| LED Digest 2065: The Evolution of Web Design |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. January 2, 2006 Issue #2065 .............................................. ~^~ Happy New Year! ~^~ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Typography & Line Length ==-- ~ Ian Petrie "This link looks at CSS solutions for displaying varying type sizes." ~ Bill Davison "Speed...is the name of the game in today's Internet website design." --== Screen Display Sizing ==-- ~ Malcolm Bailey "I find window resizing of almost any type to be very annoying..." ~ Michael Linehan "...*everything* about the site should be directed to the target audience..." ~ Tom Aman "It is interesting to me to watch how times change..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== The 'Net Habit of Skimming ==-- ~ Tom Chatterton ~ Kathy Wilson --== Marketing and Selling with eBay ==-- ~ Tom Anson ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Ian Petrie Subject: Typography > A common conclusion is that the ideal line length > is 66 characters. This site (which I have no connection > with) provides an excellent discussion on setting line > length to retain readability in various browser widths > and type sizes... - Ian Petrie, LED 2064 Whooops... heres the link http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/em/ This link, in particular, stood out as it looks at CSS solutions for displaying varying type sizes. Ian Petrie MD Vetlist Ltd www.any-uk-vet.co.uk Find your nearest UK Veterinary Practice ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Bill Davison Subject: Typography I wonder if many are not forgetting - if you use one of your fancy fonts in text on your website - that fancy font may not appear on the viewer's screen! That is because that person's computer may not have that fancy font in their library and therefore, will automatically go to their default font. Yes, you can insure the fancy font appears if you include it in a graphic but too many graphics make the site display SLOWLY! Speed, speed and more speed is the name of the game in today's internet website design. This of course means those with the clever Macromedia movies often impress the teeny boppers, and yes, they win art awards but... they lose sales. Bill Davison bizwebpage.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Malcolm Bailey Subject: Display size Happy New Year everybody, Having used the new year to make a break from full time employment to pursue other ventures (mostly still 'e' related and all funded by freelance work) I'll be less of a LED lurker and hopefully a more active participant. I just thought I had to comment on a few things after reading Peter D'Aprix's post [issue 2064] in which he refers to a recent site: (http://patinawoodfloors.com) Peter states his target audience and their variety of screen resolutions yet he forces them all to work at the lowest common denominator by not only resizing the width of the browser but also the height - this is a terrible mistake, for people on larger monitors you are making them scroll to see content when they otherwise could have it all on screen at once if they so choose. You're actively making an effort to make it harder for visitors to view your content! I know I'm not personally part of the target audience, but I find window resizing of almost any type to be very annoying - especially when it's done on every page in a site. (If I load your site and resize the first page I see - chances are that's what I'll want throughout the rest of the site, not to have it jump around every time I go to a new page.) Other points of note include the use of Times New Roman as the set font - having "been in the photography / advertising business for about 30 years" I'm surprised he elected to use this font as it's primarily a print font rather than a screen font (notice how badly the edges appear, especially when bold) - now his target audience may prefer to print pages out in which case this is a valid choice (best practice would obviously be setting separate CSS for print and screen although budget may not have allowed for this?) One other final improvement I'd suggest is to give users some visual clue about where links are located in the page - you only get feedback where links are by waving your mouse all over the place - there's no indication when scanning the page (that's why in the good old days all links were underlined - now designers seem to think that unfashionable) On a totally unrelated note I was wondering if Edwin Hayward was going to return and peer into his crystal ball to make predictions for the forthcoming year as he used to? - I used to enjoy reading them and his end of year analysis... Take care all and have a prosperous 2006, Malcolm Bailey http://www.aethon.co.uk ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Display-size and what's the site for? > By the way, if you're not using the highest resolution > that your monitor can provide, you're missing out on > the big picture (pun intended). - Karl L. Baldwin, LED 2064 Ah Karl. Say that when you're the same age as many of the readers of this list. A lot of people don't have the choice of using the highest resolution and getting the 'big picture'. They wouldn't be able to read a thing. > It's the same difference as watching > regular TV or High Definition TV. Not at all. A higher resolution on a computer monitor shrinks everything. A higher resolution on a TV gives you the same size picture more clearly. Well said Peter D'Aprix... > I could not agree more with M. Shabeer [issue 2062]. > Everything about a web site should be directed at the > target audience, not what one designer likes as a > personal preference. I would just add that the client's personal preference may also be irrelevant. Most of my clients know little of marketing and next to nothing about what works on the Web. While being diplomatic, it is sometimes necessary to point out that their personal preference matters little against what will work. I have been asked the same two questions over and over - some variation on, "Why don't I get more visitors to my site?" or "Why don't more of our visitors buy?" My reply is (briefly), "Well a website is a marketing tool, right?" The look puzzled and slowly say, "Well, yes.", looking at me with a "well, duh" expression. Then I say, "So which marketing specialist or web marketing specialist did you have helping you plan, build and promote your site?" Inevitably, their eyes widen and their mouths open slightly as they get it. So I'm getting around to saying EVERYTHING about the site should be directed to the target audience --- from the perspective of the site as a marketing tool. The whole project needs to be planned strategically. The site needs to be crafted as the best marketing / sales tool it can be. And then the site needs to be promoted effectively. Every factor should serve and support the marketing purpose of the site --- and that most definitely includes design and technology, the two factors that most often stray from a 'support the marketing' role to ascend inappropriately into predominance. Michael Linehan Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Display size In commenting on my earlier post, M. Shabeer, LED 2062 wrote: > Based on the demographic data, corporate professionals do > tend to use 1024 * 768. Most of them also use laptops... > 800 * 600 for the rest of the world because thats what the > MAJORITY use... The data on the target audience - found > from server logs, case studies and experience. That is screen size, but what do the logs, case studies, and experience say about browser window size used by these corporate professionals? And what is magic about "corporate professional"? The computer smarts of an IT professional is likely significantly different from a lawyer or an accountant "corporate professional" who may not know a great deal more about computer settings than a non-professional home user. Bear in mind when looking at demographic data that statistics can be used to prove almost anything if one is not careful on how the numbers are used. > ... there are ways to know the exact browser window size of the > user. I can't speak for the others, but based on the data I have, > people who resize their windows are a very small majority. I expect you meant "small minority". In any case, you are really just confirming my point. You may have ways to know the exact browser window size, but not until the browser actually gets the page. At that point, if the user is running 700 pixels wide, it is a little late to redesign a page created for a specific width of 1024 to fit a width of 700. > We don't care about the height (unless it's some kind > of tricky design that might break) simply because people > don't mind scrolling up or down. Sidewise scrolling is > what people hate the most. That's why width becomes > so important. There used to be GREAT concern over height and ensuring that the critical content display "above the fold" so the user would not have to scroll down because "users hating having to scroll down". And that was in the days when the common height was 480 pixels. Interesting how "best design practices" change. > It is very, very difficult to create a design that can > accomodate content within every possible width. > So the best a designer can do is to try and ensure > that the design doesn't break or messes up for > the majority. That confirms exactly what I said. Designing to a specific width makes life easier *for the designer*, but does not necessarily make life better for the surfer. I totally agree that is is difficult (difficult, not impossible) to create a good design that can accomodate every possible width but that is what a really good designer should be attempting (within reason, of course - I would suggest the page should display reasonably well at anything from 600 or 700 pixels wide up to the screen max). And in commmenting on my statement [issue 2062], "And Stop Assuming That Everyone Runs Their Browsers Maxed ...", he said: > The irony is, you are making the same assumption - just > because you resize the browser window to a certain size > doesn't mean that everyone too does the same. I totally disagree that I am making any assumption other than the FACT that I cannot know in advance what size (height and width) a surfer will be using for his / her browser so designing to specific dimensions is almost always a bad move. About the only exception to that would be if you were designing for a corporate environment where company policy dictated monitor size of specified width and height and that all users were required to run browsers full screen. > Trust me, a good designer always keeps his / her > target audience in mind. Always. It is interesting to me to watch how times change and how designers seem to magically know all about their "target audience". Right now the discusssion revolves around monitor size. It was not all that long ago when we had heated discussions using similar logic (keeping the target audience in mind) about things like frames. Designers loved frames as they gave lots of page layout control and they argued that they "kept their target audience in mind" in designing framed sites. Notice how framed sites seem to be the exception now. What happened to that "target audience"?. Same can be said for Flash animations. Keeping the "target audience in mind", Flash showed up in the most inappropriate (and annoying) places. Designers seemed to love doing splash screens in Flash. While such screens still appear occasionally, they are now rare, and Flash now mostly appears only where it is really appropriate and the best choice for the animation and, more important, where it won't break the page if the surfer does not have the player installed. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Chatterton Subject: Skimming (solution) > If most of us DO indeed skim, then we should really > start writing to cater to that habit, right? Then again - > when real substance and quality information are being > presented, keeping it tight and simple sometimes > just ain't possible... - Mada Tuedate, LED 2063 Of course! Here's the solution to skimming surfers... Newspapers and traditional magazines were originally DESIGNED for skimming, due to heavy competition. (Old methods never die; they evolve.) Use the journalism method. In your first paragraph, headline, or textbox, try and mention as much as you can, the who / what / where / when or why of your business information. A good site probably reads like an interactive magazine cover, with links to finish a thought from the main page, just like magazines do. BTW - Today's spiders behave much like a robo skimming sufer... looking for relevant content, so you'll probably hit two birds with one stone...with persistent effects. I hope this helps. Tom Chatterton, CMT Webmaster of amazingmassage.com and The Ohio Chapter of the Mars Society. (chapters.marssociety.org/usa/oh) ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Kathy Wilson Subject: Skimming Jakob Nielsen, probably the greatest source for website usability issues addressed this issue years ago, and his article (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html) is still relevant today. Interestingly, I'm noticing that the formatting for printed books is now beginning to mimic the way we write for the web, i.e., bullets, shorter paragraphs, sans serif fonts, and a blank line between paragraphs. Love, Kathy Wilson http://www.under-one-roof.net Life Purpose Coaching ~ Spiritual Teaching ~ Vibrational Healing ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Anson Subject: eBay I'd like to thank David Spahr [issue 2063] for his insights into using eBay as a website marketing tool. I'm just wondering if anyone knows of a good resource for learning more on how it can be done right. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials www.therapeutic-grade.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. "One thousand days to learn; ten thousand days to refine." - Japanese Proverb |
