[REBOL] Usability (was FAQ)
From: sunandadh::aol::com at: 16-Sep-2002 15:03
Christopher:
> > Except with
> > Opera, IE and Netscape(6+) it looks the way I want it too -- unless
> > the user turns off style sheets and get the look they want. (in the
> > middle of all this is Netscape 4 which makes everything look
> > terrible)
The Opera and Netscape 6+ features are a Good Thing. A website is not a
printed page. It's a content payload with hints for how it could be displayed.
If I'm blind with a screen-reader, or color blind, or have a slow line and
don't want graphics, or a WAP phone, or teletype rather than a screen, I
still want to be able to access your content. Letting me override *any*
presentation setting you have set is essential. Our sites should never assume
anything about the way the content is displayed.
Sites that put all their content in (say) a big graphic so I can't mess with
it, are missing the spirit of the web. I'll quote Time Berners-Lee, the man
who started it.
The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless
of disability is an essential aspect.
http://www.w3.org/WAI
On the other hand, Netscape 4 is a really Bad Thing. People have gone bald
trying to write valid HTML that NN4 will render. Basically, it was a browser
full of bugs.
There is still a lot of debate about whether NN4 is worth targeting. The
answer really depends on your audience. Figures for the number of NN4
visitors to a site vary from zero to 20% . One way not to antagonise NN4 is
to avoid doing anything too fiddly with tables. They were not its strong
point.
Many of the same usability issues apply to Rebol applications.
For example, an average end-user has no way to reskin or recolor, or resize,
or change fonts in the demo calculator. I also can't work it (under Win98
anyway) purely from the keyboard.
Sunanda.
