Proposed Web site redesign (beta)

[Steven Hildreth]

Wow am I ever sorry I brought it up. In my opinion, its now very
obvious why the kclug site is static and visually archaic.

The window of opportunity I had for involvement has passed, therefore
I withdrawal my contribution and respectfully decline any future
involvement. I have several large projects starting this week and will
be unable to contribute to this specific project - as I feel unless
either someone concedes acceptance or someone mandates the acceptable
minimal standards compliance this argument will continue until someone
dies of exhaustion.

Good luck, and I regret I could not make a positive change in the
overall appearance of the KCLUG presentation.

Regards,
Steven


On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 22:20:43 -0600, Jason Clinton <me at jasonclinton.com> wrote:
> Gerald Combs wrote:
> > OK, let me rephrase the question.  What tenet of semantic design
> > precludes the use of tables for general layout?
> >
> > Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but I really want to know.  Googling has only
> > turned up pages that tell you _not_ to use tables, without really
> > explaining _why_.
> 
> Tables are designed for use in displaying _tabular_ data -- such as one
> might use a spreadsheet or a chart for. For instance, a two-axis value
> chart. The existence of tags such as the <th> gives one an insight in to
> the designer's intent here.
> 
> In semantic design, the desire is to maintain the /meaning/ of the page
> even when viewed without style. That is, when it is serialized. When a
> table that doesn't have tabular data in it is serialized it _may_ happen
> to be serialized in such a way that it is meaningful, but the vast
> majority of times it will be serialized in a manner which is neither
> structured nor meaningful.
> 
> For instance, consider ethereal.com as it is now:
> 
> -------8<--------------------------------------------------------------
> Ethereal
> 
> The world's most popular network protocol analyzer
> 
>     Search:
>     ____________
>     [go-button.gif]-Submit
>     Mirrors:
>     [Choose Wisely] Go
> 
>     Home | Introduction | Download | Documentation | Lists | FAQ |
>     Development | Wiki
> 
>     Latest Release: 0.10.7
> 
> Resources
> 
>     Introduction
>     Download
>     Documentation
>     Mailing Lists
>     FAQs
>     Development
>     News
>     Advisories
>     Publications
>     Search
>     Wiki
> 
>     Main site hosted by
> 
>     Network Integration Services, Inc.
> 
> Powerful Multi-Platform Analysis
> 
>     Ethereal is used by network professionals around the world for
>     troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and
>     education. It has all of the standard features you would expect in a
> -------8<--------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Now, a couple of thoughts. You've placed the things you see before your
> content "Powerful Multi-Platform Analysis" there because they make sense
> in your visual layout; rendered above, though, not so much. For
> instance, if I were looking at this on an 16-line cell phone, I'd see
> three pages of data before I got to the main content area every time I
> opened a page in the site.
> 
> If you were concerned with the cell phone user's experience on your site
> (I know it probably doesn't really matter all that much for
> ethereal.com) then you might consider moving the auxiliary things like
> the mirrors list and the 'hosted by' message to the end of the page. You
> would also move the expanded resources list to the end rather than
> repeating it immediately after the short version.
> 
> These are things that you don't think about if you do table layout
> because you only see the significance of the data as it relates to its
> visual position on the page. The mirrors list, the hosted by message,
> the repeated link information are all well-placed visually because they
> are off-center. The main content area draws the focus in the visual
> layout and the other stuff 'surrounds' it providing for context and
> additional information. The same ideas you used for the visual version
> can be applied to the serialized version.
> 
> In short, the design goal is: short header (with skip links) followed by
> the content (in a meaningful outline form) followed by supporting links
> and resources (in outline form).
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
>