First glimpses of my new baby..... Blog Discussion

Former_MSE_Andrea

This is a chat forum discussion on Martin's 'First glimpses of my new baby.....' blog which you can read here.

sd8974

I'm sure the new layout will be fine, but please don't fix the resolution at 800 pixels wide!! I have a 1280 x 1024 resolution on my 17" TFT monitor and sites like MSN and Guardian look ridiculous on it! Webpages become so much longer and harder to read, due to much shorter sentences, that it's really frustrating! Now, I know that this move is probably for the benefit of others who prefer larger print, but they can always increase the text size if they want to...

Maybe you could put this issue in an upcoming site poll??

MSE_Martin

Hi sd8974

I understand your point. The problem is by setting a bigger setting we automatically exclude the 12% of users who use 800x600. There are disability rules we need to follow and while 800x600 isn't necessary it certainly helps.

We have tried having a variable width site, but it causes major formatting problems and messes up the organisation. The site isn't static, the articles and formatting change and are individualised on content. Thus we need fixed width.

This decision wasn't an easy one, I went through the options with the team, and a specialist and made a decision. And if MSN, BBC, Guardian and others use it, that's also for a reason

Sorry

martin

sd8974

Oh well, fair enough then...I suppose I'll just have to get used to it!

tinkerbelluk

Can you please make sure it works in IE7 - I know it's only in beta at the moment but you wouldn't believe how bad most sites look!

Definatey worth looking at I think

wirm

Wow! When I first read that I thought you and the MSG had a baby! lol! How wrong I was! lol

nim_2

sd8974 wrote:

I'm sure the new layout will be fine, but please don't fix the resolution at 800 pixels wide!! I have a 1280 x 1024 resolution on my 17" TFT monitor and sites like MSN and Guardian look ridiculous on it! Webpages become so much longer and harder to read, due to much shorter sentences, that it's really frustrating!

I am not a fan of fixed width sites in general, however 800 is probably not a bad width to go for in terms of keeping columns readable (very wide columns mean you get lost within them and make it hard to read). However the fixed width at 800 will make life hard for those reading on something other than a normal browser - say a smartphone etc.

The main thing is please use standards based markup rather than just designing for the common case (ie MS IE - although of course 1 million lemmings can't be wrong) and ignoring the rest. Alternative stylesheets for handheld devices etc would also be good. Standards based markup is also good for accessibility and screen readers etc.

beer2006

Is it only 12% that use 800x600, I'm suprised.

My eyes are not 20 20 vision unfortunately and although I don't have a disablility, I prefer to use 800x600. It means I don't have to struggle. I use a 17" monitor and yes I could get a bigger one, but not at the moment.
My oh works with visually impaired people and our email is always set to a larger text size than most peoples, it causes us no extra hassle and is good for anybody who hasn't got perfect vision.
I think when you see the problems people who are visually impaired face everyday, a little bit of annoyance for the rest of us, is a tiny tiny thing to put up with, to make their lives a bit easier.

I don't understand why the site is fixed at 800, so I'm sorry if I've got the wrong track here

MSE_Martin

beer2006 - its not the site is fixed at 800 its that it will be with the redesign (for the main site not the chat forum which will stretch)

Clowance

To put in my two pennorth: I find the current search engine for the site unusable. Its case specific (if you search for Asda, ASDA, asda etc its really hard to find), wont take small words - one was bed that was rejected, not likely to occur many times on shop dont drop, and in short I cannot find anything with it at all, to such an extent that I use google to find stuff on MSE! Or occasionally post a question in case anyone else knows where the difficult to find post is. I dont think I am the only one either. There are lots of better search engines available, why not use one?
Heres hoping.

sd8974

I agree on the search front - perhaps use google in MSE.com, as long as it's not ad/spyware ridden!

Also, has the new layout been tested in Firefox?