Extreme Confusion

If you're going to create using a medium,
then learn the strengths and weaknesses of the medium,
and design your creation accordingly.
Fighting the very nature of the medium is futile.

Unlike ice, marble, clay, and wood, the medium here is the
general-purpose computer. It is malleable. The folks at Adobe looked at
a similar, unexceptable circumstance and answered it with the PDF.
We're taking baby steps in the same direction with the web. We know
what colors, textures, and fonts will appear in our PDFs, and we know
what colors, textures, and fonts will appear when someone browses our
website. We do not think it is unreasonable to want this. The medium is
sub-standard and defective. Let's not accept it, let's fix it.

help (AT) osmosian (DOT) com wrote:

Thanks for the constructive criticism. Here's the problem.
On your T&C page you say that we can't know:

- How big the user's browser window is, in either inches or pixels.
- What fonts the user will actually see.
- What size those fonts will appear.
- What text foreground and background colors the user will see.

And we say, yes. Normally true.

Which is what the pages are about.

But COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE.

An opinion, the opposite of truth. Based on the capitalization, I infer
that you are irritated by these particular truths. Fair enough. Lots
of truths irritate me too.

Imagine going to a printer to get some business cards, and he says:

- I can't tell you what size they will be.
- I can't guarantee which font I'll actually use.
- I can't guarantee where on the card or how big those (undefined)
fonts will appear.
- I can't tell you what color paper or ink I'll be using.

Would say OK? Or look for another printer?

I would look for another printer. Print media is deterministic.

We looked for another printer. And he said...

- Since we can't know how big the window is, let's pick a minimum and
center the work.

You can do that. But since you don't KNOW how big the window will
actually be, you also need to define what should happen when the window
is larger or smaller than the value you picked.

If the window is larger:
- You can leave the layout unchanged, but enlarge the outermost
margins on all sides.
- You can spread the visual elements out over the larger space,
keeping the relationships between them.
- You can allow some elements to change in size or shape (e.g. the
length of text lines) to flow into the larger space.
- You can do nothing and leave the original layout tucked into the
upper-left corner of the screen.

If the window is smaller:
- You can allow visual elements to come closer to each other or alter
their relative positions so that they appear as a vertical stack within
a narrowed window, rather than side-by-side. (Vertical scrolling is
generally regarded as expected by the user; horizontal scrolling is not,
hence the preference for vertical organization in a constrained space).
- You can allow some elements to change in size or shape (e.g. the
length of text lines, image size) to flow into the smaller space.
- You can leave the layout unchanged and require the user to scroll
down or to the right to see it all.

- Let's guarantee the font by using anti-aliased pictures of it.

You can do that.

Users of many browsers (Opera is an exception; it resizes both images
and text, but creates scroll bars when things are enlarged) will not be
able to resize the text to make it more readable. Many users prefer
larger text (that's why your bookstore sells large-print books; the
print medium does not allow you to change text size without acquiring a
whole new book).

The picture of the letter 'a' will be a certain number of pixels wide.
If the display has very small (i.e. closely-spaced) pixels, the picture
of the letter 'a' will be smaller (in terms of viewing angle at a
specified viewing distance) than it would be on a cheaper, large-pixel
device. This could cause users of expensive displays to have trouble
reading your text.

Users of screen readers or audible UAs will be dependent on your alt=
text in order to read your message.

Search engines may or may not use your alt= text to index the site. In
the latter case, they will have nothing to index. This could change if
and when search engines learn to do character recognition.

- Let's guarantee the size and placement of text by using only pictures
of it.

Ditto.

In addition, this seems (technology is constantly changing) to prevent
lengthening or shortening of text lines on the fly, eliminating some of
the options described above regarding window size.

- Let's guarantee the colors by making them part of the pictures.

I'm not aware of any difficulty in guaranteeing colors, other than
faulty adjustments of the display device, which pictures would not correct.

Locking in your own colors prevents the user from using their own style
sheet. People with macular degeneration (an increasing percentage of
us) sometimes find it much easier to read white text against a black
background. Pictures would make that impossible.

And we said, It's not perfect, but it's better than giving up and
accepting something that's

COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE.

Thoughts?

There have been times when I thought that gravity was completely
unreasonable. I've learned that:
1. I can't change it.
2. I can learn to work with it (and get it to work with me) to get the
results I want. (Well, OK, I haven't quite mastered flying yet, but...)

Chris Beall

help (AT) osmosian (DOT) com wrote:

Responding to "Alan J. Flavell".

We don't agree with your analogy. A single "kind" of garment - basic
style and especially color and material - can be made in different
sizes without losing its "character". We don't think its unreasonable
to expect computers of the twenty-first century to preserve our layout,
colors, and fonts. PDFs do.

Can you sell a programming language dynamically with a pdf document?

It's not just the computers you're dealing with, it's the users of those
computers. Not every *user* will have the same preferences for color,
font, text size, window size, browser, O/S, etc.

But OUR website is OUR brochure for OUR product.
WE should be able to determine what OUR brochure looks like.

We don't need a "dynamic" document to describe our product. And if we
didn't have to process credit cards, we would just put a PDF out.

I wrote:

If you're going to create using a medium,
then learn the strengths and weaknesses of the medium,
and design your creation accordingly.
Fighting the very nature of the medium is futile.

<help (AT) osmosian (DOT) com> wrote:

Unlike ice, marble, clay, and wood, the medium here is the
general-purpose computer.

No, the medium here is the web.

We're taking baby steps in the same direction with the web. We know
what colors, textures, and fonts will appear in our PDFs, and we know
what colors, textures, and fonts will appear when someone browses our
website.

What about browsers and other user agents that don't use colors, textures,
or fonts at all?
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew (AT) stanfordalumni (DOT) org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin (AT) htmlhelp (DOT) com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Good teachers are costly. Bad teachers cost more." - Bob Talbert

I can learn to work with it (and get it to work with me) to get the results I want.

And that's what we did, and are doing. When the user's window is too
small, for example, we want him to know it. So we let our picture get
"cut off". This tells him that if he wants to view the document as the
designer intended, he should make his window bigger.

We're just "working with it" without accepting the unreasonable - that
a graphic designer has to work without three of the most basic things
that make a design a design - color, font, and placement.

The beauty of the web is that it naturally adapts to all these things.
It was designed to do so.

Don't be silly. The web was designed as a unix-like file transfer
utility, and nothing more. The kluge we now have is the result of
patches, quick fixes, market-driven changes, etc. It was not "designed"
in any meaningful sense of the word.

<help (AT) osmosian (DOT) com> wrote:

But OUR website is OUR brochure for OUR product.
WE should be able to determine what OUR brochure looks like.

Oh, absolutely. It's yours to do with as you want. (Assuming you aren't
subject to accessibility laws in your country.)

Why you would want to give me a blank beige brochure is beyond me though.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew (AT) stanfordalumni (DOT) org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin (AT) htmlhelp (DOT) com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Good teachers are costly. Bad teachers cost more." - Bob Talbert

help (AT) osmosian (DOT) com wrote:

I can learn to work with it (and get it to work with me) to get the results I want.


And that's what we did, and are doing. When the user's window is too
small, for example, we want him to know it. So we let our picture get
"cut off". This tells him that if he wants to view the document as the
designer intended, he should make his window bigger.
help,

Um, and if I'm using a PDA or a cell phone, how exactly would I do that?

We're just "working with it" without accepting the unreasonable - that
a graphic designer has to work without three of the most basic things
that make a design a design - color, font, and placement.

Plumbers do not necessarily make good electricians.

Graphic designers do not necessarily make good web designers, as you
have discovered.

Chris Beall