“Control” on the Web

May 18, 2007

Lately, one of my interests has been to improve my skills in the area of typography (started after hearing Cameron Moll’s Essential Web Skills). I have read a couple of books on the subject and come across some great resources on the Web.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard Richard Rutter of Clearleft speak to the subject of Web typography on the Boagworld podcast. Richard has put together some thoughts on webtypography.net. I was poking around today on that site and came across these thoughts related to using ems instead of pixels in defining the size of type on a Web page.

“… the beauty and advantage of the Web as medium is that readers are able to adjust their reading environment to suit their own needs. This is a concept that should be acknowledged & embraced, and built into website designs from the ground up.”

I have to admit, I have been reluctant to embrace using ems instead of pixels. Part of it is that I have not really understood ems. I have been hesitant because I have to relinquish control as a designer. But I think what Richard says here makes good sense. The Web is a medium where readers can adjust their reading environment. This should be recognized and embraced. It is part of the medium.

I had already been thinking about this after picking up Steve Krug’s second edition of Don’t Make Me Think. I was reading about accessibility and he also addressed the issue of resizable type. He talked about the fact that designers fear a compromised design when they hear “accessibility.” I think that has been my fear in using ems and giving up control. It becomes more of an issue when using text in “navigation bars” when increasing text size can break the design. I am motivated to read Dan Cederholm’s chapter about this in Bulletproof Web Design.

Design or Content? Wrong Question

May 18, 2007

I like what this comic from Josh Porter communicates and I like how he chose to communicate it. those that read/use our Web sites are not so concerned about which is more important, design or content. What is important to them is that they can use it or that they want to use it.

MySpace is a great example. From a design standpoint, I hate it and it irritates me. I no longer use it partly because I did not like the design but I also did not care for the raunchy ads or the friend requests I was receiving. But I digress …
A lot of people do like the site because they use it. They use it to keep up with their social network. (One of the biggest reasons I left MySpace is that my social network was not using it. But they are using Facebook and I use it.) People using MySpace are not thinking about design or content but that the site is allowing them to do what they want to do, keep up with those in their social network.

This comic serves as a good reminder to me to keep what is important to the user as the most important thing. I think both good design and good content will lead to better use but a good evaluation of a site would be, is it being used?