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Whoa! I guess "That Darned Content"
hit a chord with many of you. I have had a ton of mail on this topic,
and it seems that I hit into an area that many of you struggle with.
In addition to the many kind words, many of you also said, "And
while you are on this topic, how about ..." I can't say I really
knew I was hitting such a vacant spot (though I would love to claim
that level of intuitiveness), but I am pretty quick to hop on a sequel
when requested.
The most common request was in response to my hints at solutions for
too much content. Many wrote and asked what to do when they could get
no content. I chuckled at one letter that described a client just "wanting
to be on the Web" and perplexed that content was required. Why
are some things just so hard for some people to "get?"
Before I hop on that soapbox, which, with my heavily professional designer
readership would be very much preaching to the choir anyway, I will
move on. Lack of content is addressed later in this article.
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Default size Times Roman is not the best font to use for screen use.
I admit that freely.
Georgia is a better
serif font for screen use, but see how rounded and large the letters
are? More space between lines is required for easy reading.
Arial is a much better font
for screen reading, however, it has the same problem as Georgia. In
fact, even the number of characters in a line is a problem.
Verdana is a wonderfully
legible font when there is sufficient white space in relation to the
character shape.
(Verdana)
When the <font size="2"> tag is applied to the above
fonts, legibility problems go away.
(Arial) The font
can also be resized if the visitor wished to see larger type if you
are using the font tag sizing.
(Georgia)
However, the font tag adds a great deal of code to the page, and cannot
be used with CSS.
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Why not just use a font tag?
Some are not happy with my choice to go with Times Roman as the font
for this column. In the last article, I stated that the restrictions
for creating this column were such that I had to use a default font,
and my decision was that Times Roman, though not as good for character
shape, was better than Arial or Verdana for line spacing. My judgement
call, following much testing, was that the line spacing counted for
more for this column.
So, some wondered, why not just use the font tag? I agree that the
<font size="2"> tag would have made my pages look just
as I wanted. It would leave the font adjustable, and be legible for
everyone. However, there were reasons beyond my personal dislike for
placing a constant tag through my pages.
First up, and this is a big one, the font tag would add a lot of code.
WebReference.com as a whole promotes cleaner code and fast downloads.
There is probably not a single bit of code that can bloat the size of
a page faster than a font tag. Even without the WebReference.com protocol,
Andy King, optimization guru, was my editor at the time. I would still
be working trying to get Andy to approve a font tag in every page of
every article (and would be no closer to approval, I'm sure).
Finally, WebReference.com is a very large operation, with many different
tutorial areas. It is also part of a huge family through Jupitermedia Corp,
our parent company, who also own and operate internet.com. While all
the experts are responsible for their own sites, there are often site-wide
changes. Most times, the changes do not affect individual areas, but
there are times when they do. I have no interest in changing anything
in 500+ pages to bring my area into line after a global change. By using
CSS, I know that will not happen. If changes are needed, I will change
my linked CSS file, and the entire site is changed as soon as I upload.
So, using the font tag to control text size was not really an option.
I did not want to go into history as a fan of Times Roman for Web use.
I have never, and likely never will use it on a site I do for a client.
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800 pixel wide resolution
1024 pixel wide resolution
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The screen resolution standard
Another issue that brought some questions was the mistaken belief that
I was promoting that designers only worry about 1024 pixel resolution.
I did make a statement that I believed that the standard was reaching
1024. Many new computers are set for 1024 pixel display when they are
sold. Many domestic computer users do not change defaults. However,
my caution was that designers had best make sure their pages look great
at that resolution, not that you ignore any resolutions below that level.
My standard, one that appears to be fairly common for professional
designers, is to design at 800 pixel wide resolution (meaning no horizontal
scroll), and make sure that the page will expand to 1024 pixels and
still look good. It is only about a year since I abandoned 640 wide
resolution as my base. It is just too hard to make a page, especially
a liquid page, that looks good at 640 and 1024, not to mention even
higher resolution monitors. The current number of people using 800 pixel
wide display is still hovering around 50% of the total Web browsing
population. I am definitely NOT recommending that you can ignore the
800 wide display. In fact, I believe it is poor design if a scroll is
present for viewers with resolution set to 800 pixels.
The WebReference.com entry page, shown at the left, (http://WebReference.com)
is a good example of a page that works well at both 800 and 1024 pixel
wide display. The left and right side content help to keep the main
content line length down, yet allows enough room on the narrower display
to maintain legibility.
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