a big issue. Also you'd have to make sure, for users with screen readers, that you have "alt" text for every button (which is good XHTML practice anyway).

Of course that means you'd have to make a lot more graphics, which increases load time.

Thoughts?

DewDrop