Re: Len's CSS solution for the text in image problem - will designers adopt?

At 5:52 PM -0700 10/24/00, m. may wrote:
>- Targeting text vs. images. This is an issue of usability. Tabs became
>prominent thanks to Amazon's use of them, among other predecessors such as
>Win95 and GeoWorks. The way in which sighted users interact with tabs is
>to click anywhere on the target, not just on the word, as would be done in
>textual links. I've run usability tests on this behavior, and this precise
>design failed compared to a bitmapped image, as users who clicked outside
>of the linked word presumed the site was broken. Like it or not, Amazon is
>the standard here, and designers who fail to replicate that kind of
>response do so at their own peril.

This is a good point.  The HTML Writers Guild's web site
(http://www.hwg.org/), which uses HTML+CSS to simulate buttons
in the navigation bar (view it in IE for full effect) is seriously
"broken" as buttons.  The buttons do not work as real buttons, they
just look like them.  Real buttons, you could click anywhere on the
button and go to the right place, but that doesn't happen on the
Guild site.  (Also, buttons should click in when pressed, if they
are to look like buttons!)  Button behavior is well defined in the
user interface world, and these "buttons" don't measure up at all.

Oh, don't blame the current webmaster (Marshall), blame the guy who
designed the CSS and web template for that site (someone named Kynn
who isn't webmaster anymore). :)

--Kynn
-- 
--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
http://www.kynn.com/

Received on Tuesday, 24 October 2000 21:06:11 UTC