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huphtur Posted…

his font is WAY too big. i very very much dislike sites with resizable fonts. now when i read zeldman, i have to make the font smaller. then i go to a different site, i have to resize back to normal size. shame on you mr zeldman.

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Michael Posted…

Worse in my opinion is the choice of colors. Look at the thin orange text above the search box. It’s barely readable and almost hurts my eyes to look at. Also the orange link color makes link text recede into the background color until you hover, at which point the text pops. Not sure I like that either. Am sure it will get better. Maybe he’s still tinkering?

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Nate Posted…

Partially just to play devil’s advocate, I feel compelled to balance out the comments. First off, I’m thinking that Jeffery should get a big slice of slack, I don’t envy the pressure he must feel with such a public background. My initial reactions to the current state of his redeisgn is that, as huphtur mentioned, the text was way too big; and simillar to Michael, the red background color made things difficult to read–although I took issue with the regular text (black text against strong darkish red). I agree with the theory behind default text size, it would work better if more websites than not followed it, but because most currently do not, using the default size creates the frustration huphtur mentions. So here’s the devil’s advocate part–look at the stated goals:

Goals of redesign: simplify. Increase focus, unity, and usability. Remove the extraneous. Be pretty.

These goals seem very well placed and worth any growing pains it may take for either Jeffery to work out in re-designing, or for us to get used to.

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Micah Posted…

Thankfully, I say, his page is still looking good in NN4. So many CSS weblogs import their main CSS, causing NN4 to display a stark black-and-white version of their page’s content. It takes just a little effort to give NN4 something pretty to look at, even if it’s not the full blown CSS-positioned page. I’m glad that Zeldman is still keeping his NN4-imprisioned users in mind.

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Michael Posted…

I think Jeffrey reaches the stated goals. I definitely applaud the accessibility focus! The last of his goals is the only one I took issue with. Some of the color combinations, in my opinion, are just not exactly “pretty” -- being pretty is the last of his goals.

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Liorean Posted…

Personally, I think the text size is just perfect. As I have my text setting to default at 12 px (What 12pt text would default to on a system using 72 dpi) instead of 16 px (what 12 pt text defaults to on windows at 96 dpi), it’s not even too large.

The point with resizable fonts is just that it should use the size you as a user set as default. If you don’t set a default you think is good, when someone uses it, that’s not his mistake but it’s yours. (And don’t go around claiming that most users doesn’t know of the font resizing feature–at least not when you’re discussing Zeldmans’s site.)

As for the colours, they hurt my eyes. That orange is way to dark for a black taxt colour.

As for Netscape 4, the browser’s css capability is worse than if it had none. Often, designers chose to make their css not render in the browser as it might make a mesh out of a text that is fully readable in either styleless or full styles.

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packman Posted…

Nate is right on–the use of browser specific default font size, although admirable, does not consider the consequences. If the user hasn’t touched their font size control because they like most sites as they are (smaller than default), they will find Zeldman’s font to be very large. If the user has increased their default font size, the will find Zeldman’s font to be even larger. Yes, default font size is technically wise, but the reality is, people’s default font setting is based on sites that have already lowered the display size. This breaks the intended result of Zeldman’s site. In this one aspect, he has failed to consider the users needs.

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huphtur Posted…

where do you even set normal font size? Ive never messed with the settings, and never been ‘irritated’ by too large fontsize, upon zeldmans.

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Erik Posted…

Jeffrey Z does say “new layout in progress” [my emphasis] so I’m sure the new design will be fiddled with. I agree with Nate that the main problem is insufficient contrast, especially between the black body text and the background. The large type isn’t so bad per se, but a wider column would cramp it less and make for a more pleasant reading experience.

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Nate Posted…

I should perhaps be a bit more specific about the font size question–when visiting Jeffery’s site using a monitor capable and set to a high resolution, the font size looks a tad large, but not at all irksome. When viewing the site from my old clamshell ibook at home (max 800 x 600) the text becomes overpoweringly large, I can only read a few sentences under those conditions. This is yet another instance of complex choices, results and contexts. I wish that I could donate to someone’s effort to create a free, platform agnostic “super flexible” browser/screen reader which could parse any page (tables, bad markup, etc) and display it in super accessible and customizable ways; the existence of such a browser would ideally free up more choices to be decided by design.

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Nick Posted…

ok, let us start a flame war about design on the web, shall we? Common guys. The Web is not Print. Typography will always be inconsistant across Windows, Mac, Linux, Amigas and so forth so long as there is more than one platform. To argue that the typography is too small on a design that the type can be resized is pure lazyness IMHO. To argue about colors is pure art; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have seen the Zeldman Orange (tm) go from a very bright and vivid orange creeping slowly over the years to a dark crimson redish orange. This is Jeffrey’s personal site, if you don’t like the color, go somewhere else... if Jeffrey wanted to accomodate your color tastes he would have made a color-corner where you can personalize the design’s color to that oh-so hiddious lucky charms rainbow scheme that dominates your desktop. The beauty of CSS is that if you don’t like the way something looks, change it.. you can make a client-side CSS file that will override any site’s style... Eric Meyer did a great presentation about this. Once designers start realizing the potential of the Web as a medium will they realize that design is no longer in the control of the designer... it is in the control of the user. Do some research: http://www.alistapart.com/stories/dao/ http://www.nickfinck.com/ipn/index09.html http://www.digital-web.com/columns/keepitsimple/keepitsimple_2002-09.shtml http://www.evolt.org/article/Liquid_Design_for_the_Web/20/15177/ http://www.evolt.org/article/Liquid_Tables/20/2321/ http://www.digital-web.com/tutorials/tutorial_1999-10.shtml

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Dave Posted…

Good points, Nick. The older I get, the less enamored I am with the visual design of a site, and the more enamored I get with the soundness of the markup and css. The extent to which a site is customizable and usable across user agents is the measure of a site’s success, in my opinion. The advent of XHTML 2.0 and more standards-compliant browsers should encourage this, although it will still be up to site builders to implement these things properly. And that is why Zeldman and others like him should be commended: he is gifted at educating both developers and users about the benefits of web standards, in all their beautiful intricacies.

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britt Posted…

I can imagine this scenario: people are suddenly given the power to change the font size in printed books. Some people decide they want a larger font but complain about all the extra pages they will have to read. And there will be those who make the font tiny thinking that they will have a shorter read. And what’s with that picture of Mao? Zeldman’s not even Chinese!

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Dave Posted…

Zeldman just posted an explanation for the Mao graphic on his “Little Red Site.”

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dkr Posted…

For the most part–I could care less what it looks like. Visually I don’t think I like the redesign, I find the brick color really off-putting and the “highligher” like links really bright. BUT–I don’t really care as long as I can read it. I do find this a bit harder to read than what Zeldman had before, and that is an issue. Is it enough of an issue to keep me away, nope. Further more if he meets his goals of the “resign: simplify. Increase focus, unity, and usability. Remove the extraneous. Be pretty.” And that frees up more time to post content I say it’s a plus.

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Nate Posted…

Nick, you’ve made some interesting points, I’ve been ruminating about them more than I should, so at the risk of being completely obnoxious I thought I aught to respond:

Common guys. The Web is not Print. Typography will always be inconsistent across Windows, Mac, Linux, Amigas and so forth so long as there is more than one platform. To argue that the typography is too small on a design that the type can be resized is pure lazyness IMHO.

When type on a page can be resized by browsers, everyone wins. After 264 screen shots, Owen Briggs has done the hard work for us, and has a recommendation for sizing down fonts without breaking the resize feature of any browser: http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/css/index.html#text Even if that solution proved impractical, discussion of the topic (while it may be a bit overdone) is not something I would ever discourage–the hope is that we can learn something new, or change our opinions–not at all lazy.

To argue about colors is pure art; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have seen the Zeldman Orange (tm) go from a very bright and vivid orange creeping slowly over the years to a dark crimson reddish orange. This is Jeffrey’s personal site, if you don’t like the color, go somewhere else... if Jeffrey wanted to accomodate your color tastes he would have made a color-corner where you can personalize the design’s color to that oh-so hiddious lucky charms rainbow scheme that dominates your desktop.

Discussing colors or any other non-objective design matters is as important as anything else, design is content, or rather meta-content that should not be forsaken from discussion. In this particular case, we were not discussing colors under the pretenses of aesthetic, but as an accessibility issue–namely readability of the dark text on a dark background, an issue which is part of the WAI guidelines and Section 508. I would visit Jeffrey’s site no matter what colors he chose, and I see our discussion of his initial experiments as an honor to his reputation and experience, when he makes a change to his personal site, it seems worth discussing–not to belittle it, but to debate it’s merits and learn from it.

The beauty of CSS is that if you don’t like the way something looks, change it.. you can make a client-side CSS file that will override any site’s style... Eric Meyer did a great presentation about this.

This is a wonderful and important feature of CSS, especially for those of us with enough skills or interest to implement it.

Once designers start realizing the potential of the Web as a medium will they realize that design is no longer in the control of the designer... it is in the control of the user.

I see it as absolutely important that both have control, designers should control the default presentation as much as possible without forsaking validity to standards and accessibility. I am disheartened by the devaluation of designer control, as I mentioned earlier, presentation is a very important form of meta-information, and it should co-exist with user control options, and platform / user-agent compatibility.

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Nick Posted…

I see it as absolutely important that both have control, designers should control the default presentation as much as possible without forsaking validity to standards and accessibility. I am disheartened by the devaluation of designer control, as I mentioned earlier, presentation is a very important form of meta-information, and it should co-exist with user control options, and platform / user-agent compatibility.

To some extent I agree... I do feel the designer should have some control but on a more functional level. I guess what I am saying is 90% of the sites today you see form overriding function. Form every follows function... "ever" as in always ... and "follows" as in comes as a secondary priority. If the user can not use the site because the design (be it color, layout or technology) then the site is a failure in my book.

People complain about how CSS driven layouts look poor in older browsers that don’t support CSS well like NN4.x and such... facts: regardless of the "form," the page still "functions"... designs that use tables today are very likly to be rendered "obsolete" tomorrow... take a look at the XHTML 2.0 spec and see for yourself.

I do agree with the color issue... oddly enough most designers don’t realize that a percentage of their audience is in fact color blind in one form or another... ever use green or red in a design? Color is important, but it is secondary to the functionality of the page: can the user access the content, can the user navigate the page... yes, and yes.

Perhaps the reason why the color is so dark and the text is so hard to read is that Zeldman is on a MacOS... I am not trying to cop out the whole OS war thing.. but the facts are that the gamma on a Mac is significantly brighter than on a Windows or Linux system.

Thus again: allow the user to change the style... give them the ability to change the color of the background either by a in-page widget or by a client-side css file (though, that would be asking a lot of the user).

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Dave Posted…

I disagree with you slightly on that last point, Nick. While I agree with you that requiring a user to write a client-side stylesheet is a lot to ask, I also believe that asking sites to supply some JavaScript widget is a lot to ask of site developers. The onus for this sort of thing should be on browser makers. Sure a lot of popular browsers allow for user-defined stylesheets, but what average user takes advantage of this? It would be trivial (I think) for browser makers to go a step further by adding a “style wizard” to allow the user to associate a particular style with a URL (or site) using a simple point-and-click GUI. The generated stylesheet could be written to the client, like a cookie, and imposed on the appropriate page whenever the user visits. Users could choose to turn it on or off as they see fit. Don’t like the colors? Change them! Can’t read the tiny text? Make it 24-point bold Verdana! Turn off images altogether if you’d like. I’m sure this would be anathema to a lot of designers, knowing that some artless user is fiddling with the look of their site, but then, there is always Flash.

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Dave Posted…

Re-reading my last post, I don’t quite like it. I think Nick had it right to begin with. Yes, it would be nice for the browser makers to do those things I mentioned, but barring that (and browser makers will), Nick has the right idea: if it is within your knowledge and power as a developer to add user customizations to your site, by all mean do them. My apologies if I stepped on anyone’s toes in that last late-night rant.

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Nate Posted…

Dave, I very much associate with your change of heart. It would be quite nice if browser makers did quite a lot of things, especially features that would help folks customize their experience. As you suggest, it might be fruitless to wait for such features, and in general, we have the tools at our disposal to create accessible sites. I also agree with Nick that customization widgets are helpful things to add (and with minimal effort). I’m also very much in agreement with Nick’s point about the majority of sites having the form-not-following-function problem. I’m very glad this discussion occured, I think I’ve learned quite a bit from it, and it’s forced me to take a good look at some of my presumtions–no toes stepped on here.

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Keith Posted…

Personally, I think you’re all missing the point. It’s Zeldman’s personal website. He can do as he pleases with it. If you don’t like it it’s your tough luck, not his. Jeeze! Leave the guy alone.

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Dave Posted…

Follow up: new style in effect at the Daily Report. Opinions?

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dkr Posted…

Ahhh....It’s like taking a dip in a nice cool lake on a scorchin’ hot summer day. Much better.

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huphtur Posted…

keith: its our good right to comment on mr zeldmans site, since he does the same thing. if you dont like us doing this, then dont read this. right?

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jboy Posted…

Giving users the ability to customise their preference is a waste of time..would a person using braille benefit form this ...hell no. The site addresses main issues some of us overlook in our personal or client sites. Now we start complaining we all should get used to the new layout. It’s that simple.

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evan Posted…

Text resizing is for the much greater population that doesn’t see very well (there are many more of these people than there are blind people), or those of us that do a whole lot of reading on the screen. Screen readers, what the blind use to use the internet, not braille, would do better on Zeldman’s site than most, most likely. He’s up on standards. I do agree, though, that we should stop our complaining and get used to the new design.

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Michael Posted…

Much better. And green. So soothing. My eyes don’t hurt when I read it.

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funkydung Posted…

I really didn’t like the black text on dark red background scheme. However, the white on green is a little more pleasing to the eye. I still prefer the black on white design he’s been using for last couple of years though. My main gripe is with the font. I preferred the old design’s ability to enable me to set the verdana option. I find verdana much easier to read on my screen. Now he’s added the top nav with the ‘classics’, ‘glamourous life’ etc it is easyer to navigate. I really like what he’s done with the ‘Classics’ section as it’s so much easier to find old bits ‘n’ bobs now. I’ve since downloaded the album of Zeldman ambient music. The contextual menus don’t really fit in with the design yet but i’m sure he’s working on that too. The really great thing about Zeldman.com is that it’s not ashamed to show it’s organic processes. How many sites let you see what they looked like five years ago? The fact that you can trace back the daily report to when it was called ‘coming’ and on a bright yellow background is great and of historic interest. This is one thing that data-driven, templates based sites do not do. One main template takes care of the design an serves up the content to the latest look. I like Zeldman and his views. Although he doesn’t always practice what he preaches, he’s been doing it for much longer than the rest of us and the amount of hits he gets obviously shows that we value his existence. The new design will inevitably evolve.

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Anita Posted…

I always thought that it's vivid that black on white design is more acceptable by the eye. And I can't understand why so many people steel use something different.