Re: Which do you prefer? Why?

Subject: Re: Which do you prefer? Why?
From: Jean Hollis Weber <jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2003 20:24:10 +1000


For me, http://www.editors-writers.info/stpaul5.html is the clear winner. It's a nice clean design, adjusts well to different window or monitor sizes, screen resolutions, and font sizes, and is easy to read even though the first page requires a lot of scrolling. I find that reading multiple columns onscreen is difficult. Some minor problems: the right-hand column is a bit wide and the margins are too large, so the text in that column has little space. This causes a particular problem with the indented material in the regular mass schedule. I also like the background pattern on the left-hand column and the nice strong blue-gray of the right-hand column.

I like the general layout of stpaul3.html, at least the two-column bit, but the margin on the right-hand side seems unnecessarily wide and the three-column bit ends up with very narrow columns because of that, at some font sizes. I would make the left-hand column a bit narrower and the right-hand margin quite a bit narrower. This layout gets my second-place vote, if the problems were cleaned up. It's a bit old-fashioned looked, but not excessively so, and might be suitable for the conservative image of a church.

I don't like stpaul.html because it's a fixed-width layout. I wonder how many members of the target audience might be still using 640x480 screen resolutions? I've been a bit startled recently to discover how many people still have small monitors and/or keep their screen res low for various reasons (including not knowing how to change them). With a fixed-width layout, those folks would need to scroll to see the third column.

stpaul2.html has the same problem.

stpaul4.html is better, because the page width isn't fixed, but I still don't like it. Because it's three columns, at a low screen res (or small window size) the columns get rather narrow and unsightly.

A comment on all the pages:
I congratulate you on not using fixed-sized fonts, so I could view the pages without a lot of hassle (I keep my fonts quite large so I can read them easily). However, at a large font size, the spacing in the text gets quite unsightly in places, because you are using full justification in most places (although this use is a bit inconsistent). Changing to left-aligned would make this look much better at any resolution.

Regards, Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com
The Technical Editors' Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/





^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Order RoboHelp X3 today and receive a $100 mail in rebate and a FREE
WebHelp Merge Module for merging multiple Help systems on any desktop
or server. Order online today at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

A new book on Single Sourcing has been released by William Andrew
Publishing: _Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation_
is now available at: http://www.williamandrew.com/titles/1491.html.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: RE: PopUps or Rollovers in on-line help manual
Next by Author: Re: How is editing organized in your company?
Previous by Thread: RE: PopUps or Rollovers in on-line help manual
Next by Thread: RE: Which do you prefer? Why?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads