FW: [WEB4LIB] RE: What's good design? :-)

[Gimon, Charles A]

This is the price they paid for squeezing so much stuff into the top of the
display; the text on the buttons is fuzzing out.

One option might be to try for a design that uses text on a colored
background for each button rather than a graphic. Style sheets can probably
give you something attractive in this respect. A system font or a font
designed for screen viewing (like Verdana) should show up better when
squeezed into a small space than the font USD used (is that a Frutiger?) on
their buttons--and will probably be a little more legible if rendered by the
browser/OS than embedded in a graphic. Most fonts when squeezed down to that
level give you the choice of being antialiased into fuzzballs or of being
left jaggy. 

The obvious solution is just not to have so much stuff squeezed into so
small a space; problem with that is that items get rearranged, and some
items get pushed below the bottom edge of the screen for some users, or
items get left off the home page completely. This becomes less a design
issue than a political one--constituencies will squabble over home page
space like monks in Jerusalem fighting over their little corners of the Holy
Sepulchre.

I know that over here, tiny text is not well liked, even when it's
necessary. We don't have much in the way of hair buns and sensible shoes,
but the glasses-on-a-chain part of the stereotype is alive and well.

--Charles Gimon
  Web Coordinator
  Minneapolis Public Library



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greenwald, Diane [mailto:dmg at danbury.lib.ct.us] 
> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 8:59 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: What's good design? :-)
> 
> 
> I agree, the method of organization on http://www.usc.edu/isd
> is effective, and easy to navigate.
> 
> Does anyone have suggestions for making the white
> text on the black buttons at the top of this site clearer? 
> We have the same
> problem on a new site we are developing. 
> 
> 
> D. Greenwald
> Danbury Public Library, CT
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chan, Ian [mailto:iachan at sccd.ctc.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 5:27 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: What's good design? :-)
> 
> 
> Jennifer Geard wrote:
> > Which leads to a question: what are good ways of organising 
> big websites?
> 
> I think the menu systems on these sites are very efficient in 
> offering many
> links to content pages without seeming too cluttered;
> http://www.usc.edu/isd
> http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/libraries.html
> 
> Ian
>