Hello Raymond!

> >I'd like talk about "interfaces".
> >Is important for you make a different "style"
> >for the interface and the
> >content ???
> 
> Of course, any design-related talk is purely subjective and based on
> personal style, taste and ideology. 

Not true. Graphics design as it relates to 'getting along with the 
real world' goes back a looong way. 

> However, interface design is a subject matter all its own and is an
> interesting area of discussion for me.

Cool. Relation to 'computer' interface is more recent, but
everything preceding it is relevant, just more finely tuned to
limited screen sizes and colors and such.

> I see the "interface" not only as the element through which the user
> interacts with the content, but also as an integral component of the
> content as a whole.

> I believe that a page should have a "look" or "style" if you will,
> but that the interface should look and feel as though it is an
> integral part of the overall page's aesthetic layout.

Absolutely. Interface at it's best is content; less 'intrusive'.

> For me, the best interfaces are those which are not "interfaces" -
> meaning, those interfaces that appear out of the content and are at
> one with the information being presented. This kind of interface is
> the hardest to create, and involves the most work for it to be
> effective and be done right

Damn near infinitely difficult on the web. This one is very good, but 
there are always limitations:

> (http://entertainment.digital.com/StatesOfArt). 

Maybe CSS could do better, but under NN3/Win16, with font set larger 
than the default 11pt, the arc to the left of the first paragraph 
'separates' from the rocket image. Not devastating, but demonstrates 
how difficult it is to connect 'text' with 'images'.

> The next level down from this is an interface that works along-side
> the content, but is designed in a way to be pleasing to the eye
> (http://www.rpirouz.com/click/contents.htm). 

I like this one a lot. It's rather 'fixed' in that it's more
difficult to 'add links' at the top without getting 'too wide' for 
the screen, but it's 'cleaner' in that as I scroll down the nav bar 
'goes away', scrolls off the top. Even as an opening screen, as the 
eye scans from left to right reading the text it's not 'interrupted' 
by the usual 'left margin nav bar'.

The only problem with both of these sites is that they're pretty 
nasty under Lynx. Not critical, they're obviously more 'multimedia' 
oriented, but wouldn't have been difficult to make them more 'text 
friendly'.

> The next level down from this is a simple list of links acting as
> an interface, prevalent in many of today's "coolest" web site
> designs (the left-column link-o-rama navigation deal-a-ma-bob).

And these fail when the margin is dark with light text, the 'main 
screen' is light with dark text, but whatever widget used to force 
the margin fails and the nav text writes illegibly over the main 
screen.

Wish we had a -design list. Need to keep this all graphics related to 
stay on topic.

The toughest part about graphics/interface is connecting 'images'
with 'ideas'. The NetForum 'BBS' message software is excellent.
Example:

http://www.corpus-delicti.com/cgi-bin/netforum/forum/irving/3--1.1

'Expand' makes sense once one knows how NetForum works. But the
concept of 'view topics' is literally -impossible- to render as an
image, and I'm looking at the 'new' image and can't even figure out
what it's supposed to represent.

The images are so unrelated to the links behind them that I gave up
and fell back to 'text images':

http://www.thesurvey.com/cgi-bin/netforum/teachstr/a/14--1.1.1

But the more I look at this the less I like the background image in 
that site: too intrusive, gonna have to work on that.

Have a :) day!

jim barchuk
mailto:jb(at)jbarchuk.com
http://www.jbarchuk.com

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