Philosophy of website design

[Barbara de Zoete]

The usual suspects here will do their "sour grapes" thing

That might have something to do with the fact that this newsgroup is
primary on markup, hence the html in its name. See? Should have taken it
to alt.www.webmaster. Over there people are more pragmatic and more in to
design (although many people frequent both groups; some of us just swithc
hats as we move from one group to the next )

but I love the
work done by this company:
http://www.krucible.com/

Some samples of their sites:
http://www.andersoncove.ca/# -- Love the imaginative menuing system used
here.
http://www.5thwallstudio.com/ -- Uses Flash intro but it works for me in
keeping with the design theme.
http://www.inspireddevices.com/ -- Simpler site, but great visuals.

I have to admit, they do look good (with all the client side stuff turned
on). They do. If a site has to be havy on the graphics display (like that
5thWallStudio thing), please let it be something like this. Not being
cinic or sarcastic. I mean it.

The one thing is: with next to no effort they could have made their sites
accessible and usable for people without flash and without images too.
Providing some alt text on the images will do soooo much for example.
I'm not talking about conveying to tableless design here. At the moment
I'm struggling with a new design (just for fun; I don't have a paying job
in this). With tables it would have been done in a few hours. As it is now
(I chose css design some time ago), I'm struggling to get it look even a
bit right in IE :-(

I'm talking about little things that show that a webauthor is aware of the
many kinds of visitors his/her site can attract. These above sites are
beautyful to see, if you can see all. But they're so havy on the graphics,
that even people who can see perfectly could choose to switch off images
or flash or both, just because they're on dial up and don't want to have
to wait for ever for the page to show properly in their browser.

BTW, I'm up for seeing anyone's portfolio here, if they want to share
some
urls. . .

Nah, mine is dull. I publish. I don't do design

 

[Barbara de Zoete]

Oh no, they're on to me!


!! I didn't. Did you read all my comments with an objective eye?

I don't think I did. Sorry about that.

 

[JDS]

Really? That's it? A technology can only be used for what it was originally
intended to be used for?

Okay. Better shut down the web then. The internet wasn't originally intended
to be used for that.

CSS is great as a styling rules system. As a layout system, it doesn't work.
But then, CSS was never originally intended for layout anyway, was it?

Certainly not. I can use a screwdriver to hammer in nails. But is it
better? Similarly I can use tables to lay out a page. Is it better? I
don't think so...

CSS has flaws, yes, but the point, the thing that makes it better, is that
using CSS properly inherently separates the content from the way it looks.
If you can't see why this is inherently better than using tables for
layout then you need to do some reading.

And the internet *was* originally intended to be "used for that". The
internet, as intended, was (and is) a large multinetwork of networks the
uses of which were intentonally undefined in large part. The WWW is only
one use of many unforseen uses that were able to be enacted due the very
general, flexible nature of the Internet as designed.

 

[JDS]

It is _not_, however, a tutorial on good web design, just like a
collection of Chili recipes is not an essay on good nutrition.

It isn't???? Doh! I think I know now why I've been gaining weight!

 

[Michael Laplante]

Thx to all who took time to formulate a thoughtful response. Some good
points raised here.

By "verbalizing" some of my replies, I was able to solidify some of my own
ideas about what to pursue in web design. And, I have to admit that I have
new opinions of some people I initially wrote off as being unhelpful types.

M

 

[JDS]

is sneered at here.

I don't sneer at CSSZengarden. I think the "sneerers" are missing the
point of CSSZG, which is not to necessarily create flowing layouts, or
fixed width layouts, or even "usable" or "pretty" layouts, but just to
demonstrate how incredibly varied the layout of a site can be just by
changing the style sheet alone.

 

[Michael Laplante]

Or you can enjoy a nice steak some twice baked potatoes, maybe a bean
cassarole, and possibly some cheese cake for desert.

I'M all over THAT. . .

M

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

I don't sneer at CSSZengarden.

*I* certainly don't sneer at it - it's an impressive, sometimes
dazzling, demonstration of what CSS is capable of. I say that as
someone whose abilities in the graphics-design department are
negligible, but I can appreciate visual design when I see it.

*But* nevertheless, I say the csszengarden is in no way to be used as
a tutorial or template for how to design pages that are meant for the
rough and tumble of the real WWW. Visual design doesn't have to be
this rigid and fragile. Think more in terms of a fine garment, that
adapts itself to the wearer, than a piece of beautiful pottery which
breaks into pieces when stuffed into the wrong-sized niche.

 

[Spartanicus]

I wondered why. ZenGarden -- which I think terrifically
showcases the power of CSS -- is sneered at here.

That isn't the general attitude towards CSS ZenGarden. But there is good
reason to do so.

CSS ZenGarden has done and is continuing to do a disservice to the cause
of demonstrating what CSS is about, and proper web authoring in general.
It falsely suggests that CSS as currently implemented by the lowest
common denominator (IE) CSS is capable of fundamentally changing the
layout and look of a site. To create this illusion it litters the markup
with spurious code which makes the code inflexible and difficult to
maintain. They themselves warn against emulating their methods for real
world web authoring, but very few people notice that. CSS ZenGarden sets
a bad example.

Part of it's original goal was to demonstrate to graphic designers who
for the most part ignored CSS that sites created with CSS needed not be
bland, nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately the creators made a huge
mistake in the way that they tried to demonstrate this, using a single
HTML document with only the stylesheet being changed.

The practice of inappropriate "image replacement" techniques that are so
popular nowadays came about in no small part due to the bad example that
is CSS ZenGarden.

 

[Jim Moe]

Good explanation. Thank you.

Accessibility (an implementation issue) "imposes" on graphic design to some
extent. As a graphic designer, I like to see certain specific fonts, sizes,
etc. I like to see images, banners etc pinned down to achieve a certain
nuance or look. Accessibility = fluidity though which goes against that
philosophy.

Accessibility and fluid design are not bound to each other. Fixed width
designs are as accessible as fluid designs. That is the beauty of
separating content and presentation.
See <http://www.csszengarden.com/>. The HTML code is a bit contrived to
allow the presentation of CSS possibilities. But as you can see, one HTML
file, many presentations.

I'm designing a site for a manufacturer of a luxury car.

I would want to design a "brochure" site. The site should have a level of
sophistication suggestive of the car itself. The colour scheme, font
choices, layout, graphics, etc should re-inforce that image.

So your layout design choice is to emulate a print brochure, to impose
one medium's constraints (print) on another (WWW). There is a net loss of
options.

In this case, my message is one of inclusivity. I want everyone to feel
welcome to come to my college so my site should reflect that accessibility
in its fluidity of design.

Again, you confuse the two aspects, fluidity and accessibility. They are
not related.

 

[Nik Coughlin]

Ehem, Wikipedia is by definition not solid. It is by definition a site
that can be edited at any moment by anyone. In practice it isn't
really that "democratic", but it surely is highly mutable and mostly
in unpredictable ways, and you won't even know who wrote or edited its
content.

Not their real names, but a page's history shows the authors, many of whom
do use their real names.

It surely gives the _impression_ of a good encyclopedia by
its appearance.

Wikipedia has a higher number of errors than Britannica, but it also has
considerably longer articles. The error to wordcount ratio is lower than
Britannica. The articles in Wikipedia are however generally not as well
structured and some are quite poorly written. But overall Wikipedia is
bloody good, all things considered.

Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica
http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/94dro

Wikipedia survives research test
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

 

[Nik Coughlin]

Some people here seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to certain sites or
comments and I wondered why. ZenGarden -- which I think terrifically
showcases the power of CSS -- is sneered at here. I thought that was
an odd reaction for this group. Here, you have this medium that can
be rich with all sorts of audiovisual content, but some of the
regulars here fall back on the belief that only textual content is
everything so design to the lowest common denominator for
accessibility.

Hi Michael,

I've often presented my work both here and in alt.html.critique in the past,
and despite having both lurked and posted here for quite some time, I'm not
sure who the regulars that you are talking about are. I've never had one of
my sites criticised by members of this group for being too, visual, as you
put it.

As an aside, I used the term visual rather than audiovisual because sound on
websites, really, really annoys me unless I've requested it; by clicking
play on a Flash animation, or I'm on a site that I deliberately visit for
the sound, like pandora.com. I'm talking about buttons that make little
clicking sounds when you mouseover, websites that start playing bad (it's
always bad too, what's with that?) music when they load, that sort of thing.
Hate it. Hate it.

 

[Nik Coughlin]

I have to admit, they do look good (with all the client side stuff
turned on). They do. If a site has to be havy on the graphics display
(like that 5thWallStudio thing), please let it be something like
this. Not being cinic or sarcastic. I mean it.

I'll second that, those are some very nice sites and I actually don't mind
these kind of sites for a business, because, well, if you can't view the
site you can always go elsewhere. I'd be upset though if say, Wikipedia had
a site this graphics heavy with no alt text.

The one thing is: with next to no effort they could have made their
sites accessible and usable for people without flash and without
images too. Providing some alt text on the images will do soooo much
for example.

I was just about to post the exact same thing -- those guys are obviously
*very* good designers, very talented, but I think they're ignorant. I say
that because there's no reason for them not to have made those sites more
accessible, had they been aware of that, it would be have been little or no
extra effort for them to have done so, and I doubt very much that they
deliberately made them inaccessible, so I guess they're just not aware of
it.

There are also techniques they could have used (had they used CSS instead of
tables for layout) so that they didn't have to cut their images into so many
slices, thereby reducing load time considerably and still looking exactly
the same. In fact, some of the clever stuff they've done with the layout
would have been much easier with CSS than with tables.

 

[Michael Laplante]

Michael Laplante wrote:

Accessibility and fluid design are not bound to each other. Fixed width
designs are as accessible as fluid designs.

I think this is a case of semantics. I'm defining accessibilty as used by
many of the regulars here define it. Accessbility = fluid design. Me, I
agree with you.

That is the beauty of

separating content and presentation.
See <http://www.csszengarden.com/>. The HTML code is a bit contrived to
allow the presentation of CSS possibilities. But as you can see, one HTML
file, many presentations.

But not "fluid" in the sense that if you re-size the windows, re-size fonts,
for a particular design the layouts don't work. There has been a decision
made to trade off fluidity for aesthetics. For that reason, others here
insist that site is not "accessible" because those individual designs only
work in a narrow range of variables. . . THEY certainly equate accessibility
with fluidity. Go pick on them!

So your layout design choice is to emulate a print brochure

Not quite. For commercial reasons, I'm making a decision to put make my site
less "fluid" for the sake of image branding -- very important to
manufacturers of luxury autos. In fact, the marketing departments would
probably impose a lot of those decisions on me, e.t. colour schemes, logos,
size of logos, fonts, etc. I'll design in as much fluidity as I can within
those limits but fluidity takes a back seat to other considerations.
(Whether that makes it less accessible is debatable -- which, I think is
your point. I personally don't disagree with you but many others here would
judging from popular sentiment.)

In my trade college scenario, branding has minimal significance so I
probably have much more free reign with respect to fluid design.

For a personal website, where there are no commercial considerations, I can
do whatever I choose because it's only me that I have to please.

Again, you confuse the two aspects, fluidity and accessibility.

I think they are separate too. My initial position was predicated on the
ng's popular definitions, not my personal one.

M

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

I'm defining accessibilty as used by
many of the regulars here define it. Accessbility = fluid design.

Don't you think you have trolled enough for now? Of course, it _is_ possible
that you really have no idea of what accessibility is. But the fact that you
don't even spell the word correctly but misspell it in two different ways
suggests that you just want to make fun of people (including disabled people
- do you think that's the highest level of humor you can achieve?).

 

[Chaddy2222]

I think this is a case of semantics. I'm defining accessibilty as used by
many of the regulars here define it. Accessbility = fluid design. Me, I
agree with you.

No...... Fluid design = good design!.....

That is the beauty of

But not "fluid" in the sense that if you re-size the windows, re-size fonts,
for a particular design the layouts don't work. There has been a decision
made to trade off fluidity for aesthetics. For that reason, others here
insist that site is not "accessible" because those individual designs only
work in a narrow range of variables. . . THEY certainly equate accessibility
with fluidity. Go pick on them!

Not quite. For commercial reasons, I'm making a decision to put make my site
less "fluid" for the sake of image branding -- very important to
manufacturers of luxury autos. In fact, the marketing departments would
probably impose a lot of those decisions on me, e.t. colour schemes, logos,
size of logos, fonts, etc. I'll design in as much fluidity as I can within
those limits but fluidity takes a back seat to other considerations.

Ahhh, it really doesn't matter what the size of a logo is, the idea is
to optomize graphics for the web, not the other way around.

(Whether that makes it less accessible is debatable -- which, I think is
your point. I personally don't disagree with you but many others here would
judging from popular sentiment.)

Put it this way, if you are imposing a particular layout on people,
that can't be changed, without breaking the sites apearence, then you
are doing something wrong.

In my trade college scenario, branding has minimal significance so I
probably have much more free reign with respect to fluid design.

Fluid design has nothing to do with it really, if the group wanted you
to design them a site, then you could make it fluid without messing up
their design quite easily.

For a personal website, where there are no commercial considerations, I can
do whatever I choose because it's only me that I have to please.


I think they are separate too. My initial position was predicated on the
ng's popular definitions, not my personal one.

They are not really sepret, good design and accessibility go hand in
hand.

 

[Jim Moe]

I think this is a case of semantics. I'm defining accessibilty as used by
many of the regulars here define it. Accessbility = fluid design.

Not really. Being a proponent of both fluid layout and accessibility
does not imply one must have the other. They are simply design and
implementation considerations to have a document available to the widest
audience and function usefully on the widest range of display hardware.

 

[dorayme]

The one thing is: with next to no effort they could have made their
sites accessible and usable for people without flash and without
images too. Providing some alt text on the images will do soooo much
for example.

I was just about to post the exact same thing -- those guys are obviously
*very* good designers, very talented, but I think they're ignorant. I say
that because there's no reason for them not to have made those sites more
accessible, had they been aware of that, it would be have been little or no
extra effort for them to have done so, and I doubt very much that they
deliberately made them inaccessible, so I guess they're just not aware of
it.

There are also techniques they could have used (had they used CSS instead of
tables for layout) so that they didn't have to cut their images into so many
slices, thereby reducing load time considerably and still looking exactly
the same. In fact, some of the clever stuff they've done with the layout
would have been much easier with CSS than with tables.[/QUOTE]

I think someone recently offered a challenge along the lines of
"show me a table based site that looks good and I will show
produce it in accessible css driven mode". Well, sorry I forget
who said this, was it you Nik?, the arty sites being mentioned in
this thread are excellent example sites to do it with. As a
demonstration (if you have time...) to better ground this
discussion.

 

[dorayme]

Depends what is meant by "bound".

Any site chosen at random, would not be more accessible by being
modified to be not so constrained? Doubt it. A person who wanted
the viewport to be utilised more (due, for example, to his
eyesight) might easily find it more easier to use.

No...... Fluid design = good design!.....

This is just obviously false. It is like saying that a site that
validates must be well designed.

Yes, I know, different folk said these different things...

 

[Chaddy2222]

Depends what is meant by "bound".


Any site chosen at random, would not be more accessible by being
modified to be not so constrained? Doubt it. A person who wanted
the viewport to be utilised more (due, for example, to his
eyesight) might easily find it more easier to use.


This is just obviously false. It is like saying that a site that
validates must be well designed.

Hmmmm, the point I was trying to make was that a site thet re-sizes
well and that works on a range of browsers is generally well designed.
But, yes, I agree with the point that their is a lot more to a design
working well then it being able to be re-sized ok.
Their is a lot more to this regarding web accessibility as well, items
such as a user being able to use his or her color schemes etc etc, or
even just makeing the color scheme of the site good so everything is
readable.
I actually think chooseing colours for the web is offen one of the
hardest tasks with web design.