when is fluid a design too fluid?

W

William Gill

There are several people here who appropriately point out the need for
fluidity especially when a user must use large or very large text. I'm
just curious. At what point do you find it preferable to require
horizontal scrolling as opposed to columns of text having very few words
per line.
 
I

idle

There are several people here who appropriately point out the need for
fluidity especially when a user must use large or very large text. I'm
just curious. At what point do you find it preferable to require
horizontal scrolling as opposed to columns of text having very few words
per line.

It's too fluid when it leaks!
Horizontal scrolling should never happen. It's difficult enough to vertically scroll ;)
Lots of viewers/users only see what's above the fold ;)
 
N

Neredbojias

There are several people here who appropriately point out the need
for fluidity especially when a user must use large or very large
text. I'm just curious. At what point do you find it preferable to
require horizontal scrolling as opposed to columns of text having
very few words per line.

That is a good question, but I think I have to go along with Ed for my
preference. I rather see the column shrink-down to the longest word
before having to scroll horizontally to see (viewport-)hidden content.
 
D

dorayme

idle said:
It's too fluid when it leaks!
Horizontal scrolling should never happen. It's difficult enough to vertically
scroll ;)
Lots of viewers/users only see what's above the fold ;)

Perhaps this is going a little far. Sometimes in a useful table
of data, it is either some horizontal scroll bars come up or else
a worse alternative, a loss of *reasonably* immediate information
when the author, under talibanic stricture not to *ever* let a
horizontal scrollbar come into play, fights to present the
information in a different way.

Notice how I said scrollbars, not horizontal scrolling? If a
person's screen is wide enough, there will be no need for
scrolling if he opens up the browser to wide.

The point about scrollbars is that if they come up, it is
information for a user to open up the browser more if he can and
if he does not want to horiscroll. In other words, horiscolling
is not absolutely bad if the user can reasonably be expected to
be able to avoid it or if it is very hard to avoid by the author.
 
I

idle

Perhaps this is going a little far. Sometimes in a useful table
of data, it is either some horizontal scroll bars come up or else
a worse alternative, a loss of *reasonably* immediate information
when the author, under talibanic stricture not to *ever* let a
horizontal scrollbar come into play, fights to present the
information in a different way.

Notice how I said scrollbars, not horizontal scrolling? If a
person's screen is wide enough, there will be no need for
scrolling if he opens up the browser to wide.

The point about scrollbars is that if they come up, it is
information for a user to open up the browser more if he can and
if he does not want to horiscroll. In other words, horiscolling
is not absolutely bad if the user can reasonably be expected to
be able to avoid it or if it is very hard to avoid by the author.

Not bad, but if avoidable, better.
I'm preferring the method of utilizing the slide technique.
http://demo.wpbakery.com/movement_html/
 
I

idle

This "slide technique" - did you make this phrase up? - just
means the user has one less (and possibly crucial) facility
unavailable to him, namely horibars.

I guess I did make it up ;)
The top crap is just an accordion, of course, but the content is really all on one page, a wide one ;), and scrolls in on the
link click.
 
D

dorayme

idle said:
I guess I did make it up ;)
The top crap is just an accordion, of course, but the content is really all
on one page, a wide one ;), and scrolls in on the
link click.

Just so much better with styles disabled! Wonder what Korpela's
experimental stylesheet would do to it (See ciwas recently)? I
might look soon.
 
D

dorayme

dorayme said:
Just so much better with styles disabled!

Er... I should have added really that maybe some people would
like this sort of thing, hope my irritable sensibilities at too
much web page movement did not offend you!
Wonder what Korpela's
experimental stylesheet would do to it (See ciwas recently)? I
might look soon.

Had a look using Korpela's thought experiment css user sheet:

<http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/styles/semantic-test.html>

(See recent thread at ciwas)

and it was much easier to look at (for my irritable
sensitivities) than with all its author given css cylinders
firing. It was even better (in this case at least) than merely
disabling all styles. Disabling all styles in Firefox (with Web
Developer tools) still left pictures sliding in and out.

Why am I advertising this korpela sheet? Because, if he has taken
it off his server, I have a copy and am prepared to *sell it* it
to you suckers at alt.html. <g>
 
I

idle

Er... I should have added really that maybe some people would
like this sort of thing, hope my irritable sensibilities at too
much web page movement did not offend you!


Had a look using Korpela's thought experiment css user sheet:

<http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/styles/semantic-test.html>

(See recent thread at ciwas)

and it was much easier to look at (for my irritable
sensitivities) than with all its author given css cylinders
firing. It was even better (in this case at least) than merely
disabling all styles. Disabling all styles in Firefox (with Web
Developer tools) still left pictures sliding in and out.

Why am I advertising this korpela sheet? Because, if he has taken
it off his server, I have a copy and am prepared to *sell it* it
to you suckers at alt.html. <g>

LOL
Nah, I got a thick one. Skin that is.
Was just pointing out the html5 movement that's becoming more and more popular.
Did you mean this one?
http://www.dev-archive.net/articles/faq/ciwas-aFAQ.html
 

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