Michael Hager wrote:
"JARX is unique in the fact that a small amount of space is utilized to
display a sufficiently large amount of information and data."
(The use of "sufficiently large" in this context is interesting. I can't
help but feel what it means is "enough text so that it won't fit in the
little space alloted for it so we can show off our scroller widget.")
This, alas, is not in fact a unique design concept, but, in my opinion,
a foolish one. That little page sits in the upper left corner of my
window, and I have to use non-standard GUI elements to see all of the
content, which, if simply placed on the page, would fit perfectly well.
In a smaller window I might have to scroll vertically, but I have to do
that on many sites and it doesn't bother me, I would be using a
scrollbar I already know how to use, and there would be just one
scrollbar, not three non-standard ones.
Do you enjoy the experience of eating a meal on an airplane? You know,
where you have to keep your elbows at you sides since you don't have
enough room to use you arms in a natural position? And where you have to
keep moving things around on the the tray since there really isn't
enough room? You wouldn't have these problems if there were a decent
amount of surface to eat on.
Using this page feels like that, except there is enough room and they
didn't use it. They just arbitrarily constrained the space so that you
*had* to use their scroller to see everything. If you went to an
expensive restaurant you would never accept the sort of spatial
limitations you endure on an airplane. Why should your site's viewers
endure similar limitations, especially when they are unnecessary? I hope
it's not just so you can show off that you have learned a new trick.
--
James M. Shook
http://www.jshook.com