FF3 anyone?

[Travis Newbury]

It sounds like they need authors to be a bit more thoughtful in the
design of their websites. When I become ruler of the world, any browser
feature that masks bad design will be outlawed.

Well in the "real world" where republican white guys are the rulers,
thoughtfulness is a meaningless term, so maybe some company should
pick up the slack and build something?

 

[Travis Newbury]

What gives you (the proverbial you, not you individually) the right to
decide what is good or bad design?

 

[Chaddy2222]

Now that's a bogus statement.

Mr Newbury pronounced that page zoom was a boon to vision impaired
folks, and I was illustrating that it's not quite the
best-thing-since-sliced-bread kind of feature he proclaimed it to be,
*especially* to those with a real vision impairment.

Overall, Firefox hasn't been all that friendly to those of us who need
some accessibility features. I haven't tried Fx3 yet, but I don't have
high hopes it will have tolerable keyboard usability. I've always
thought it very clumsy to use sans mouse. :-\

Not only that:
FF only works with later versions of Jaws (my screen reader of choice)
and it is a big of a pig of a program when it comes to useing RAM. It
takes a while to load when you first fire it up. I have 1GB of Ram in
this machine.
Have you looked at full screen magnification programs such as:
http://www.synapseadaptive.com/aisquared/zoomtext_9/zoomtext_9_home_page.htm

 

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

I don't know of any, Berg should be able to provide an example of a
page that he would not use becuase it falls apart when you zoom the
text.

There have been very many pages mentioned here that break up when
the text is zoomed. The question is, "what pages break when the
entire page is zoomed?"

 

[Travis Newbury]

   There have been very many pages mentioned here that break up when
   the text is zoomed. The question is, "what pages break when the
   entire page is zoomed?"

Well, EVERYPAGE I have tested eventually breaks if I zoom enough. I
just think page zooming opens pages that were previously unusable to
some people.

 

[Bergamot]

Have you looked at full screen magnification programs

I don't need a screen magnifier, I just need a larger than average text
size, which my minimum font size setting usually takes care of very nicely.

 

[dorayme]

What gives you (the proverbial you, not you individually) the right to
decide what is good or bad design?

This makes no sense at all if you really mean the proverbial me. If the
proverbial me is not to be the judge of such things, who is? Roger
Rabbit?

 

[dorayme]

There have been very many pages mentioned here that break up when
the text is zoomed. The question is, "what pages break when the
entire page is zoomed?"

The question I had in mind was what pages break up so badly under text
zoom that are pages worth wanting to negotiate and which zoom saves the
day with?

 

[dorayme]

Well, EVERYPAGE I have tested eventually breaks if I zoom enough. I
just think page zooming opens pages that were previously unusable to
some people.

But you are not giving a single example because you don't know of any. I
am not trying to lampoon you here but to get you to consider that maybe
the issue is not so simple and not to believe that there are these
stacks of web pages that are worth looking at but are impossible without
he help of zooming.

The one thing I have found zooming good for and I gave a url example in
some thread yesterday, was reading informational pics or diagrams gifs
that are too small to read the picture text.

 

[Travis Newbury]

But you are not giving a single example because you don't know of any.

Ok fine, have it your way. There are no pages on the internet that
break when you zoom the text. Apparently people in this group have
been lying! Damn those handicapped people for faking us out!

The one thing I have found zooming good for and I gave a url example in
some thread yesterday, was reading informational pics or diagrams gifs
that are too small to read the picture text.

So you found it useful for something. I too found it useful for
something. I like it to give a little assistance to the small text
pages (that apparently dont really exist) so I can see them as they
were designed when I zoom the text.

 

[Travis Newbury]

The question I had in mind was what pages break up so badly under text
zoom that are pages worth wanting to negotiate and which zoom saves the
day with?

foxnews.com is one that I had to zoom the text on and it made the site
unusable for me, or at the very least not fun to read. I would rather
squint than use the text zoom. The new zoom allows me to read and
enjoy the entire site. Because it is a fixed width page it makes the
zoom even more useful because after I zoom the entire thing to a size
that is good for me, I still have plenty of room in my browser window
so I don't have to scroll horizontally, but the site looks exaclty as
they intended it to look.

See I find it VERY useful, and I find plenty of sites that fit your
question.

 

[Travis Newbury]

This makes no sense at all if you really mean the proverbial me. If the
proverbial me is not to be the judge of such things, who is? Roger
Rabbit?

Ok, let me use smaller words. Why does anyone think they have the
right to tell me what good or bad web design is? Good and bad are
subjective. What you find good, I may find bad.

 

[dorayme]

Ok fine, have it your way.

You mistake the tone and the intent because you snipped from my post and
your mind, my words:

"I am not trying to lampoon you here but to get you to consider that
maybe the issue is not so simple and not to believe that there are these
stacks of web pages that are worth looking at but are impossible without
he help of zooming."

For this I get this sarcastic over-reaction:

There are no pages on the internet that
break when you zoom the text. Apparently people in this group have
been lying! Damn those handicapped people for faking us out!


So you found it useful for something.

Why would you suppose I did not? It is not central to the issue of
fixing badly broken sites.

I too found it useful for
something. I like it to give a little assistance to the small text
pages (that apparently dont really exist) so I can see them as they
were designed when I zoom the text.

In that case how come you will not give any examples? I was not asking
for the world, just to ground some of this discussion in some facts.

 

[dorayme]

foxnews.com is one that I had to zoom the text on and it made the site
unusable for me, or at the very least not fun to read. I would rather
squint than use the text zoom. The new zoom allows me to read and
enjoy the entire site. Because it is a fixed width page it makes the
zoom even more useful because after I zoom the entire thing to a size
that is good for me, I still have plenty of room in my browser window
so I don't have to scroll horizontally, but the site looks exaclty as
they intended it to look.

See I find it VERY useful, and I find plenty of sites that fit your
question.

OK, that is fine and I am glad it helps you. And, at last, you supply a
case. That wasn't so hard now, was it?

But it is not a site that breaks badly for me when I enlarge the text. I
am using Safari 2 and this is what i looks like on one of my screens
(20" 1600 x 1200):

<http://dorayme.890m.com/alt/justPics/fox.png>

You need to see this pic at 100%. Now, you saying you have difficulty
with this? I am not saying someone might not. Just checking? No
horizontal scroll bars by the way.

I am not defending the site, I am saying it is not a great example for
the use of zoom 'because the site becomes unusable otherwise' (which
sites I was asking you about before?)

 

[dorayme]

Ok, let me use smaller words. Why does anyone think they have the
right to tell me what good or bad web design is? Good and bad are
subjective. What you find good, I may find bad.

I thought we were working on a common assumption that if a site is
*unusable* when the text is enlarged to be read by fairly normal folk
like you and me, then this, prima facie, is bad design on the part of
the designer.

 

[Bergamot]

foxnews.com is one that I had to zoom the text on and it made the site
unusable for me, or at the very least not fun to read.

I know what you mean about foxnews but always found it better to disable
their CSS altogether.

The new zoom allows me to read and enjoy the entire site.
the site looks exaclty as they intended it to look.

This is something I really don't understand: Who cares if it looks like
they intended? I go there to read news, not admire the design.

What do you think the average user is interested in when they go there?

 

[Travis Newbury]

This is something I really don't understand: Who cares if it looks like
they intended? I go there to read news, not admire the design.

What do you think the average user is interested in when they go there?

The news of course, but if I just wanted the news in text format I
would go the the API feed. It [presentation] can make us stay at a
site or leave it. This is true for both of us. We just disagree on
why to stay or leave, but presentation of content has a big part in
why we choose specific sites. Which, back to the original theme, is
why I like the new zoom feature, it zooms the page with out breaking
the presentation.

This is especially true where there is another site out there with
similar content presented in a manner we prefer.

On an interesting (to me) side note, when showing other people FF and
the web developer extension, I usually go to Fox news, and delete all
the CSS and show them the page as a text only site.

 

[dorayme]

You did. When you choose to post to a newsgroup called alt.html
and to then post the URL of a web page, you are inviting comments
on the design of that web page.


You are wrong. Whether you believe that they exist or not,
there are certain basic principles of web design that make
a site good or bad.


Whether you believe it or not, there are web pages that
any reasonable person would consider to be designed
poorly. For example:

http://www.myspace.com/soybuddha
http://rentmychest.com/
http://jeffreydavidmorris.com/
http://timecube.com/
http://www.rogerart.com/
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/kidsrabies/
http://bengalonline.sitemarvel.com/
http://rat-hunter.com/
http://what-the-my-first-name.wetpaint.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/main.htm

All of which (I took a random sample of a few, not all, to save time) do
not become unusable when text size is enlarged and which zoom would
rescue.

You will get nowhere with Travis if you veer into the general. I have
been trying to nail him on the particular for 50 years and he is more
slippery than an eel in a bath of olive oil.

 

[Travis Newbury]

You will get nowhere with Travis if you veer into the general. I have
been trying to nail him on the particular for 50 years and he is more
slippery than an eel in a bath of olive oil.

And there is the problem, I do not believe there are particulars on
the web. Everything is on a case by case basis. My mantra... (ok
that is one of hundreds) "the ends can justify the means"

 

[Travis Newbury]

The statements that good and bad design is
subjective and that what one person finds to be a good design
another may find to be a bad design are wrong, and I corrected
the error.

You corrected nothing. Good or bad depends on what you are measuring,
who is measuring it, and how it is being measured. Saying "This is
good " is meaningless.

Let me correct you: http://getoutfoxed.com/node/77