gtwebdev.com

In title headings,

Posted: Thu, 2008-05-01 04:52

1. In title headings, conjunctions etc should be lowercase
2. I always like a bit of margin between the last text and the bottom of the window
3. I actually think less line-height on headings looks better otherwise they get too leaded out (especially at larger text sizes)
4. When doing footnotes, it's good to link from the number to the footnote and back again.
5. On the Team page, the first paragraphs after headings shouldn't be indented, but subsequent paragraphs can be (like you've done on the About Web Design page).
6. From an accesibility point of view, if you're going to give a photo a caption, there's no need to give it the same alt attribute; otherwise the AT user is just hearing the same thing read out twice (or you read it twice if images are off).
7. On the About Web Design page, I take it the items under the subheadings will eventually be links. Also, rather than saying section and sub-section contents, I'd say 'Name of the section contents'.
8. On the workshop pages, the change from having a narrow left column with links to having a narrow right column with Recommended reading is a bit odd. On some of those pages, the content doesn't have enough margin or padding away from the outer edges, e.g.: http://gtwebdev.com/workshop/vcenter/vcenter-table.php
9. On the pages where you have a skip link, it may be useful to give the user the option of skipping to content as well, e.g. you've chosen on a link, but after using the skip link, you still have another list of links to navigate before reading the content.

Tyssen wrote:1. In title

Posted: Fri, 2008-05-02 06:19

I knew that, of course; I had Mrs Stokes for 7th grade English. I set header to capitalized in order to protect myself from the odd lowercased word (typo). I didn't notice but a couple of instances, is it pervasive enough to be annoying?

Are you referring to the footer text?

I've set leading plus face to be a multiple of the base line-height. I've done this to maintain a rhythmic vertical motion. See Bringhurst, Elements of Typographic Style. It does seem over-leaded at times, but I think it's not as bad when there is something other than headings following headings. Look at some body text that contains sub-headers. Is it less obnoxious in those cases? Do you ever wish we could set top and bottom leadings separately?

Good point. I'm not sure about the back link, though. From the reference to the footnote is unique. From the footnote to the reference is not necessarily unique, as there may be multiple refs to the same note.

That bold tag line is a paragraph. So the indentation rules are the same for both pages. Should I add a <br /> after the tag to reset the indentation (and add top margin to the next paragraph)?

Good point. Will remove the caption as redundant by context, and improve the alt text.

Yeah, you're right. I've wrestled with this, and haven't yet been satisfied.

I'll tell you my thinking. There are three basic layouts:

The home, team (and c.v.s) and contact pages are single column and have only global navigation at the top, with maybe a bit of contextual links in the body, à la Diane's c.v. link on the team page.

There are section and sub-section pages that have tables of content. Besides being the expected location for local navigation, the toc is the most important part of those pages. The text is pretty much read once and go on. The toc is what is important, so is wider than common and on the left, where the eye goes first.

The workshop demos and the design articles have a sidebar for suggested reading. That is the least important part of the page, and is relegated to the least important location on the page. It is also the expected position for ads.

Then there are the demos that might have who-knows for layout, all dependent on the demo itself.

So, does going to a narrow right-side column, instead of the wider left-side column cause the problem, or is it that the Amazon ads are so strong? The latter causes me to wince.

That's an artefact of outlining the demo for illustrative purposes.

Are you thinking about the global nav? The skip to links link takes you to the toc, which is the last in the source. Should I add another link to skip the global nav?

thanks,

gary

1. fixed 3. got margins

Posted: Fri, 2008-05-02 08:05

1. fixed
3. got margins sorted
4. done ⇒, but not ⇐
6. done
7. settled on "Table of Contents"

cheers,

gary