my design errors

part 2 - general failings

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• my own design errors - part two
  • preface
  • margins
  • prev and next
  • branding the page
  • reliance on css
  • above the fold
  • irrelevant information

preface

My site is actually loaded with all sorts of design failures. Some of these failures may only be germane at the time of this writing; some may endure.

margins

Are wide text margins really a problem? Designers recently have opted to stick text in a table column running down the right-of-middle of the page. This approach usually looks pretty slick on the top of the page (actually, it looks more comfortable than anything else since all professional sites seem to utilize this technique), but gets kind of dicey toward the bottom. The top of the page is full of buttons, titles, banners and the like. But after a foot down the page the text is alone, isolated, and looks a little lost in a narrow column surrounded by background color.

Update 8/04/00: I shrunk the margins down for the text and left them very wide for the tables. This is the CSS workaround I came up with to get the site to resolve without scrolling at 640 resolution. However, if you are viewing this site at 640, you may notice that your horizontal scroll bar is active, but the entire page is viewable. What's happening is the server-included banner ad at the top of the page is causing the browser to activate the scroll bar. This is the the buggy behavior caused by the ad because it's not constrained by my paragraph styles. It's part of the behavior I've described in Page Margins.

prev and next

I've written about my navigation design in My Design Errors - Part One. Suffice to say here that I am missing previous and next navigation. It may be considered good design, but read my thoughts on the subject and see if you agree these elements may not be necessary.

branding the page

I initially failed to get the name of the site on each page except in the browser title bar. Another big mistake. Though I have good color and elemental uniformity through the site, I needed to replicate the name on every single page.

Update 8/04/00: I did a complete color redesign on the site to make it more readable. Not only did I change the colors used, but I shrunk the palette.

reliance on css

Is total reliance on CSS a problem? I have stayed away from absolute positioning, relying on tables for that. But I think it's time to design for CSS-aware browsers.

above the fold

How much can I possibly get above the fold? Above the fold means what a viewer sees when a page initially loads. At 640 resolution I've got the name of the site, the name of the section, and well, that's the next part...

irrelevant information

Information that's not that relevant is above the fold. Is it? The site is a technical site. It's not one of those whiz-bang sort of things. I wanted the viewer who is interested in technical matters to see the update and version of the subsection so that they would know immediately the timeliness of the material. Eventually I dropped the version number from each page of the site.