Tiny text makes Nielsen's list

Megan posted this at 15:23 — 6th October 2005.

Joined: Jun 1999

Normally I'm not a big fan of the guy but I have to cheer this one:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

Whoo-hoo, finally, tiny text makes it to the big time

Quote: I view it as a personal failure that Flash collected the bronze medal for annoyance. It's been three years since I launched a major effort to remedy Flash problems and published the guidelines for using Flash appropriately. When I spoke at the main Flash developer conference, almost everybody agreed that past excesses should be abandoned and that Flash's future was in providing useful user interfaces.

Typical.

Also on #6.

IU also agree with #10 on inadequate photo enlargement. I was looking up some travel information recently and couldn't believe how many sites didn't even have photo enlargements. Hello??!??! That's key information here!

Quote: This year's list of top problems clearly proves the need to get back to Web design basics. There's much talk about new fancy "Web 2.0" features on the Internet industry's mailing lists and websites, as well as at conferences. But users don't care about technology and don't especially want new features.

I tend to agree with this as well. It's become so clear to me recently that so many "web designers" don't even know what the basics are!

Megan
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bja888 (not verified) posted this at 15:31 — 6th October 2005.

They have: 5,633 posts

Joined: Jan 1970

Its sad isn't it..

demonhale posted this at 01:33 — 7th October 2005.

He has: 3,278 posts

Joined: May 2005

I second the motion...

Renegade posted this at 08:26 — 7th October 2005.

He has: 3,022 posts

Joined: Oct 2002

Yes!

Quote:
9. Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths
Complaints here fell into two categories:

* On big monitors, websites are difficult to use if they don't resize with the window. Conversely, if users have a small window and a page doesn't use a liquid layout, it triggers insufferable horizontal scrolling.
* The rightmost part of a page is cut off when printing a frozen page. This is especially true for Europeans, who use narrower paper (A4) than Americans.

Font sizes are a related issue. Assuming a site doesn't commit mistake #1 and freeze the fonts, users with high-resolution monitors often bump up the font size. However, if they also want to bump up the window size to make the bigger text more readable, a frozen layout thwarts their efforts.

The very worst offenders are sites that freeze both the width and height of the viewport when displaying information in a pop-up window. Pop-ups are a mistake in their own right. If you must use them, don't force users to read in a tiny peephole. At an absolute minimum, let users resize any new windows.

I HATE sites with a fixed width.

robfenn posted this at 11:53 — 7th October 2005.

He has: 471 posts

Joined: Jun 2005

I really, really hate that guy. Someone should tell him that if you're really that butt ugly DON'T put a picture up on your homepage! Having said that, his website is so damn ugly it takes the attention of him, slightly

He hasn't got one bit of design DNA in him, and so his statements are always one sided. You just know if you met him he'd be an arrogant, smug git.

I'd love to slap him.

-Rob

Megan posted this at 13:57 — 9th October 2005.

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

LOL, that's good Rob. I actually found a post about this on a popular blogging site (456 Berra St. - forget the actually spelling). It really makes me when other web designers - espeically well respect ones - cowtow to him like that!

Megan
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