parlor game: let's talk about...

[cellio]

This parlor game comes via talvinamarich:
Comment to this post and I will pick seven things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.
He gave me: Lisp, On the Mark, Accessibility, Books

Comments

High-priced comment

[dvarin]

Why do so many designers, even now in the 21st century when we should all know better, hard-code their visual designs on the theory that one size fits all? Why is form so much more important than function to so many?A couple theories

[merle_]

I am under the impression that the reason so many websites have a fixed width is because making reasonable dynamic (browser-window-sensitive) arrangements of panels in CSS ranges from difficult to impossible.

Eh. Use percentages. Few backdrop images (they add little anyway). I worked on an app that was supposed to run in 1024x768 but was pretty darn usable and not unstable-looking at a quarter that size.

That said, I've been doing CSS since it came out, so you could be right about it being difficult for most.

[dvarin]

Huh. How do you deal with (resizing) images? Speaking as someone who has "OMG why is this font so small I can't read anything" problems on some Japanese sites, images which contain or frame text are irritating because they don't respond to font size changes, and if you magnify them with zoom you sometimes still can't read them because the resolution is too low.

[merle_]

Resizing images is why you try to minimize the number of images. For curved backdrops it isn't bad to scale. For Japanese sites, why wouldn't they use Unicode text or specify the text font in the header? It still might pixellate them if the font is lame, and if the font is not installed you just see boxes, but the latter at least is a user issue that can be resolved. And there's enough power in CSS to make plain text look like a happy button with borders in the right places to make it look 3D.

[merle_]

I've been in houses that have no visible books. They're creepy.

I've met people older than me who have read only three books, two of which were Dan Brown. They go beyond creepy.

Re: Accessibilty: I find that zooming in the browser is fairly decent, if many places (*cough* LJ) end up with horizontal scroll bars. Still, I usually run at 140% and few sites I care about completely break.

[cellio]

Yeah, it's the horizontal scrolling that keeps me from just universally solving the problem with browser zoom. Adaptable web design is a frustratingly-rare skill, it would appear.

OK, I'll Bite....

[shalmestere]

I could use some memage right about now :-)

Re: OK, I'll Bite....

[cellio]

Ars Subtilior, graphic novels, Ethiopian food, dance, peerage, books, magic SCA moments.

Have fun!

[risiko]

I'm game.

[cellio]

Yarn, Iceland, Kalamazoo, adventures in cooking, light reading, something you're passionate about, and that toy in your icon. :-)

[cellio]

No no, your house isn't creepy -- I didn't say bookcases, but books. And surely there's always a book or two (or more) on a table or something!