Re: Critique please

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "SqueakyWee"
<usenet (AT) CUT_ITsqueakywee (DOT) co.uk> writing in
news:1112435582.32263.0 (AT) nnrp-t71-02 (DOT) news.clara.net:

Hello,

I've started designing a fan site for a British television sitcom
(Black Books). At the moment I only have the general layout up, and
would like a critique on the design if possible. The address is
http://www.squeakywee.co.uk/blackbooks/index.htm



Thanks in advance!

Tsk, tsk, tsk! Tables for layout? Ick! Much better, and simpler to use
CSS, eg:

<div id="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="home">Home</a></li>
....
</ul>
</div>
<div id="content">
<h1>Black Books</h1>
<div id="paper">
<p>Text</p>
</div>
</div>


Style the li to use the image as a background, eg:

#menu li {list-style-type: none; background-image:url("labels.gif");
background-repeat: norepeat; width:width px; height:height px}

Headings:
h1 {background-image:url("headings.gif")
}

Main area:
#paper {background-image: mainbg.gif; height:500px; width: width px}

You also need to assign a background color to the page as a whole. People
who do not use white as their window background color see interesting
things, eg
<http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info/usenet/blackbooks.jpg>

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 12:03:10 GMT, Adrienne <arbpen2003 (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net>
wrote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "SqueakyWee"
usenet (AT) CUT_ITsqueakywee (DOT) co.uk> writing in
news:1112435582.32263.0 (AT) nnrp-t71-02 (DOT) news.clara.net:

I've started designing a fan site for a British television sitcom
(Black Books). At the moment I only have the general layout up, and
would like a critique on the design if possible. The address is
http://www.squeakywee.co.uk/blackbooks/index.htm

Tsk, tsk, tsk! Tables for layout? Ick! Much better, and simpler to use
CSS, eg:

div id="menu"
ul
li><a href="home">Home</a></li
...
/ul
/div
div id="content"

Even better to put the list with menu items after the content in the
document flow, and position it with CSS. Helps people without css (like
screen readers) to avoid going over the menu over and over again at the
top of every page in a site.

--
,-- --<--@ -- PretLetters: 'woest wyf', met vele interesses: ----------.

weblog | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html |
webontwerp | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html |
zweefvliegen | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html |
`-------------------------------------------------- --<--@ ------------'

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Barbara de Zoete"
<b_de_zoete (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> writing in newspsoltpvegx5vgts@zoete_b:

On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 12:03:10 GMT, Adrienne <arbpen2003 (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net
wrote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "SqueakyWee"
usenet (AT) CUT_ITsqueakywee (DOT) co.uk> writing in
news:1112435582.32263.0 (AT) nnrp-t71-02 (DOT) news.clara.net:

I've started designing a fan site for a British television sitcom
(Black Books). At the moment I only have the general layout up, and
would like a critique on the design if possible. The address is
http://www.squeakywee.co.uk/blackbooks/index.htm

Tsk, tsk, tsk! Tables for layout? Ick! Much better, and simpler to
use CSS, eg:

div id="menu"
ul
li><a href="home">Home</a></li> ...
/ul
/div
div id="content"

Even better to put the list with menu items after the content in the
document flow, and position it with CSS. Helps people without css (like
screen readers) to avoid going over the menu over and over again at
the top of every page in a site.

Search engines, too.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

In message <opsoltpvegx5vgts@zoete_b>, Barbara de Zoete
<b_de_zoete (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> writes

On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 12:03:10 GMT, Adrienne <arbpen2003 (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net
wrote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "SqueakyWee"
usenet (AT) CUT_ITsqueakywee (DOT) co.uk> writing in
news:1112435582.32263.0 (AT) nnrp-t71-02 (DOT) news.clara.net:

I've started designing a fan site for a British television sitcom
(Black Books). At the moment I only have the general layout up, and
would like a critique on the design if possible. The address is
http://www.squeakywee.co.uk/blackbooks/index.htm

Tsk, tsk, tsk! Tables for layout? Ick! Much better, and simpler to use
CSS, eg:

div id="menu"
ul
li><a href="home">Home</a></li
...
/ul
/div
div id="content"

Even better to put the list with menu items after the content in the
document flow, and position it with CSS. Helps people without css (like
screen readers) to avoid going over the menu over and over again at the
top of every page in a site.

No real advantage for AT users.

If you're going to do that, then you need to consider how the user is
going to find the navigation menu from half-way through the content.

If, however, the main navigation menu is always the 2nd item that the
user comes across (after a 'skip navigation; go to content' link) then
it's always available within one or two keystrokes from anywhere in the
content.

Similarly, I would think that most PDA and mobile/cell-phone users would
prefer to have the navigation at the start of the display -- especially
those that are CSS-deficient (but I stand to be corrected on this last
point).

regards.
--
Jake

jake wrote:

Even better to put the list with menu items after the content in the
document flow, and position it with CSS. Helps people without css (like
screen readers) to avoid going over the menu over and over again at the
top of every page in a site.

No real advantage for AT users.

If you're going to do that, then you need to consider how the user is
going to find the navigation menu from half-way through the content.

If, however, the main navigation menu is always the 2nd item that the
user comes across (after a 'skip navigation; go to content' link) then
it's always available within one or two keystrokes from anywhere in the
content.

Similarly, I would think that most PDA and mobile/cell-phone users would
prefer to have the navigation at the start of the display -- especially
those that are CSS-deficient (but I stand to be corrected on this last
point).

I think you're right. I have a cell phone with which I can surf normal
web pages (even with a bit of CSS), and scrolling is slow. I like to
see the navigation first (with the skip to content link at the top),
so that I have a choice. (unless the content would have a 'skip to
navigation' link at the top and after every 2 paragraphs or so maybe)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

kchayka wrote:

Els wrote:

I have a cell phone with which I can surf normal
web pages (even with a bit of CSS), and scrolling is slow. I like to
see the navigation first (with the skip to content link at the top),
so that I have a choice.

I don't have a mobile device to test with, so tell me what happens when:

- The navbar is first (with or without a skip link)
- You scroll through some content, and decide you want to go back to the
navbar

Do you have to scroll back up? If so, what's the real advantage to
having the navbar first?

With the navbar first, I have a choice of which page I want to read.
After arriving at that page, I already know that I do want to read the
content, and I can use the skip link.

In the event that I find I'm mistaken, and the content is boring or
irrelevant to what I want to read, it's faster to scroll back up - or
at least, it seems faster to me. My guess is that once the content has
been displayed, it's in a cache memory or something that makes it
faster to scroll back than to scroll down. I often have to wait whilst
scrolling down, for a new amount of text to be displayed. Haven't
noticed that when scrolling up.

But apart from the scroll-speed, I personally like to have the navbar
first, to make an informed choice of content to read.
Another thing is, that while PC screens are wide enough to show long
lines of text next to a narrow navigation bar on the side, a phone
screen isn't that wide (mine is only 3cm wide), and scrolling content
almost always takes waaaaaay longer than scrolling the navigation.

And last but not least (just tested to be sure): if I have used the
skip navigation link to get to the content, I can press the
'back-button' at any given place in the content, and be right back at
the top of the window at the skip navigation link.

(if I scrolled to the content, the back-button will take me -
obviously - to the previous page)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -