THANK YOU VERY MUCH! None of that ever occurred to me. I will definitely be taking the time to see about fixing it up a bit based on these recommendations. (Won't be for a few weeks, I start holidays tomorrow.)
You've been most helpful Mark. Cheers! On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 5:29 AM, Mark Henderson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Michael Grant wrote: > > Anyone else want to give me an opinion? I figure cf-comm is probably the > > best, well-rounded cross section of tech and design skill around and I'd > > like to make sure I haven't missed anything before we unveil it to the > > client. :D > > > > Michael, > > You asked for it, so here goes! Most of the comments you've received to > date have focused more around look and feel, so I'll take a slightly > different tack. Please don't be offended by what follows. > > I'm not sure how much weight you place on standards, usability, and > accessibility with respect to 'designing for the web', but if any of > those matter to you - in particular usability - then the site has some > problems. > > Question: Do you check your sites across the various browsers at > different resolutions and font sizes to see how they react under > *stress*? Do you also check with JavaScript, images and CSS disabled? > > The reason I ask is because, in order to see what everyone else was > seeing, I had to reset my browser defaults (removing minimum font size > among other things) which indicates an immediate problem. The site is > aesthetically very pleasing when this is done, although then I struggle > to read the text (keratoconus), which is obviously the reason for my > 'larger than average' minimum font size as well as a higher DPI. > However, the layout cannot handle any stress or font re-sizing without > breaking almost immediately, and the W3C recommendation is usability up > to 200% font zoom (obviously this is only best practice and not > mandatory). In all honesty, with my personal settings it was unusable > due to all the fixed height boxes in the layout - not an uncommon > technique when making boxes *pretty*, especially with rounded corners, > and one that I break all the time. Admittedly my defaults are rather > large, but that's the point - it's my environment, not the designers! > Try it for yourself; zoom the text several times (text zoom, not page > zoom) in your preferred browser and watch. I'm on 1024x768px at the > moment so it doesn't take many iterations to blow up, and although I > don't know the client base/intended audience, I'd suggest it's a > resolution that needs catering. Screen shots of first load at my normal > settings attached[1][2]. > > Obviously I'm not suggesting we try and take into consideration every > possible user configuration and design for it. On the contrary in fact - > a site should, in my opinion at least, still be usable and content > accessible under the majority of user settings. To that end there are > some steps designers/developers can take to ensure our sites hold > together under a variety of conditions. The summary version of which is > ... test, test, test ... on multiple browsers, multiple OS platforms, > multiple screen resolutions, with regular and excessive minimum font > sizes, with and without JS, with and without images, with and without > CSS. You've probably heard the saying "the web is not print", and > although it's occasionally misused and even abused, the principle still > holds true[3][4]. BTW, I'm not suggesting you're a print designer! > > No tables for layout (good!) and I see a style sheet, but there's an > incomplete doctype, use of leftmargin. topmargin, marginwidth, and > marginheight on the body, and use of the <center> tag which is > deprecated as well as being superfluous (this is all possibly the result > of a misconfigured editor, but that's just a guess). I recommend > validation as a first step[5] after adding a complete doctype. More on > doctypes here[6][7]. > > There are only a couple of cross-browser issues that I can see. Opera 9 > and10 display a curious chunk of white space between the middle rows > (said space is pushing down the ultimate gift row) and you appear not to > be supporting IE6 and all its weirdness, which I can fully understand. > > And if you're not interested in standards, accessibility, or usability > then you can pretty much forget everything I said, because the client > probably wont even notice! But then again, they aren't paid to notice :-P > > Maureen wrote: > > Very nice. Someday I'm going to figure out how to do those round > corners. > > The basic concept and methodology using images[8], and a more up-to-date > CSS only roundup[9]. > > I'm all done. HTH > > adieu > Mark > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > > [1] http://www.cwc.co.nz/sandbox/sundance1.jpg > [2] http://www.cwc.co.nz/sandbox/sundance2.jpg > [3] http://tiny.cc/ELKbJ > [4] http://tiny.cc/pIMy5 > [5] http://tiny.cc/uUrGk > [6] http://tiny.cc/uOtuU > [7] http://tiny.cc/h6rLa > [8] http://www.alistapart.com/articles/customcorners/ > [9] http://tiny.cc/g67ab > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:297023 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
