Design books

[Thomas Dowling]

> Siegel shouldn't have to defend himself that vigorously (especially not
> if he cites Tufte!) 

Agreed.  He clearly understands the limitations of his design guidelines. 
How many of his readers understand those limitations and their consequences
is up in the air.

> Look, let's go backwards: we had Gutenberg, Janson,
> Claude Garamond, the Didots, Bell and his polished paper, Tsichold (sp?),

Tschichold.  (Hey, you should see Germans, Italians, and Name Authority
wonks do battle over Tchaikovsky.)

> Mardersteig, the Wardes, Stanley Morison the opinionated  ..design on
> paper advanced, retreated, changed, adapted to technologies, retreated
> again (Kelmscott). Web design will do the same. Know your capabilities,
> know your audience ..I was thrilled to learn to do an imagemap, but I
> have to forgo them because the average audience for my civic sites
> can't handle them. Writing Lynx friendly alternatives to frames pages
> is a pain, but it is responsible information presentation in this county,
> for these users. Progress will come from those who push the envelopes,
> so why not Mr. Siegel's design concepts?

(BTW, I'm not sure if you're saying that you don't do imagemaps in support
of Lynx users, current versions of Lynx do support client-side imagemaps;
just make sure to include your ALT text.)

Thomas Dowling