Re: 1st Web Page

by "Peter Cooper" <peter(at)bizuk.net>

 Date:  Sat, 22 May 1999 03:52:41 +0100
 To:  "Craig Harding" <guide(at)ao.net>,
"Anna Marxer" <annalee_m(at)hotmail.com>,
"Critique List" <hwg-critique(at)mail.hwg.org>
 References:  hotmail ao
  todo: View Thread, Original
Overall your comments were fair and insightful Craig, I just
felt I had to say something about some of them. No
disrespect intended. Merely for the sake of discussion and
debate.

> 2. That is a terrible background color. At high
resolution, it is nearly
> impossible to read your page. The blue on pink links are
even more
> impossible to read. Wild color combination don't make a
cool site.

On my 19" I have no problems, although I do have it color
synced, so I guess I'm in a little more favorable position
than those with blurry 15" monitors :)

> 5. Learn how to put your text into columns or narrower
spaces. The eye
> doesn't like to read a row more than about 2 to 3 inches
in width. With
> a 18 inch monitor set at 1024 resolution, your text gets
to be nearly 10
> inches across. Have fun learning this. Learn tables.

People usually don't run their Web browsers at full width,
and in many cases resize their browser to suit their own
reading styles. 100% 'liquid' Web pages aren't particularly
bad, indeed, many usability engineers advocate them. Jakon
Nielsen, of www.useit.com, being the most well known.

> 7. Try using a "sans" font like Verdana for your text.

Why?

Sans-Serif fonts are harder to read in large quantities
(like on Anna's page). Serif's ease reading as the serifs
provide points where the eye moves onto the next letter,
this is proven scientific fact. Sans-serif for headings is
fine, sans typefaces make good titles as they're so clear..
but as lengthly body copy, they don't work particularly
well.

Obviously, there are exceptions. Both Wired and Microsoft
use Verdana, only in short streams though. Plus, this font
is part of their 'style'.

> Just for the heck of it, I redid a little using a 600 wide
table to show
> you what it looks like in a more readable column and not
so centered
> looking. I didn't change much anything else and the code
is dirty. I
> just wanted to let you see the direction that I was
thinking.
> http://www.guidenet.net/anna/

Fair enough, but blue on blue isn't a particular stunning
combination either. It's not much easier to read than the
original, -and- you've made the text bigger. I'd suggest
white on that background.

Regards,
Pete

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