Re: [WSG] Plain text v HTML on this list

[Rick Faaberg]

On 2/21/06 11:10 PM "Joshua Street" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sent this out:

>> On 22 Feb 2006, at 2:50 PM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>>> Outlook users should ...switch to a better mail client that isn't
>>> broken.
>> Outllok can be configured to send plain text can't it?
> 
> I think Lachlan meant that + bottom-quoting?

I don't know what Lachlan meant entirely, but I 100% require plain text and
top-quoting. I usually immediately delete the alternatives without reading.
Too much email; too little time.

Rick Faaberg

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Re: [WSG] Plain text v HTML on this list

[Joshua Street]

On 2/22/06, Terrence Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On 22 Feb 2006, at 2:50 PM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> > Outlook users should ...switch to a better mail client that isn't
> > broken.
> Outllok can be configured to send plain text can't it?

I think Lachlan meant that + bottom-quoting?
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Re: [WSG] Plain text v HTML on this list

[Terrence Wood]

On 22 Feb 2006, at 2:50 PM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

Outlook users should ...switch to a better mail client that isn't 
broken.


Outllok can be configured to send plain text can't it?

I usually don't bother to read the 1mm tall text it sends out 
(screenshots on request), unless I'm really interested in the thread.


kind regards
Terrence Wood.

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Re: [WSG] Confusing the users...

[Terrence Wood]

Jason Turnbull:

Terrence Wood wrote:
Jakob Nielsen responded to my request for clarification


Jacob has used this request for his latest article
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/within_page_links.html


Wow! there's my 15 seconds of fame. If he'd mentioned me by name I'd be 
immortal! The other request is form Thierry.


My favourite bit: "When Within-Page Links Are OK... in frequently asked 
questions lists (FAQs), you can list the questions at the top of the 
page and make each question a link that scrolls the page to the 
associated answer."


kind regards
Terrence Wood.

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Re: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Lachlan Hunt]

Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote:
You can write your XSLT to output XHTML that follows compatibility 
guidelines. You can use the technique in this XSLT:


http://misc.xstandard.com/wsg/preview.zip

If you need a hand with your XSLT, contact me off the list and I'll 
be happy to help.


If you're using XSLT, why bother attempting to comply with the oft 
criticised, self-contradictory, *non-normative* "Appendix C"?  (I will 
not get into another flame war over this, I just want to know your 
reasons, assuming you actually have any.)


It is just as easy to set , output an HTML4 
DOCTYPE and not worry about inserting a space before '/>' for empty 
elements.  There is no benefit to be gained from serving XHTML as 
text/html to the client, even if there are benefits gained from working 
with XHTML on the server side.


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http://lachy.id.au/

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Re: [WSG] Confusing the users...

[heretic]

> Or do we just dumb everything down until we have some small subset that 
> everyone understands?

I've often found the Nielsen goes too far - beyond "make it more
usable", through to "make it more stupid" or even "cater to such a low
common denominator that average users actually start to get frustrated
with how dumb it is". Internal links aren't exactly rocket science,
they're just a variation on "links take you to information".

There's a base level of knowledge that users need to get by online, if
they don't have that base level they need to learn it for their own
sake.

We often talk about "paving the cowpaths", but I get the impression
Nielsen wants it paved, straightened, levelled, widened and labelled
"Cow path, you can walk along it either forwards or backwards" every
few metres.

I usually agree with the spirit of Nielsen's articles, just not the
conclusions and solutions proposed.

h

--
--- 
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[XStandard]

Paul wrote:
> I came across a strange issue last night while converting
> some XML data via an XSL template into XHTML.
You can write your XSLT to output XHTML that follows compatibility guidelines. 
You can use the technique in this XSLT:

http://misc.xstandard.com/wsg/preview.zip

If you need a hand with your XSLT, contact me off the list and I'll be happy to 
help.

Lachlan wrote:
>XHTML should not be served as text/html
Please, give it a rest. XHTML was designed to be backwards compatible, so it 
can be served as HTML if written to compatibility guidelines; unless you know 
something that the W3C XHTML working group doesn't.

Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com

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Re: [WSG] Font Sizes - Best practice

[David Hucklesby]

Martin Heiden wrote:

> I know that it is impossible to please everyone, but I'd like to find
> a method which makes the world better for at least one person without
> doing any harm to others ;-)

Touché!

> (Have you read "A theory of justice" by John Rawls ;-))

Actually, no. But I just googled and read a synopsis. Nice reference,
thank you. I feel sure we agree.

(Hopefully the link to Georg's article helped.)
Cordially,
David
--
David Hucklesby, on 2/21/2006

--



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RE: [WSG] Confusing the users... In Page Links

[Paul Bennett]

Actually Mike, according to a recent Jakob Neilsen study, Jakob Neilsen is 
right 100% of the time.
;) 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Brown
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 3:28 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Confusing the users... In Page Links

Herrod, Lisa wrote:
> This is really interesting article in that it contradicts findings of a
> recent study we completed just 2 weeks ago.
> 
> We recently conducted user testing on a site with 22 participants, which is
> a significant sample (often we test with 8 to 12).
>  
> The demographic was 18 skilled workers and 4 employers of skilled workers.
> Balance of gender, spread of age and technical ability (novice to expert).
> 
> 
> We received very positive feedback from the users about in-page links, so
> much so that it was reported as a positive attribute of the site. In fact,
> about 25% commented that they liked these links, without being asked.
> 

You usability people, always with the testing!

You don't know there's a 99% chance Jakob is always right?

:)

Mike
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RE: [WSG] Confusing the users... In Page Links

[Herrod, Lisa]

Actually, the interesting thing is that we met one of their usability
consultants O/S recently, and were told that they don't actually do much of
their testing with users. That it's mostly 'Expert Reviews'.

But I'm sure he tests with users if he says he does. Not casting aspersions!

A friend of mine pointed out to me earlier that what I'd written was "Horses
for courses". which is true.

User testing is really important, because while our results were true for
that demographic, they may differ greatly with another.

I really don't believe you can make a blanket statement that covers all
users, just wanted to clarify that point.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that. All this talking is giving me a hoarse
throat...


> -Original Message-
> From: Mike Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, 22 February 2006 1:28 PM
> To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
> Subject: Re: [WSG] Confusing the users... In Page Links
> 
> 
> Herrod, Lisa wrote:
> > This is really interesting article in that it contradicts 
> findings of a
> > recent study we completed just 2 weeks ago.
> > 
> > We recently conducted user testing on a site with 22 
> participants, which is
> > a significant sample (often we test with 8 to 12).
> >  
> > The demographic was 18 skilled workers and 4 employers of 
> skilled workers.
> > Balance of gender, spread of age and technical ability 
> (novice to expert).
> > 
> > 
> > We received very positive feedback from the users about 
> in-page links, so
> > much so that it was reported as a positive attribute of the 
> site. In fact,
> > about 25% commented that they liked these links, without 
> being asked.
> > 
> 
> You usability people, always with the testing!
> 
> You don't know there's a 99% chance Jakob is always right?
> 
> :)
> 
> Mike
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Re: [WSG] Confusing the users... In Page Links

[Mike Brown]

Herrod, Lisa wrote:

This is really interesting article in that it contradicts findings of a
recent study we completed just 2 weeks ago.

We recently conducted user testing on a site with 22 participants, which is
a significant sample (often we test with 8 to 12).
 
The demographic was 18 skilled workers and 4 employers of skilled workers.

Balance of gender, spread of age and technical ability (novice to expert).


We received very positive feedback from the users about in-page links, so
much so that it was reported as a positive attribute of the site. In fact,
about 25% commented that they liked these links, without being asked.



You usability people, always with the testing!

You don't know there's a 99% chance Jakob is always right?

:)

Mike
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Re: [WSG] Plain text v HTML on this list

[Lachlan Hunt]

Nick Gleitzman wrote:
A frequent request, which occasionally needs to be remade: could list 
members please use plain text for posting?


Yes, absolutely!  The following articles discuss the various issues 
further.  Although they generally relate to USENET, most of the advice 
applies equally to mailing lists like this as well.


http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/dont.html

This is some of the reasons why HTML mail is not appreciated:
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml

And also, people need to learn how to quote properly:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/%7ewijnands/nnq/nquote.html

Note: Outlook users should get Quote Fix or switch to a better mail 
client that isn't broken.


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

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RE: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Paul Hempsall]

Just a followup - in case anyone else was following this thread. I found
a really informative page that expands on the answers provided on this
list: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/03/19/dive-into-xml.html

I've also discovered (after trying to figure out why the W3C Validator
kept saying my MIME type was text/html) that you need to ensure that the
server has it's MIME types setup properly so that the document is
delivered to the client as application/xhtml+xml.

PaulH


This information is intended for the addressee only. The use, copying or 
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RE: [WSG] Confusing the users... In Page Links

[Herrod, Lisa]

This is really interesting article in that it contradicts findings of a
recent study we completed just 2 weeks ago.

We recently conducted user testing on a site with 22 participants, which is
a significant sample (often we test with 8 to 12).
 
The demographic was 18 skilled workers and 4 employers of skilled workers.
Balance of gender, spread of age and technical ability (novice to expert).


We received very positive feedback from the users about in-page links, so
much so that it was reported as a positive attribute of the site. In fact,
about 25% commented that they liked these links, without being asked.


Lisa


> > > Terrence Wood wrote:
> > > Jakob Nielsen responded to my request for clarification
> > 
> > Jacob has used this request for his latest article
> > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/within_page_links.html
> > 
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Re: [WSG] Breadcrumb as Section Heading H1

[Marilyn Langfeld]

I thought it would be interesting to see what Yahoo says (and does)  
about breadcrumbs in their pattern library: http:// 
developer.yahoo.net/ypatterns/pattern_breadcrumbs.php


They don't discuss the HTML, but looking at the source, I see they  
use an unordered list in some sort of template, as you can see below,  
and style with CSS. Seems an okay solution to me. What do you think?



 






http://developer.yahoo.net/";>Yahoo! Developer  
Network > 
Design Pattern Librarya> > 

Breadcrumbs
 

Best regards,

Marilyn Langfeld
Langfeldesigns
http://www.langfeldesigns.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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RE: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Paul Hempsall]

Thanks for everyone's responses - a wealth of information, as usual.

Nick: I'm using plain text now for my emails, I apologise for the
inconvenience.

PaulH


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Re: [WSG] Confusing the users...

[Gunlaug Sørtun]

Geoff Pack wrote:
If the users don't understand a particular feature of the web, one 
that's been around since its very beginning, then they (damn well) 
should feel insecure in their mastery. They are not masters (yet). If
 we don't confuse the users occaissionly, how will they ever learn 
that there is more to it than they think, and how will they ever 
increase their knowledge.


:-)

Most responses I've gotten from users is that they don't want added
knowledge about how the web/sites/anything work. They simply don't care.

Users seems to generally only want more (of the same) knowledge from
"content" - not (anything new) from the "interface". They just want
everything to work the way they have learned it - once, and dislike any
changes to their "mental model".
That generally goes for everything - on and off the web.

Or do we just dumb everything down until we have some small subset 
that everyone understands?


Sounds like a good description of how it is often done. The often
mentioned 'ignorance' (described with a lot more words) is (to be)
supported as far as possible - and then some.

Of course; that doesn't work too well for anyone in the long run. No
room for changes then, and everything will grind to a hold. No progress
in that.

Keeping the masses ignorant up to a point, and then overwhelm them with
changes that have been gradually growing out of their view, is how it
often works.
It often does work quite well too, simply because it _has_ to.

---

Personally I think a slight insecurity among users is to be preferred.
Gradual introduction of variations of the old along with some new. Users
should expect things to change all the time - because they do anyway.

I'm confused all the time, and I think that's a good thing ;-)

regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no
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Re: [WSG] Breadcrumb as Section Heading H1

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Kevin Futter wrote:


While I can concede that an ordered list offers more chance of an implied
hierarchy than an unordered one, I'm not keen on the amount of code required
to produce the result, nor the concept of a series of nested lists, each
with one element.


I'm not keen on the nesting of lists for this purpose either.


Based on what you're saying Patrick, my preference for a simple string of
text (a paragraph, for example), set out as "an ordered set of steps from
the homepage to the current page" would have a hierarchy "implied by the
order in which the list items appear".


Fair enough, a paragraph (and its implied order) could also be fine 
(although semantics purists might disagree...although I find it 
superfluous to discuss the most semantically appropriate way of marking 
something up in HTML with its very limited set of vague constructs anyway).



My only concern about using a string
of text is defining a semantically-appropriate item delimiter that works
well for assistive technologies.


This seems apropos: 




> I can but defer to earlier threads referring to Occam's Razor.

Now all we need is Jodie Foster ;)

--
Patrick H. Lauke
__
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[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
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Re: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 22 Feb 2006, at 10:00 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:


Nick Gleitzman wrote:

Easy. In both cases, 'self-closing' elements is incorrect. Both 
 and 
 need full closing:  and , whether 
they're empty or not.


To expand on that answer: unless you're sending XHTML with an XML or 
XHTML+XML MIME type, you must follow the compatibility guidelines 
under Appendix C of the XHTML 1.0 spec. This particular case is 
covered under C.3...


"C.3 Element Minimization and Empty Element Content

Given an empty instance of an element whose content model is not EMPTY 
(for example, an empty title or paragraph) do not use the minimized 
form (e.g. use   and not )."


http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_3

P


Thanks, Patrick and Lachlan, for that clarification. I was so 
distracted by trying to make out Paul's miniscule font size that I 
didn't read his first line properly...


N
___
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Re: [WSG] making table cells share equally

[Lachlan Hunt]

Ted Drake wrote:

Hi all you former table hackers out there. I've got a simple question.

If I have two or three columns in a table and I want the cells to share the
space equally, what would you suggest?  I don't have a width on these cells
right now and if one cell has lots of content, it's pushing the other column
to the curb.


table { table-layout: fixed; }

--
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Re: [WSG] making table cells share equally

[Philippe Wittenbergh]

On Feb 22, 2006, at 8:10 AM, Ted Drake wrote:

If I have two or three columns in a table and I want the cells to  
share the
space equally, what would you suggest?  I don't have a width on  
these cells
right now and if one cell has lots of content, it's pushing the  
other column

to the curb.


table {table-layout:fixed; border-collapse:collapse; width:xxx}


according to the rules, a width on the table need to be specified; IE  
Win will default to 100% if no width is set.


Philippe
---
Philippe Wittenbergh




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[WSG] making table cells share equally

[Ted Drake]

Hi all you former table hackers out there. I’ve got a
simple question.

If I have two or three columns in a table and I want the
cells to share the space equally, what would you suggest?  I don’t have a
width on these cells right now and if one cell has lots of content, it’s
pushing the other column to the curb.

I’m also using js to remove columns and the table
could come with anywhere from 2-6 columns on load. So, I can’t really
define a set width… can I?

 

Thanks

 

Ted

www.tdrake.net

Re: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Nick Gleitzman wrote:

Easy. In both cases, 'self-closing' elements is incorrect. Both  
and 
 need full closing:  and , whether they're empty 
or not.


To expand on that answer: unless you're sending XHTML with an XML or 
XHTML+XML MIME type, you must follow the compatibility guidelines under 
Appendix C of the XHTML 1.0 spec. This particular case is covered under 
C.3...


"C.3 Element Minimization and Empty Element Content

Given an empty instance of an element whose content model is not EMPTY 
(for example, an empty title or paragraph) do not use the minimized form 
(e.g. use   and not )."


http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_3

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
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