GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2002-04 > 1019503620


From: "John F. Chandler" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] GenealogyDNA.org site
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 15:27 EDT
In-Reply-To: OrinWells@wells.org message <5.1.0.14.0.20020421090646.0575bd10@wells.org> of Sun, 21 Apr 2002 10:05:00 -0600


Orin wrote:
> I am now looking at the issue of color scheme for the GenealogyDNA.org site
> and buttons needed to get to different sections.

Great news! That means this is really getting close to launch.

A few words on web design philosophy: keep it simple. In particular,
don't substitute graphic buttons for clickable text. There are two
different types of reason for preferring simplicity -- the obvious one
is that it takes less time to download text, but there is another as
well: sheer accessibility. If you carefully tune the form and appearance
to suit your esthetic judgment as seen through your favorite (or only)
web browser, you may create a situation where key portions of the page
are not there at all as seen through other browsers. (My favorite
example of this is the infamous black text on a black background that
can result from playing injudicious games with color schemes.)

Moreover, don't forget that some people can't see at all but still have
DNA and might be interested in your site. There are plug-ins that can
render pure text as spoken words (or spelled out strings of characters),
but graphic images are essentially impenetrable. A good rule of thumb
is this: if you can't view a web page successfully using LYNX, you ought
to simplify.

John Chandler

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