Tag: design

When More is Less

March 13, 2010

6 Comments

Topics: Accessibility, Web Development.

One of the most famously cliched spy movie themes is the absurdly complex method (and accompanying explanation) in which the villain intends to kill the hero. Layer upon layer of killer sharks, laser beams, poisonous gases, and robot assassins employed with the sole intention of killing one fundamentally normal person (albeit a very suave person, of course.) And, naturally, it always fails. Something goes wrong in the system; gross negligence of maintenance causes a malfunction; or some unanticipated exception allows […]

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Making compromises for accessibility

June 24, 2009

8 Comments

Topics: Accessibility.

The United Kingdom-based Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) recently produced a nice mini-site entitled “10 Things You Should Know About Web Accessibility.” For the most part, it’s excellent — a friendly voice, a casual approach, elegant presentation, and good information. It does, however, intimate one of my pet peeves in documents promoting web accessibility: Hey good lookin’ “But accessibility always compromises the design, doesn’t it?” Wrong. Your site can still look beautiful. This doesn’t precisely say that compromise […]

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“Prettiness” is relative.

November 6, 2007

9 Comments

Topics: Usability, Web Development.

At least, in the final reckoning. Something which comes up over and over in my work is the tendency of clients to request design changes which I don’t particularly care for. This isn’t to say that they’re ugly, per se — after all, the fact that I don’t like them isn’t actually equal to “ugly.” Early on, I would argue with clients concerning these design changes — try and get them to see my perspective, etc. But the fact is […]

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Why not tables? Is CSS really better?

August 23, 2007

35 Comments

Topics: Accessibility, Semantics.

At Cre8asite Forums this week, a lengthy discussion on the ultimate value of pure CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) (Cascading Style Sheets) based layout over the use of tables has been taking place. Sometimes, living in the sheltered world of accessible and standards-based design, I can lose touch with the fact that many people out there simply don’t accept some of the same guidelines I work with every day — and that this does not, in any way, mean that they […]

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