[boost] Re: [website] More "improvements"..

From: Miro Jurisic (macdev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-04 15:43:30

In article <20050404125730.M7937_at_[hidden]>,
 "Jeff Garland" <jeff_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> > You are basically saying that we should sacrifice readability for the 
> > majority of users who will come to the site and not even be aware of the 
> > fact that the reason that the web site is hard to read is that their window 
> > is wide. I don't think that's the right tradeoff here. 
> 
> The assertion that the site is hard to read for the 'majority of users' 
> really isn't backed up by any facts. You're assumming everyone has a wide 
> display, small font sizes, etc.   Not everyone does. I say the site is 
> perferctly readable and that a non-fixed design allows users easy control the 
> parameters.

It's backed by my understanding of the issues involved in designing for 
readability, which I continue to think should be more important than spatial 
efficiency. Your assertion that the site is perfectly readable at arbitrary 
widths disagrees with what I believe is credible research on this topic. I don't 
have the time right now to look for references, but 
<http://hubel.sfasu.edu/research/textmargin.html> is a good start. The salient 
quotes from it are:

"Results indicated that, by itself, text width does not influence readability; 
however, there was a significant interaction between text width and margin 
width. The most efficiently read conditions were those with small text width 
(4-inch) and large margins, or the largest text width (8-inch) and no border."

and

"The lack of correlation indicates that preference does not necessarily lead to 
optimal processing. Some efficiently-processed conditions are liked by 
participants while others are not. "

>   I guess we'll have to do a survey...

A survey is not necessarily relevant, unless you are willing to (IMO wrongly) 
assume that preference for a layout is correlated to its adequacy. HCI studies 
find time and time again that people don't know what's good for them.

meeroh