Depending on your viewpoint, the inherent limitations of the Web are either a challenge
or a frustration. Print designers often feel the latter, and consider themselves hampered by
the Web when compared to the relative freedom of print design. Resolution is low, and
you can’t place whopping great images everywhere, because if you did download speeds
would slow to a crawl and all your visitors would go elsewhere.
Columns take on a different role online compared to in print, as they’re primarily used to
display several areas of content with the same level of prominence. You don’t use columns
online to display continuous copy, unless you use just one column. If you use several
columns, the visitor has to constantly scroll up and down to read everything.
There are other limitations when it comes to rendering text online. There are few web
standard fonts (detailed in Chapter 3); serifs, which work well on paper, don’t work so well
online; and reading text onscreen is already harder than reading print, so complex page
backgrounds should be avoided.
And then there are issues like not knowing what an end user’s setup is, and therefore
having to consider monitor resolution and color settings, what browser is being used, and
even the various potential setups of web browsers. Do you go for a liquid design, which
stretches with the browser window, or a fixed design, which is flanked by blank space at
larger monitor resolutions?
Don’t worry, this isn’t a pop quiz. These are questions that will be answered in this book,
but I mention them now to get you thinking and realizing that planning is key with regard
to web design. Because this is largely a book about concepts, ideas, and techniques, we
won’t return to talk about planning very much, hence drumming it in at this early stage.
Also, don’t get disheartened by the previous limitations spiel. The Web is a truly magnificent
medium, and for every downside there’s something amazing to counter it. So what if
the resolution’s low? Nowhere else can you so effortlessly combine photography, video,
sound, and text. Sure, it’s all well and good to read a magazine, but the Web enables interaction,
and navigation can be nonlinear, enabling you to link words within specific pieces
to other articles on your website or elsewhere on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong: the
Web is a great thing. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be interested in it, wouldn’t be designing for
it, and wouldn’t be writing this book.
or a frustration. Print designers often feel the latter, and consider themselves hampered by
the Web when compared to the relative freedom of print design. Resolution is low, and
you can’t place whopping great images everywhere, because if you did download speeds
would slow to a crawl and all your visitors would go elsewhere.
Columns take on a different role online compared to in print, as they’re primarily used to
display several areas of content with the same level of prominence. You don’t use columns
online to display continuous copy, unless you use just one column. If you use several
columns, the visitor has to constantly scroll up and down to read everything.
There are other limitations when it comes to rendering text online. There are few web
standard fonts (detailed in Chapter 3); serifs, which work well on paper, don’t work so well
online; and reading text onscreen is already harder than reading print, so complex page
backgrounds should be avoided.
And then there are issues like not knowing what an end user’s setup is, and therefore
having to consider monitor resolution and color settings, what browser is being used, and
even the various potential setups of web browsers. Do you go for a liquid design, which
stretches with the browser window, or a fixed design, which is flanked by blank space at
larger monitor resolutions?
Don’t worry, this isn’t a pop quiz. These are questions that will be answered in this book,
but I mention them now to get you thinking and realizing that planning is key with regard
to web design. Because this is largely a book about concepts, ideas, and techniques, we
won’t return to talk about planning very much, hence drumming it in at this early stage.
Also, don’t get disheartened by the previous limitations spiel. The Web is a truly magnificent
medium, and for every downside there’s something amazing to counter it. So what if
the resolution’s low? Nowhere else can you so effortlessly combine photography, video,
sound, and text. Sure, it’s all well and good to read a magazine, but the Web enables interaction,
and navigation can be nonlinear, enabling you to link words within specific pieces
to other articles on your website or elsewhere on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong: the
Web is a great thing. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be interested in it, wouldn’t be designing for
it, and wouldn’t be writing this book.
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