Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Coding maniac rants

Without really getting fully fixed in between, and still mainly stuck inside, I shifted from working a bit to being a long-hours coding maniac. The reason is that I'm finally going for the "big push" (ready Blackadder?) to get the arXiv identifier changes done. It is a little too close to call as to whether we'll make it in time for 1 April (an amusing day for some big changes) or not, but I think we have at least a fighting chance.

So, to the rant. Not entirely unrelated but not about arXiv: why is the "state of the art" of web design based around fixed 800 pixel wide layouts? This is really pitiful and sadly includes this blog -- which I apologize for but claim I have no control over other than to chose another blogging service. I have a 1600 pixel wide screen which isn't even super high resolution these days, the blog size is fixed at half my screen width so if I choose a sensibly sized font for casual reading I get about two and a half words on a line. I can't imagine that I'm the only person who thinks that high resolution screens are to give beautiful and easy to read text rather than to cram more small text in. Hurrumph!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well... I can give some response in my position as supposed web design expert.

Reasons why it might be good to design with relatively small screen resolution in mind:

1. As I like to remind my undergrads not everyone is a tech head. There are plenty of people out there with old, old computers (like my mom who is still toodling along with a PC that is 10 years old or something), and when you presume large screen sizes you cut those users out of your target audience.

2. By presuming large size screens you are in effect designing a world where crappier screens are useless and hence get junked instead of reused, which is not environmentally friendly.

3. People whose eyes aren't the greatest anymore, like e.g. much of the population over 40, like to have BIG FONT SIZES so that they can still read without pain. If you have lots and lots and lots and lots of text on a line they are crying.

4. If you ask me the trend will go not to bigger screens but greater variability of screens. Intel and some others are coming out with ultra-small portable PCs with 7" screen size. No matter how great the resolution, that is not a lot of real estate. So it's not really a good idea to presume that designing for the future is designing for that huge screen you happen to have.

Having said that... one should IMHO always try to design for variable window sizes, so that the layout flows and gets bigger or smaller according to how big the screen actually is. Then everybody is happy.

Sign me, more than you wanted to know.

Anonymous said...

My point was not that a page should be designed for a big screen -- it was instead that it should not be designed to a fixed width. 800 pixel width breaks just as much on a 320 pixel screen as it does on 1600 pixel screen, perhaps more. Probably sucks on the 640 wide monitors you want to keep from the landfill.

Also, my other point was that I don't want tiny letters, I want normal size (perhaps one can express that as fraction of screen width) letters, which means each letter on my screen is twice and many pixels wide as it would be if I were on an 800 pixel wide display. (I do, admittedly, have the advantage that bitmap banner ads are half the size.) Anyway, the end result is that blogger is less readable on a high resolution screen than a low resolution screen.

Finally, the monitors I use at home and work were purchased in 1999. Not bad for long use and re-use (my last machine was purchased without a monitor).

--S.