W3C Gets a Makeover

mk27 while I agree with you that users should not be forced I support fixed-width sites. I think it is much more consistent for all users without them having to resize their browsers. IMO having to resize your browser for a bunch of websites that display lines a mile long is much more irritating. The fact that the majority of websites joebert pointed out do use fixed-width is not analogous to "most people will help destroy the planet", fluid width had it's rave a couple years ago and I think now people are coming back to their senses.

I would be happy with an experiment like this.

A website would run a layout that used a fluid width for one year, and then ran a fixed width layout the following year.

When using the fluid layout the articles would be split into two pages, when the layout was fixed the articles would be split into 3 pages. The ONLY things that would change between the two years are the layout being fixed or fluid and the page count, every single other aspect including font selection/etc would remain the same.

At the end of those two years, see how many people clicked through to the second page on the fluid layout, and see how many people clicked through to the 3rd page on the fixed width layout.

I'd love to see the results.

Well, even tho I said I wasn't trying to win a popularity contest, the fixed width is probably not the "reason" for it. Those sites could all go fluid tomorrow. I am pretty sure most of them do this for simplicity, not because it makes the interface "nicer". Also, I think it is symptomatic of a tendancy to "dumb-down" the user: you make it as foolproof as possible for an average, which is to say, a person that does certain average (most popular) things, which that was all based on the same circular reasoning: some market research guy says "We want a popular site, better make it look like all the other popular sites". This is very different than responding to user feedback, which I suspect most of those have a very poor and neglected means for that. As I said, the user response to the new perldoc was OVERWHELMINGLY negative (of course, they are all programmers)*.

It's also like you put training wheels on your kid's bike and never took them off, because that is what the kid is used to and s/he doesn't need to understand anything beyond that.

I'd also point out that most of those sites do not really present much text except for various short blurbs. I'd be right p-off's if one day wikipedia (which presents primarily long text articles) showed up in my browser with a fixed width:

This article is
about the moon. The
moon is in the sky.

That's a poem, not an article Like I said, most of the sites I frequent are very text oriented, like forums and doc sites.



Hey cipher: that would be a fixed width problem. A fluid width site will never present anything exceeding the width of the window. That is why it is not called "fixed width".

* and notice, the developer explicitly decided to ignore all that, because he wants his site to look "just so".



It is analogous in the sense that "the majority" are subject to lemming-like behavior patterns -- that people eat at McDonald's is not really evidence that McDonals's is good food. Of course, if you want lemming$$$ for an audience, this is important. And understood. Very different than saying you have any real interest in the lemmings themselves.

The reason fixed-width sites have increased in prevalence is because of news sites owned by newspapers beginning to have a significant presence. I am sure this whole thing originates with the London Times "study".

This is assuming everything uses the same size sidebars.

Is perldoc sniffing operating systems or something ?
Maybe they reverted to the old layout ?

I saw this new UI that was mentioned yesterday when I was on windows, but now that I'm on Linux today I'm seeing a bland old layout.

I'm on linux, I'm still getting the new one. It's a little hard to tell at 1:2, but this is also another illustration of the pitfalls presuming the user does not use an min font (there is all kinds of text overlap in the side and title bars). Now, if this were a doc page, you are getting <50% of the content per screenful vs. the old fluid width site, on a widescreen monitor*. And what replaces it? Empty space on the outside and some junk in the sidebars that would be much better as a menu. That is like the worst use of "whitespace" I can concieve of. It's like a cartoon panel where everything is scrunched into the center -- sometimes overlapping! -- and then most of the frame, nothing. Beyond it's "popularity" I have not seen much defence of this strategy, perhaps because it is hard to come up with anything believable?

Witness, even if you go to a doc page, there are still TWO sidebars that occupy 40% of the width. Totally nuts IMO. I actually kinda like the colors tho. DM and I are clearly in polar opposition

*that is a real problem if you are reading serious text, and want to look back at what you just read without losing site of where you are. Not so serious if the page is all short blurbs.

mk, I think you're dismissing perfectly good arguments over and over again because of your own preference. You haven't made your case in doing this. In most instances, you've attacked the ambiguous opposition by labeling them with disparaging monikers. (e.g. loser consultants, lemmings, average
== popularity contest
== obviously bad
== st00pid popular people). I think you'd advance your argument(s) more if you weren't being condescending and insulting.

The way you express yourself, however, is common to almost everyone I've known who was ADHD. They express themselves in matter-of-fact absolutes which don't resound with most of us lemmings. (I don't really consider ADHD to be legitimate, but that's an argument for another day.)

No individual in this thread has been able to provide any solid empirical evidence on way or the other. We are all offering opinion and preference based on our own experience and knowledge.

Is it wrong to design for the largest cross-section of users? Hell no! For most of us, it's our job.

The reasons for a fixed width site are clear to many of us, whether you dismiss those reasons out of hand, or not. For many of us, they are a neater and cleaner presentation. The tend to make for more consistency between pages especially when content types and quantities fluctuate. We, as designers and developers, like to maintain the same general appearance and size from one display to the next because of predictability. A fixed width site can be made more aesthetically pleasing. A fixed width site can be made more graphically intensive.

Full width sites tend to be boring. The tend to be "Just the facts, ma'am." Designers who make sites like that don't get employed as designer too often.

You complain about expanding background areas, but as I see it, people don't notice this, in a well designed site. I've had this conversation too many times...

*********************

Person: We love the design, but we're worried about all this wasted space.

Me: What wasted space?

Person: When my browser is full screen, there's all this wasted space on the sides.

Me: Do me a favor, make your browser full screen.

Person: Ok.

Me: Now go to your favorite news site.

Person: (Pause) OMG! I never noticed that before!

Me: You want to switch your display over to 800 x 600 now?

Person: Uh...no, that's ok.

*********************

You're very fond of lecturing to us that the internet isn't a magazine or newspaper. Guess what? It's not a TV either.

My son is 9. He has a wide screen display. He's already mastered having one window open to YouTube with Krypto the Super Dog, one window open with Poptropica and one window open to his classroom's web page. He arranges them all the screen so he can see everything at once. They're all fixed width sites. He isn't FEELING any lack of ability because of that - he's completely and totally fine with it. I'm pretty sure the thought never crossed his mind.

What makes text "serious" or not is subjective. To you the short blurb may not be serious, to others, it's quite serious.

One last link and I'm done with this thread (it's now giving me a headache even though it's a liquid design)...
http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/

Holy columns, Batman!

That is about as off the wall an ad hominem attack as I can imagine, which clearly would be impossible to respond to (since I am now an ADHD person -- I bet you have a beef w/ homosexuals as well). I could just as easily say that everyone I have known who was a Christian tended toward expressing themselves in "matter-of-fact absolutes" -- ie, that they are satisfied with dogma, and not rationalism. Which is true.

(I don't really consider God to be legitimate, but that's an argument for another day).

Another problem with Christians is they seem to believe that "democracy" means the majority can or could dictate the (harmless) private behavior of private individuals, such as what width a page should be, or that we all must say morning prayers at school, or that homosexuality is a satanic perversion. That is totalitarian fascism.

I do agree we are talking about preferences. I completely disagree with every premise here (it's DOGMA):



However, at least it is a response to my statement that the only defence made so far was based on "poplularity" -- which it was, that is not a put-down. I agree, fixed-width is popular. So's God. But like I said before, I do not respect something JUST BECAUSE IT IS POPULAR. That's a no-brainer.

Also, by contrasting "serious" text to blurbs, I meant the length, not the content. As in, you can fit a blurb in a 2"x2" space. You cannot fit a 500 word article.



Yes FLUID columns. They ARE NOT fixed width. Also, your son deserves a choice -- not a way to make the browser suit the page. If he doesn't want to use it fullscreen, that's fine. But this is far more likely to become a problem with fixed width pages than fluid ones.

ps. your contention that "ADHD is not legitimate" is not RATIONALLY compatible with your contention that people with a condition which does not exist all behave the same way...nasty!

To me it seems like a good idea to adopt some of the ideas from newspapers. After all, we're talking about a publication that has been around for centuries featuring text and advertising. I know many web designers who look down on sites laid out in columns, often berating them for being too newspaper-like . Personally I ask myself questions like: Would this be easy for the user to read? Does all the information get across in a meaningful way?...

I have not done much digging to see whether there has been serious research into this subject; however, it seems like common sense can come into play. For me it is difficult to read and stay engaged with content written with very long lines, and it's fair to speculate that most people do to, so my conclusion would be to keep them reasonably sized. 60 - 80 chars per line seems comfortable. That is just a suggestion though because I am sure we can go on for years about how long is too long.

Right. My contention is you can use a fluid width, allowing the user to determine the line length with the width of the window. Hence, the user has more control over the interface, which is probably a better design priority than the one DM advances -- to make it easier for the developer.

As I pointed out to you before, long lines are only a problem in a fixed width space.