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Subject:Screen-sized Web Pages? From:"Peter Ring, PRC" <prc -at- PIP -dot- DKNET -dot- DK> Date:Tue, 12 Nov 1996 09:09:39 +1
Colleagues,
Somebody wrote:
>>I hope this post does not stretch the limits of this list too far.
>>You all seem to be a wealth of information on a broad range of
>>topics.
>>
>>Can anyone suggest web sites to visit where the pages are designed
>>"by the screenful"? I am trying to illustrate to the people I work
>>for/with the value (necessity) of creating our (soon-to-be[?] online)
>>documentation in a more modular fashion. I would like to create a
>>presentation, including screen captures (for moral as well as
>>practical support), of "well designed" documents, i.e. those where
>>scrolling is kept to a minimum and information is presented in
>>concise chunks.
>>
and Keith Soltys replied:
> You could check out Bill Horton's web site -- he's one of the
> authors of The Web Page Design Cookboo, The URL is
>http://www.csn.net/brochure/index.htm. The site is nicely laid out
> and the information is chunked into pieces that should be about one
> screenful on most computers.
I think it's time to stop this nonsense. Why?
"Screen sized websites" is a phantom! Whether it is "screen sized"
or not depends also a lot on which browser you use, the settings of
the browser, and your screen resolution.
If you look at the website Keiths recommends with a Netscape 2+, set
to 14 point Times New Roman at 1280 x 1024, then yes, it's (almost)
screen sized. But if you change the font or the screen resolution,
it's not screen sized any longer. Test it with 800x600: even with a
10 point font, it's not screen sized (it uses approx. 2 screens). Not
to mention if you use another browser like MS Explorer, where you can
easily change the font size. And even worse: If you open it with
Netscape 1, which can't do tables, the headings of the fields are
glued to the end of the previous lines in a very confusing way.
I guess that's why many web designers states "This website is
optimized for Netscape 2.0+", - or whatever they optimized it for.
*** The End ***
Greetings from Denmark
Peter Ring
PRC (Peter Ring Consultants)
- specialists in user friendly manuals and audits on manuals.
prc -at- pip -dot- dknet -dot- dk http://www.pip.dknet.dk/~pip323/index.htm
- the "User Friendly Manuals" website with links, bibliography, list
of prof. associations, and tips for technical writers.
