Sunday, February 09, 2003

Website Peeves

Nothing bugs me more still then a poorly designed website... just because folks have 1024x768 (or 1280x1024 or 1440x1050, or 1600x1200 -- yes, I run at all of those resolutions on various systems)... doesn't mean that we like to browse with the IE/Netscape window maximized. (In fact, I would say my web browser is currently sized at about 900x600 on the laptop.) Some of us like to see more then one thing on the screen at a time. So sites that ask / require me to size my browser window much more then 900pix wide come across as user-hostile.

The big downfalls that I've seen in website designs are:

- sites that require browser width to something more then 1000 pixels wide (anything more then 800 is pushing it, and text areas should normally be < 600pix wide so that the eye can follow and track normally sized text... and that's real rough rule of thumb).

- sites that specify point sizes on fonts (ever seen 6pt type on a 1600x1200 resolution 19" screen?) stick to "medium" "x-small", "xx-small", etc... in your style sheets -- this lets those who need text larger/smaller to use the View->Text Size menu command in IEv6.

- designs that don't "flex" when then user changes the size of the browser window. Leave expansion space in the horizontal plane so that the site still looks reasonable at 600pix wide or 1200pix wide. Personally, I shoot for 800-900pix wide, but try to keep it so it scales down to 600-700pix wide without mangling itself too badly.

- sites that require javascript be turned on in order to display properly... or permanent cookies... the only sites that I allow those privleges are those that I'm going to purchase something from

Not saying I haven't broken any/all of those rules on websites that I've been involved with... (this site's CSS file is still a work in progress).

posted by Wuphon's at 9:42 PM