nonsensor:mike's blog

It's been obvious since the dawn of time that small fonts are harder to read. It's also been the tendency of designers to work small. Thankfully the days of those aliased 6-point fonts in Flash-based sites of the 90s are gone, but as this this site proves, indulgence is still there.

Lately, the IM window has started to look too small so I'm reducing my own personal stress by talking to Celly in a massive 24px font. I've started using 14px (80%) myself in some design cases, but here's a great justification for using up to 16px/100%. A picture says a thousand words, right, and the photo of the magazine held next to the screen at comparative reading distances says a lot in this case.

Along with that rule, there are plenty of other great ones, most of which we should remember from design school but tend to forget when working on the web with all those limitations to rebel against.

There are plenty of rules and principles to basic usability of applications or websites. But experience is important, and watching your test subjects is important, because nothing is set in stone. On a case by case basis, you never know what principle you'll be going against, what rule you'll have to break because it doesn't make sense to stick with them.

In those cases, what are you left with? The only thing that matters, which is your judgment. Not your judgment as an experienced designer - sure, that factors into it - but your judgment as a user. Nothing's better for the designer than having to use his own software. And not just using the software, but using the software under the same circumstances as everyone else who has to use it. In a practical sense, that can mean anything from performance goals to screen resolution.

That's empathy. Walk a little while in your users' shoes. A little bit of empathy for the user up front saves the need for sympathy later.

Every few months or so, someone comes along and tries to play at being very innovative by taking a contradictory position. Usually that's just contradictory to logic. This self-described "CSS rant" is one such case. Try on for size the argument that it's impossible to separate content from presentation, so we should just give up. The followup really doesn't do much better, it just goes after the equally idiotic CSS proponents who can't seem to articulate their arguments in better ways than "you're an idiot."

The reason this was so easy is that tables have the correct semantics for doing layout. CSS doesn't. When you do layout you want to be have things adjust their sizes and positions based on not only their containers but also on their siblings. When the leftnav content grows you want the center div to grow to compensate, and vice versa. Table cells do this naturally. CSS DIVs do it only under extreme duress, and only by making assumptions about (and thus becoming tightly bound to) their underlying content, which undermines the whole point of CSS.

I can't even begin to point out what's wrong with this. Tables don't have any "semantics for doing layout" - or maybe they do, I can't really figure out what that statement means. I do know that tables were not meant to describe layout. Floats were not meant for layout either, at least not exactly, but valuing one difficult hack over another by trotting out an over-simplified example that shows that Mr. Garrett has very little understanding of the technology (especially the box model)... not really helping his argument.

Earlier in the page, he states that CSS is dependent on content order. Not so, as I proved today on a project where Celly insisted on having something first in the source even though it appears on the right. While Garrett demonstrates tables' "superiority" in other aspects, what does he do with the wrong source order? Nothing, because tables can't help that.

My opinion is pretty firm on the subject for various reasons, but this should explain pretty well.

1. I used to do things the table way.
2. I now do things with CSS.
3. My blood pressure is significantly lower these days.

Even simpler, I refute the people who say that "it's all hacks." To a tiny, tiny degree that is true. However. The basis for my opinion is this: I find it hard to believe that the language that contains such properties as "position" was not meant for layout.

I have friends that claim to hate me because I work from home. And on a nice day, yeah I might take to the porch to do some drawing. But it's true, it's not all it's cracked up to be all the time. Especially when Time Warner Cable doesn't like to provide reliable internet, but that's neither here nor there. Gavin sent this link out the other day, and I suppose it got me thinking a little.

The first thing to go is probably motivation. For this you can blame a massive cut in feedback. In an office you get feedback constantly.

The point on lack of feedback and interaction is a valid one, but if you've been working with a team as long as we've been doing this, you start to realize how some of those things work. And the fact is, you just have to be active in pursuing feedback, just as you are with pursuing the answers to your questions, and anything else that you need from other people who you can't just stare down until they comply.

I did start coworking at Conjunctured a couple months back while I didn't have an office, but I ended up spending a lot of that time busy with buying a house, going to Orlando to work with Gavin and Celly, and all that good shit so I really haven't used the space as much as I could. It always ends up being easier, when you've taken up any part of your day not working, to just hop right in instead of commute. That said, the variety was great, and yes - the mere presence of other humans can be a boost. The dog just doesn't do it for me conversationally. I'll probably move to the occasional daily rate now that I have an office in the house again.

But it really depends on the situation, overall. Getting in the "zone" is a lot easier when there are no distractions (although onscreen distractions can be even worse than people, so various IM status messages, some of which disable Growl, can be useful), so a lot of designers find it beneficial to work alone.

Yes, interaction can be a little tougher, but you need to realize that you have it unrealistically freaking sweet to be able to work from home, and enjoy the value in that. I suspect the Geeks in Boston article's second part will probably address that sentiment. Anyway... point is, that's a good read, check it out, but don't take it 100% to heart. It takes effort to make the home office work - you're not forced to do anything so you better force yourself.