From: Miro Jurisic (macdev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-05 00:46:39
In article <20050405031528.M40231_at_[hidden]>,
"Jeff Garland" <jeff_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Fighting frozen layouts seems a lost battle, but it's worth repeating:
> different users have different monitor sizes. People with big monitors
> want to be able to resize their browsers to view multiple windows
> simultaneously. You can't assume that everyone's window width is
> 800 pixels: it's too much for some users and too little for others. "
There is a big difference between assuming a fixed pixel-width and use a
max-width in ems.
> > A survey is not necessarily relevant, unless you are willing to (IMO
> > wrongly) assume that preference for a layout is correlated to its
> > adequacy. HCI studies find time and time again that people don't
> > know what's good for them.
>
> So we should do the opposite of what "we" useful and pleasing because of some
> HCI studies? That's ridiculous. Maybe we should make the home page look
> like some ugly site -- say slashdot (http://slashdot.org/) -- any takers? I
> think the Boost community is fully capable of discussing and choosing wisely.
On matters on which it's authoritative, yes. On other matters, not necessarily.
A mark of an expert is not only that he knows a lot, but also that he recognizes
where the boundaries of his expertise are.
On that note, I am not an HCI expert, so I will bow out of this discussion at
this point. I have made my main point already: there are benefits to fixed
layouts (expressed relative to font sizes) that may be beneficial to readability
for many of our users.
meeroh