Frames: Explorer v. Netscape

[Mary-Ellen Mort]

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Thomas Dowling wrote:

> Out of curiosity, are you considering frames because your users are telling
> you they would make your site so much easier to use?  Framing a site always
> seems to me to be a web author-driven decision rather than a web
> reader-driven decision.


I seldom feel competent to weigh in on technical stuff, but here goes:

In our first 18 months I never once received a user comment that we 
should use frames. In fact I got many emails thanking me for NOT using them!

When I redesigned the site to cover Los Angeles & Sacramento (in addition 
to the Bay Area), I was tempted to use frames to make navigation across 
the sections easier. (And, I admit it, I thought it would make MY life 
easier too!)

But I have rarely seen a site using frames that was not confusing to 
users (especially the less skilled users that I try to consider in JobSmart.)
The back button, the lack of URLs for inside pages and printing problems 
were high on my list of negatives.

What I used were server side includes (4 of them, one for each geographic 
area) which gave me a left hand navigation bar without the drawbacks of 
frames.  I saw quite a few sites that used a frame like contruction without 
frames...I despaired of being able to do it until I relaized I could use 
includes: so I can change any of the four left hand bars in one fell swoop.

It isn't perfect (what is?): I suspect the response time is slightly 
slowed by the includes.  We've been up, with the redesign for less than a 
week, so I haven't had any user feedback about it.

I have used my site on Lynx and it is compliant (I'm not sure what Lynx 
does to frames.)

I felt that a left hand bar, using includes, was the best of both worlds:
easier for the user & easier for me (once I figured it out.)

Happy Fourth!

Mary-Ellen Mort
JobSmart Project Director
http://jobsmart.org