July 2, 2001

11:31 AM

When arrogant web-masters attack.First it was specifying browsers, then came specifying screen dimensions, and now...

Ok if you are having trouble reading my text on my site, i do appologize. But i cannot customize for the entire world!... I dont have a problem reading my text and neither do most people. Like i said before usually adjusting your contrast helps tons. Unless you are one of the few "important" people out there who have your contrast already set to some "wysiwhatchamacallitwig" or whatever :). And for those people there is yet a solution for you 2! ... read the view source. :).

posted by jcterminal (24 comments total)

for added fun, go check out the source. i like the meta keywords and the stunningly refreshingly old-school use of frames.*



*sarcasm included.
posted by jcterminal at 11:33 AM on July 2, 2001

Too hard to read. Won't bother.

And this Winbox I'm using is absolutely standard... no special settings or whatever.
posted by goto11 at 11:34 AM on July 2, 2001

i like how some designers use 8pt sans serif. either they 1) never heard of the principle of readability or 2) could not give a fuck about you.
posted by moz at 11:50 AM on July 2, 2001

I'm pretty accepting if people want to be all hard-nosed and design their personal sites for whatever browser, at such and such a resolution on this or that platform. I mean, it's a personal page, right? So, whatever.

That being said: scott's right - it's WAY too hard to read. bah.
posted by sarajflemming at 11:53 AM on July 2, 2001

and then there's this one, which does some interesting things to netscape users... not that I especially like netscape myself, but jeez.
posted by rabi at 12:09 PM on July 2, 2001

the worst part is that the readability problems stem from cross-platform ignorance - the oh so golden rule is that you never go below 9px, if you want your text to be legible on both macs and pcs (because of the 72 dpi vs 96 dpi thing)

stuff like this always pisses me off :(
posted by mschmidt at 12:17 PM on July 2, 2001

eh, it's a personal site.

As long as it looks good to the creator of the page, on the creator's machine, who the fuck cares? I won't be visiting this site again, and I don't think the person that created it cares.

Now, if the creator of this page was trying to sell me something, I could see the cause for racket...
posted by mathowie at 12:25 PM on July 2, 2001

I tend to agree with Matt.

Although the site rabi linked above, with the smug anti-netscape message, does begin with the following statement:

"my journal is hella boring."

So while I agree with Matt, I also think that if you're going to force your readers to use a specific browser, or fight to read your text, you ought to be offering something more worthwhile than a "hella" boring journal.

But the bottom line is that I don't visit sites I can't read, and since I doubt I am anywhere near those designers' target demographic, we all go away happy.
posted by jennyb at 12:30 PM on July 2, 2001

::nods at matt's and jenny's wisdom, fronting like he was following the same train of thought from the start::
posted by lotsofno at 12:37 PM on July 2, 2001

I am not completely wild about the defense that personal sites can do whatever they want, but just for the sake of argument, don't we think that personal sites can violate x rules of readability or usability or accessibility, as long as x is not so high that the combination means essentially no one can read or use the site?
posted by joeclark at 12:59 PM on July 2, 2001

Note to the creator of the website: Don't give up the day job, eh?
posted by metaxa at 1:04 PM on July 2, 2001

actually, metaxa, according to her site... she's a web-master.

/me feels woozy.
posted by jcterminal at 1:19 PM on July 2, 2001

...just for the sake of argument, don't we think that personal sites can violate x rules of readability or usability or accessibility, as long as x is not so high that the combination means essentially no one can read or use the site?

Well, shit, anyone can do anything they want. This guy made a really lousy-looking web site. He has every right to do that. He then made it public, and you (we) have every right to criticize it.

That's my problem with the whole "outrage at unusable design" thing. If you don't like it, don't go there. If they sell a product, don't buy it. If someone's blog only works in Opera 3.8974 for MAC, don't read it.

The free market of the web will wean out the poorest designers among us. There's no need for hard and fast rules. And there's certainly no need for the backlash against creative design that's so prevalent today.
posted by jpoulos at 1:24 PM on July 2, 2001

This guy made a really lousy-looking web site...

according to her site... she's a web-master

My apologies for the sexist assumption that only men could create bad design. :-)
posted by jpoulos at 1:26 PM on July 2, 2001

ummm, jcterminal - i never said anything about the webmasters sexuality....
posted by metaxa at 2:11 PM on July 2, 2001

i think jc meant that her day job is designing websites.
posted by jpoulos at 2:50 PM on July 2, 2001

Isn't this whole thread a little like 'When arrogant web-users attack'? I mean, if she's only making the site for herself and maybe a few of her friends, and they, the target audience, can all use it fine, what does it matter if we can't? It's a bit like seeing a web page in Russian, and complaining because you can't read the text -- you aren't the target audience.
posted by ayedub at 4:05 PM on July 2, 2001

no password protect on the website = the target audience is the public.

we = the public.

hence, we are the target audience.

besides, my posting this isn't so much about hey, check out this brain damaged orangutang and her copy of front-page as it is more like kids, don't try this at home.
posted by jcterminal at 4:18 PM on July 2, 2001

all things considered, that page sucks.
posted by mcsweetie at 5:29 PM on July 2, 2001

no password protect on the website = the target audience is the public. we = the public. hence, we are the target audience.

Minor logical flaw there. While the vast majority of Web sites are open to the public, that doesn't mean the are all targeted to the public. The audience on the Web is self-selecting, as people you are not doing a good job of addresing simply won't come back. Your target is the subset of the public you want to come back. if you don't care whether someone comes back, then by definition they're not part of your target audience.
posted by kindall at 5:42 PM on July 2, 2001

kindall: good point!

my target? whomever is dumb enough to click a mouse button! :D
posted by jcterminal at 8:11 PM on July 2, 2001

(yawn)


webmasters aren't designers. webmaster is an oldschool word for sysadmin. if this person is a sysadmin, faulting her for the poor legibility of her personal site is like faulting me for bad unix.

if you want to make the point that legibility is a problem on the web, it's best to show it on a much-visited commercial site, rather than on some poor sod's obscure personal site.

oh, and you should also have solutions at hand, because anyone attempting to control typography on the web quickly runs into problems of bad cross-browser font size implementations, non-scalability in default *nix installations, pixel problems in Opera and Netscape, faulty keywords in IE, insane EM nesting problems in most browsers, the unknowability of user defaults, etc. etc.

which is why we have so much unusable type on otherwise well-designed sites, and why we have so much ugly type pretty much everywhere else.
posted by Zeldman at 8:42 AM on July 3, 2001

no password protect on the website = the target audience is the public. we = the public. hence, we are the target audience.

That's not true?! I'm a balding white male. Hair products for elderly black women are not targeted towards me. Does this mean that any site selling Dark and Lovely should have a top secret 'don't let white males in' password?

Should they listen to me if I email to them complaining that they should sell Star Wars figures?
posted by glenwood at 2:01 PM on July 3, 2001

i am a horrible monster and i pray for death.
posted by jcterminal at 5:31 PM on July 4, 2001