Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Earnster on January 16, 2014, 05:42:55 am
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I know that criticism of the site's design is controversial and mostly ignored, but the other day I made the mistake of trying to read the HD-6 article on my iPhone.
Not to mince words, it was unreadable!
Tiny white type on a dark background really isn't conducive to enjoyment.
My way round was to save the article to Instapaper where the text appears in a nice readable font and font size on a white or cream background. But should I have to do that? It is 2014 and mobiles are everywhere.
Please consider the mobile user in the next round of site updates, they matter and the more you do to make the site readable on mobiles, the more views you will get and the more money you will make!!!
So it is a good business practice too! :)
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I always knew that cellpix cameras would lead to no good!
;-)
Rob C
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Is it really a problem arising from the luLa website?
It is just as readable on my iPhone as on my iPad and on my full heft mac! when due allowance is made for page size
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Were you driving while you checked ? ;D
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W.O.B. Sigh... here we go again.
White text on black ground is one of the best ways that you can absolutely guarantee to reduce legibility. This isn't my opinion, it's a basic, well established, venerable, fact about document design. If even further reduction in legibility is required the simplest way is to make sure that the text is set in a "measure" (line length) that exceeds about 65 characters (inclusive of spaces). There are a number of additional strategies which can help reduce readability even further - such as setting the lines of text (leading) very close together.
Fortunately many of these basic rules are by now incorporated into a wide range of websites - although many sites have also found innovative ways to reduce readability, such as making sure that one has to scroll the site to one side before beginning to attempt reading the text content.
Roy
(aka Wally Olins)
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... the other day I made the mistake of trying to read the HD-6 article on my iPhone.
Have you tried using the "Reader" mode of Safari your iPhone? It converts articles on this and many sites into uncluttered, add-free black text on a white background, with images still displayed. In iOS 7, it is accessed by tapping the "page of text" icon of horizontal lines at the left of the URL window, which appears only if the current page can be handled by the Reader.
Enemies of "white on dark" can also use the Reader with the Safari browser on Macs, and AFAIK also with the Windows version of Safari.
Otherwise, the "mobile friendly" option offered so far for LuLa is reading it through the app http://tapatalk.com But I have not felt a need of that yet, so cannot say how well it works.
In the long run I agree that it would be nice for this site to get a mobile friendly version.
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I know all about the different methods of reading, such as Reader, Readability and Instapaper. The point is more, why should I have to, in 2014, resort to these to read the site's content on a device that is a standard way of using the Internet these days.
MR is a businessman, so one assumes things like making the site look good and read well would be important and good for business. We live in a world of responsive design, web font solutions, style sheets where you can make a mobile presentation look great for mobile reading, it would be great to use them.
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I know all about the different methods of reading, such as Reader, Readability and Instapaper. The point is more, why should I have to, in 2014, resort to these to read the site's content on a device that is a standard way of using the Internet these days.
I somewhat agree, as my final paragraph shows. But seriously, is one click on the "Reader" button such a big deal?
Maybe it makes more sense for mobile device readability issues to be handled once, in the design of the mobile web browser, rather than having to be dealt with many thousands of times over, by the authors and maintainers of each website. I like the original WWW design philosophy where an HTML document specified the content with visual abstraction ("this is a heading", "this is a paragraph"), and each reader, through browser choice and settings, controlled the visual presentation to taste ("display heading in 14pt bold centered", "display paragraph text in 12pt, wrapped to fit this window width"). That saved us from problems like text formatted with fixed line breaks that create nightmare of horizontal scrolling for people who choose a large text display size due to poor eyesight.
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I do believe that most modern browsers possess accessibility settings that will allow the reader to override the site's design settings and apply their own stylesheet. And good modern web design does emphasise the separation of structure and semantics (HTML), visual design (CSS) and client side interactivity (Javascript, jquery etc).
So, I think you have no need to bemoan the loss of the good old days.
Quite the contrary in fact, the decline in usage of the most destructive browser ever invented (the hideous standards flouting and bug ridden Internet Explorer 6) has immeasurably helped improved the web, both in terms of standards compliance, accessibility and the abandonment of the myriad of hacks that were invented to make decent coding work with IE6. It will probably take some time until every site coded to work well with IE6 (and therefore broken in every other browser) is eradicated but things are getting better every day.
The "coding for mobiles" issue is relatively new by comparison. The rise of mobiles as the means to consume web content happened quickly. Most of the life of the web has been dominated by ideas of desktop browsers. Work has been in progress to support mobile use for years but the world of web standards is a leisurely one, always outpaced by what's happening in real life. "Responsive design" type approaches seem to be a decent industry response to the rise of the ubiquitous smart phone/tablet. Using @media enquiries to detect device capabilities is quite reliable and what I favour at the moment. Using these techniques it is quite easy to detect screen resolution and serve a different style sheet to different devices. It's straightforward enough to implement, very reliable and only requires a minor shift in thinking: design your default site for small mobiles and enhance the experience for devices with higher res screens (rather than what a lot of people have traditionally done, design primarily for the desktop with mobile support an add-on).
As mobile browsing inevitably surpasses desktop browsing we are bound to see a big shift in design approach. It's already starting.
Now, returning to the Luminous Landscape.... The usability of the site has always been appalling. It does seems almost a deliberate strategy of the management! Arguably the current design is slightly more useable - at least it doesn't require a 30 inch monitor to display without horizontal scrolling but it still isn't very good. Given the amount of effort that appeared to be expended in building it and canvassing the opinions of users this is a disappointment and a surprise.
There is a certain irony in this, given how much LuLa like to criticise design decisions. Perhaps the next time Michael writes a review or article about the baffling usability flaws of the cameras he tests and shouts "Did they give this product to any photographers before releasing it?" he might reflect similarly about the web design/usability/accessibility of his site. Maybe a successful design is not always so easy to pull off as it seems.
It helps if your web designer/coders understand and care about W3C standards, usability and accessibility and proper testing. It's very easy to believe you have done a good job when you haven't so an obvious question to ask is what is the expertise of the people doing the coding. Have they tested the site for W3C html and CSS standards compliance. Have they tested it for WAI compliance. Have they done usability tests with actual people? Have they sought the opinions of disabled people? Have they even run the site through an automated online checker?
Out of interest, I ran the Lula home page through the Sitemorse.com online checker (this is a subscription service I use at work). The overall W3C compliance score was 2/10. The breakdown was very interesting. 10/10 for SEO - I would guess the team put some effort into this. 0/10 for functionality, 0/10 for accessibility (failing even rudimentary A standard), 2/10 for code standards, 7/10 for speed (probably another priority). Because this is a test of only a single page, the scores can be swayed by a small number of errors so I wouldn't read too much into this but I think I'll test a sample of other pages to see what happens!
I somewhat agree, as my final paragraph shows. But seriously, is one click on the "Reader" button such a big deal?
Maybe it makes more sense for mobile device readability issues to be handled once, in the design of the mobile web browser, rather than having to be dealt with many thousands of times over, by the authors and maintainers of each website. I like the original WWW design philosophy where an HTML document specified the content with visual abstraction ("this is a heading", "this is a paragraph"), and each reader, through browser choice and settings, controlled the visual presentation to taste ("display heading in 14pt bold centered", "display paragraph text in 12pt, wrapped to fit this window width"). That saved us from problems like text formatted with fixed line breaks that create nightmare of horizontal scrolling for people who choose a large text display size due to poor eyesight.
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I ran a number of pages through Sitemorse's checker and they all scored similarly, between 1.7 and 2.0 out of 10 with only SEO scoring well. It's always interesting to do these checks because they are quite revealing.
A quick look at the source HTML and CSS shows generally neat and tidy code which implies the coder knows what they are doing, yet the technical code quality scores poorly. In my experience this is very common.
Sites that tend to score well, are sites where the authors appreciate that coding to a high standard is difficult and deliberately go out of their way to write high quality code and rigorously test everything. Where this isn't done, even coders who are experienced and think of themselves as competent, tend to score poorly.
This is a reflection of the fact that web designers/coders and their readers tend to judge sites by the look of the site above all else and browsers are quite forgiving of poor code. This allows coders to spend their careers writing poor quality code whilst believing they're doing good work. A lot of coders are also self taught and have no appreciation of technical standards. In my experience, (although not exclusively), the most compliant code tends to be produced by public sector coders who are forced by the public duty to code to published standards and to properly test everything and leading "web guru" sites (that have to live up to their own teachings).
So, not great code, but little different from your average site. I would say that coder incompetence is not the explanation for the LuLa site style. I expect it's just down to the management's expectations and likes. It would probably not take that much effort to tweak the code to improve usability, accessibility and code quality, you just have to want to and be prepared to do the testing.
I think I'll test a sample of other pages to see what happens!
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Dave,
Thanks for doing this testing of LuLa and offering such clear explanations of what is going on. I do hope the Powers that Be at LuLa will pay attention.
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Thank you everyone for your opinions.
Given the available time, human, and financial resources available, we do the best that we can.
I regret that things aren't better, and that some people are disappointed in the design of the site, the colours chosen, the shade of grey of the background, the typeface used, and the internal technical quality of the HTML code. My spelling is also frequently a point of criticism. Today I had a very strongly worded email from someone who was quite upset that at $12.50 our latest video was too expensive. Really?!
Every week for the past 15 years we have received private as well as public comments on every detail of every article and review published. We are too pro this, we are fan boys for that, there's a technical error, there's a gramatical mistake, etc etc.
Do any of you have any idea what it's like to have 1.2 Million people visiting the site each month, with everyone having a different opinion on this or that or something else?
No, I thought not. Few do, unless they have lovingly spent a decade and a half building and running a complex entity such as LuLa.
So, thank you everyone for your observations. They are all noted, though they are not all given equal attention or weight.
Michael
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That, Michael, seems to me to be a thoughtful and reasoned and reasonable response.
As I read some of the postings, I began to wonder if Iphones differ, because I have not experienced difficulties looking at LuLa on mine.
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When not on my PC I'm reading LuLa with TapaTalk on my Samsung Galaxy S2,
be it before sleeping or sitting on the toilet - Lula is always with me - and readable ... ;)
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Michael, just keep it coming. It is invaluable to me.
Mark
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...or sitting on the toilet - Lula is always with me - and readable ... ;)
TMI...
:~)
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I know that criticism of the site's design is controversial and mostly ignored, but the other day I made the mistake of trying to read the HD-6 article on my iPhone.
Not to mince words, it was unreadable!
Tiny white type on a dark background really isn't conducive to enjoyment.
My way round was to save the article to Instapaper where the text appears in a nice readable font and font size on a white or cream background. But should I have to do that? It is 2014 and mobiles are everywhere.
Please consider the mobile user in the next round of site updates, they matter and the more you do to make the site readable on mobiles, the more views you will get and the more money you will make!!!
So it is a good business practice too! :)
I usually do not read LuLa on my iPhone, but reading this comment I did. I have an iPhone 4 and I find the website very readable when turning the iPhone to horizontal view and double tapping on the text column to get rid of the adds at the side. The font's are then the right side and it reads very well.
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TMI...
:~)
This acronym evades me.
Would you please enlighten me?
I'm not afraid.
:D
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This acronym evades me.
Too much info...WAY TOO MUCH INFO!
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Too much info...WAY TOO MUCH INFO!
LOL - Thanks for clearing that up.
But I think you can perfectly understand that occasional heavy-handedness. ;)
Cheers
~Chris
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This acronym evades me.
[pedantry] It's an abbreviation, not an acronym [/pedantry]
Bugbear of mine. Sorry ;)
Jeremy
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[pedantry] It's an abbreviation, not an acronym [/pedantry]
Arguably, it's both.
http://www.internetslang.com/TMI.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Nomenclature
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[pedantry] It's an abbreviation, not an acronym [/pedantry]
Bugbear of mine. Sorry ;)
Jeremy
There is help out there Jeremy. You are only a phone call away from.....? :)
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And all along I thought it was all about Three Mile Island. ???
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I do believe that most modern browsers possess accessibility settings that will allow the reader to override the site's design settings and apply their own stylesheet. And good modern web design does emphasise the separation of structure and semantics (HTML), visual design (CSS) and client side interactivity (Javascript, jquery etc).
...
The "coding for mobiles" issue is relatively new by comparison. ... Using these techniques it is quite easy to detect screen resolution and serve a different style sheet to different devices. It's straightforward enough to implement, very reliable and only requires a minor shift in thinking: design your default site for small mobiles and enhance the experience for devices with higher res screens (rather than what a lot of people have traditionally done, design primarily for the desktop with mobile support an add-on).
Dave, I mostly agree with what you say, and indeed have been advocating for a while a "mobile first" web design approach. (For a start, ditch the mouse-overs!)
But currently many websites seem afflicted by the desire of professional designers to impose a visual layout, too often tested only on desktop browsers, with methods like specifying fixed pixel widths for text areas. So I was pining for the very early days of web browsers, way before Internet Explorer 6 and even before frames, when resizing to a narrower window or reducing the PPI setting to accommodate poor eyes would reliably reflow text to fit the window, rather than keeping the same line breaks and thus forcing one into horizontal scrolling, as happens for examples with the article http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/hasselblad_h5d_60_review.shtml that the OP mentioned.
But before I annoy Michael any more, I will note again that us readers can get around this without a lot of effort, and my main advice is "learn your browser", like the Reader mode of Safari or the browser add-ons from Readability (https://www.readability.com).
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Arguably, it's both.
http://www.internetslang.com/TMI.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Nomenclature
Arguably, 2+2=5. Not correctly, though.
Jeremy
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Arguably, 2+2=5. Not correctly, though.
Jeremy
Oh Jeremy! That brings back fond memories of an interview I had for my first job as a college math teacher. The Math department chairman brought me in to see the University president, who asked me what I heard later was his stock question for mathematicians: "They tell me, young man, that nowadays some people say that 2 plus 2 can equals 5. What do you say about that?"
I don't remember what answer I came up with, but it wasn't as pithy as yours.
Finally, the President turned to the Chairman and said, "If you want him, you can have him."
And that began my thirty-five year academic career.
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"They tell me, young man, that nowadays some people say that 2 plus 2 can equals 5. What do you say about that?"
George Orwell: "Some animals are more equal than others".
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"They tell me, young man, that nowadays some people say that 2 plus 2 can equals 5. What do you say about that?"
George Orwell: "Some animals are more equal than others".
Gosh, I wish I'd had the wit to quote Orwell at the time!
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"They tell me, young man, that nowadays some people say that 2 plus 2 can equals 5. What do you say about that?"
George Orwell: "Some animals are more equal than others".
I think it was closer to.....all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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Gosh, I wish I'd had the wit to quote Orwell at the time!
Be careful what you might have wished: Mr Boss could have thought you were being a smart-ass, and your career might never have taken off!
Folks is funny, as they say.
;-)
Rob C
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A good site design doesn't need a user to press Reader. Do most users even know about it?
A good side design codes the content semantically and uses style sheets to deliver appropriate user experiences to the device the user chooses to browse on.
And of course the only reason I complain is that I have been a passionate reader/subscriber/customer for many many years as a lot of the users have been. I say this cos I care and I says this because the better the site, the better the business, the more LL makes and the more content we get.
Truly a virtuous circle :)
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A good site design doesn't need a user to press Reader. Do most users even know about it?
A good side design codes the content semantically and uses style sheets to deliver appropriate user experiences to the device the user chooses to browse on.
And of course the only reason I complain is that I have been a passionate reader/subscriber/customer for many many years as a lot of the users have been. I say this cos I care and I says this because the better the site, the better the business, the more LL makes and the more content we get.
Truly a virtuous circle :)
Or just a daisy chain.
FWIW, I think it's something quite desperate that people find so little time in their lives that they are obliged to enter LuLa via their telephone. I am sometimes obliged to use my smarty-pants 'phone in order to let someone see my website, if only because I absolutely refuse to buy one of those 'tablet' things, thus encumbering my life with even more rubbish, more stuff to carry with me or risk leaving at an unattended table when I find myself in a bar or restaurant and feel the need to visit the restroom.
I like my website, enjoy playing with it and abhor the way the images look when reduced to such tiny proportions - can't even read the captions, for heaven's sake, and hate the concept of sticky fingers making stretchies or pinchies on the surface of the machine!
Why not accept that there is a time and a place for most activities, and that reading LuLa at work isn't one of them? Were I the employer, I'd feel a strong urge to fire anyone caught doing that on my time; of course, there's probably some socialist law preventing such a reaction - well, at least making it illegal.
And nobody has to live like that: simply refuse to be forced into such frantic ways; the tension will have you killing yourself before your time.
Relax, breathe deeply and save up the LuLa experience for when you are comfortably ensconced at home, gentle, soporific drink in one hand and dictionary at the other. You'll have a great night's sleep and feel much better in the morning.
Rob C
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Or just a daisy chain.
FWIW, I think it's something quite desperate that people find so little time in their lives that they are obliged to enter LuLa via their telephone. I am sometimes obliged to use my smarty-pants 'phone in order to let someone see my website, if only because I absolutely refuse to buy one of those 'tablet' things, thus encumbering my life with even more rubbish, more stuff to carry with me or risk leaving at an unattended table when I find myself in a bar or restaurant and feel the need to visit the restroom.
I like my website, enjoy playing with it and abhor the way the images look when reduced to such tiny proportions - can't even read the captions, for heaven's sake, and hate the concept of sticky fingers making stretchies or pinchies on the surface of the machine!
Why not accept that there is a time and a place for most activities, and that reading LuLa at work isn't one of them? Were I the employer, I'd feel a strong urge to fire anyone caught doing that on my time; of course, there's probably some socialist law preventing such a reaction - well, at least making it illegal.
And nobody has to live like that: simply refuse to be forced into such frantic ways; the tension will have you killing yourself before your time.
Relax, breathe deeply and save up the LuLa experience for when you are comfortably ensconced at home, gentle, soporific drink in one hand and dictionary at the other. You'll have a great night's sleep and feel much better in the morning.
Rob C
I find this insulting and patronising.
I happen to read tech articles on the train to and from work as it is convenient for me. It is not really for anyone to dictate how, where or on what a user reads a website. And just because you happen to not like or use a mobile phone to tablet in doesn't preclude others from doing so.
You are welcome to bury your head in the sand about the way people access websites, but is this the place for such prejudices?
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I find this insulting and patronising.
I doubt he intended it otherwise!
I sympathize with your post, to some degree, but it's easy enough to switch to a reader view and it's unlikely LL's owners will change something they like. Old dogs....
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I find this insulting and patronising.
I happen to read tech articles on the train to and from work as it is convenient for me.
Well, you mustn't. Because. Because. Because someone else said it wasn't the correct thing to do. So stop it.
And while you're at it, have you checked you're using the correct camera? You haven't? Sheesh!!!
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I doubt he intended it otherwise!
I sympathize with your post, to some degree, but it's easy enough to switch to a reader view and it's unlikely LL's owners will change something they like. Old dogs....
I know there are plenty of professional grouches, but why did he bother?
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Well, you mustn't. Because. Because. Because someone else said it wasn't the correct thing to do. So stop it.
And while you're at it, have you checked you're using the correct camera? You haven't? Sheesh!!!
Yeah, I guess my existence is futile ;)
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Arguably, 2+2=5. Not correctly, though.
Jeremy,
To be taken in the same spirit in which it was written - namely good natured frivolity …
Part I
A fallacy is not the same as an argument.
The proof that 2+2=4, in it's simplest form, goes something along the lines of 4=3+1=(2+1)+1=2+(1+1)=2+2.
Part II
As defined by the OED,
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase, usually characterised by a period (full stop) after the abbreviated word - (P.S. , Q.E.D., Jan.)
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of the words in a name or phrase - (SONAR, RADAR, GNU, LAME, JPEG, RAID) - and further complicated by various sub-types such as multi-layered, recursive, contrived, nested etc.
--
An initialism refers to an abbreviation formed from, and used as a string of initials. Although the term acronym is widely used to refer to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, some dictionaries define acronym to mean "a word" in its original sense, while some others include additional senses attributing to acronym the same meaning as that of initialism. The distinction, when made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a string of letters. In such cases, examples found in dictionaries include NATO , SCUBA and RADAR for acronyms, and FBI and HTML for initialisms
Such constructions, however—regardless of how they are pronounced—if formed from initials, may be identified as initialisms. The spelled-out form of an acronym or initialism is called its expansion.
Acronymy is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for which there was little to no naming or systematic analysis until relatively recent times. By way of example, the official name for the Roman Empire, and the Republic before it, was SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus).
–
So I put it to you that TMI, as NEI (Not Enough Information - pronounced 'nay') are both ARGUABLY acronyms. Which brings us back to Chris Feldhaims' original post and the SUTOTA (suitability-to-task) of LuLa as both a sleeping aid and a laxative …
M
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I simply prefer the sound of the word "acronym" over the sound of "abbreviation" which is more ugly to me and they are similar enough in meaning that I preferred the first in my post.
Beauty beats reason.
:P
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FWIW, I think it's something quite desperate that people find so little time in their lives that they are obliged to enter LuLa via their telephone.
Every other week I travel to the place I work and stay there for the week. Having a smart phone really makes life easier. It's amazing I can use just a regular phone and access the internet. Who would have thought that possible just a few years ago. No big laptop to lug around. Email and online banking wherever I go. Even Lula and other forums. Fantastic.
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Such sensitive skins!
I merely expressed my personal opinion on the ethos of the cellphone and the tablet. Others are free to think and do whatever the hell they like!
Patronizing? Only if you think that there might be reason for that to be a possibility. You know, that worrying fitting of hats thing...
There is nothing amiss with these electronic devices being manufactured - other than the huge volume of rubbish that they will soon become when the next best thing hits the shops. There is a helluva lot wrong with a world where those deviceswhere the telephone follows you even to the bathroom, where you might sit there, your pants around your ankles, your boss in your ear and your privacy violated.
People are not machines; there comes a time - I think we've passed it - when enough is enough, when life has to be lived in human terms and at human speed.
We invent more and more clever stuff that puts more and more folks out of work; rooms full of secretaries are now bereft of those delicate creatures, and their earning power no longer hits the emporium or the corner shop and so both close. Is that very difficult to understand, to see its ramifications-to-be in your own lives? Do you all believe that it can be sustained without end? That millions of people without work will just sit there on benches, taking the air and the charity, and not revolt? People need people and people need work. We cannot continue to split the world between rich sophisticates and an underclass that can't buy into the game. We depend on one another, not, ultimately, upon a plastic-and-tin hierarchy. The world functioned just as well - probably better - in the 50s, 60s, the 70s and through to 2008 when Jericho came tumbling down. Maybe a bit more face-to-face and a few fewer cellphones and those disastrous deals might not have happened...
We do, ultimately, dig our own grave. It's our way.
Rob C
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Hi Folks
I would just like to address a couple of things here. While the comments are (mostly) constructive and pointing to great resources, while the sentiment is good and appreciated the reality breaks down to a couple of things:
1. Legacy content.
This site has almost 5000 pages of html content that have been added to it across an almost 20 year period. Pretty much every page that has ever been added to the site is still on the site and still accessible. This in itself provides a ton of challenges when it comes to an overall site design. These nearly 5000 pages have hard coded HTML (some incredibly fugly) and styles (some are even fuglier) and have been built with all kinds of software over the years, including some that were notoriously horrible at making "nice" HTML (including but not limited to very early versions of Front Page, Dreamweaver, etc). This is one of the single biggest challenges when taking on something of this scope and unless there is infinite budget and very long timelines in order to manually re-code all of that content you are stuck with what you have to work with. In this case the site has always been a black background with white text (until very recently) and had a lot of hard coded colors and other styles embedded within all of these pages, so basically without hand re-coding pretty much all of the content you get what you get. This also means that design choices are incredibly limited. The original (and still mostly to this day) color scheme was created waaaaaaay back when so we kind of had to stick with what we had. The current articles and content posted on the site use an embedded WYSIWYG editor so that it can be used by non-coders and the reality is that none of them do a particularly good job of making semantically correct HTML. Again just another reality of what it takes to get the content out there. Would I love it if everything posted on the site was completely W3C compliant? Absolutely? Is it possible at this point in time? Pretty unlikely. It was difficult enough just to get most of the text to the point that it was using similar encoding!! (you guys have no idea what some of those old editors did to some of the content, especially the microsoft based ones). A previous commenter lamented about IE6 ... IE6 was, sadly, a breath of fresh air compared to what some of those editors churned out -- which were also mostly built to only make code that worked in early IE versions and to hell with anything else ...
2. Designing for Mobile
Again on a brand new site this is absolutely the way to go. Fully responsive design built from the ground up following standards and then adding content catered to that design. Again, the reality of the situation is that it's just not possible here without a TON of additional work that was just not in the budget money or time wise and honestly in the case of Lula is just not feasible.
Unfortunately all of this legacy content also means a whole lot of compromises when it comes to something as massive as this site with so much of the content hard coded by various types of WYSIWYG editors over a couple of decades. It is what it is and most of the new layout/design was more built along the lines of damage control and lesser evils in order to get you, the readers, access to the content. Again I had little to nothing to do with the decisions for look and layout ... it is what it is and it is what is has been for almost 20 years, I am just the guy that has to make it all work.
So basically we did what we could to take steps towards better readability and presentation with what we had to work with. A lot of the design/layout choices were outside my control for various reasons and I did what I could do with it on the programming end of things given the timelines and budget, etc. Please don't think that I don't care about standards or that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Who knows what the future will bring, but for now you'll just have to be assured that we've taken a good step forward in terms of readability and clean code generation, especially when compared to the previous generations of the sites. As readers here have noted, the site is readable on most mobile devices with the new layouts -- that was a priority, but again had to be done within the limits of what we had to work with in terms of legacy content. As for the comments about the rollovers a simple click gives you access to all the same functionality that the rollovers give you on the desktop. If you think this iteration is tough to read on a mobile you should try the previous versions :)
Lastly in regards to the comments about the "coder" (being me) not caring about W3C standards I assure you that's not the case, but you have to make compromises sometimes and this is exactly the case here. You take what you have to work with and present it as best as you can. Anyone who tells you it can be done differently needs to spend some time working on 20 year old sites in the real-world with real timelines and real budgets :D
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Mark, just two words - thank you!
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Rob - I think your perception of what "the little ladies" are doing with their time and spending their money on may be a bit out of whack, as usual.
From 1960 to 2012, the average Employment to Population ratio across all OECD countries was 64.2% for 15-64 year olds with a standard deviation of just 1.16 (quite flat). From 2005 to 2008 it was about 65.5 up to 66.5 (highest ever in the period) and then the GFC hit and it dropped down into the 64s but is back in the 65s as of 2012 (no 2013 data available).
For the same group/period, the average Participation Rate was 68.41% with a standard deviation of 1.78 (fairly flat). The GFC had very little impact on this and in fact 2012 is the highest level in the data set at 70.9%.
Again, for the same group/period, the average Unemployment Rate was 6.1% with a standard deviation of 1.66 (fairly flat). The GFC saw increases from 6s up to 8s but 1983 is the highest at about 8.3%. The lates 60s/early70s had the lowest rates.
In other words, things aren't very different across the last 52 years. There are cycles, but in fact the number of people actively working and contributing to the economies of the OECD countries has never been higher both in total numbers and percentages. I don't think it supports your suggestion that technology is putting people out of work, or that your "delicate creatures" are now lamenting their removal from typing pools and into the widest variety of roles that has ever existed with the best opportunities for female employment (quantity and quality) that has ever existed (despite remaining sexism and mysogony!).
Basically, you like things the way they were - you enjoyed your life. That's excellent, really. But it's not the present or the future. You're entitled to your views, but don't be surprised when people call you out not for having them, but for basing them on fallacies.
~In my pocket I have a device that provides me with access to the sum total of human knowledge, and I use it to look at pictures of cats and argue with people I have never met~
:-)
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Thanks for your thoughtful explanation, Mark.
My own website is minuscule compared with LuLa, and even with mine there is no chance whatever that I could redesign it to satisfy all current standards and all users. Life is too short Every couple of years I realize there is something I can do to make some slight improvement, and I try to do it.
Thanks for all you have done to keep LuLa alive, Mark!
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Jeremy,
As defined by the OED,
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase, usually characterised by a period (full stop) after the abbreviated word - (P.S. , Q.E.D., Jan.)
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of the words in a name or phrase - (SONAR, RADAR, GNU, LAME, JPEG, RAID) - and further complicated by various sub-types such as multi-layered, recursive, contrived, nested etc.
So I put it to you that TMI, as NEI (Not Enough Information - pronounced 'nay') are both ARGUABLY acronyms. Which brings us back to Chris Feldhaims' original post and the SUTOTA (suitability-to-task) of LuLa as both a sleeping aid and a laxative …
I'll take the OED definition over Wikipedia, I think. NEI is an acronym when pronounced as a word and an abbreviation otherwise. TMI, on the other hand, is always an abbreviation (a TLA1, in fact): who'd say "tumi"?
I simply prefer the sound of the word "acronym" over the sound of "abbreviation" which is more ugly to me and they are similar enough in meaning that I preferred the first in my post.
Ah, Christoph, thank you. I've never before had the opportunity to quote Humpty Dumpty (as documented by Lewis Carroll) both in court and on LuLa in the same week, and I doubt I ever will again.
'There's glory for you!'
'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
Jeremy
1A three-letter abbreviation. TLA, of course, has the ultimate, self-referential accolade of being itself a TLA.
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Every couple of months, someone makes a constructive comment about the site, and every time (Mark's response above the rare exception), Michael et al respond in graceless fashion with a patronizing rebuff. And it seems every time, some unrelated person reaches the realization that this site is just not the site he loved for years…
I guess that person is me today. I'm through with this site. I've given a fair bit of my time and money to LuLa over the years. And as Michael likes to remind us every time anyone has a complaint, with a million plus visitors per month, my leaving won't likely be noticed. Oh, well, it was good while it lasted…
Cue door-butt-way out comment from Jeff.
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Cue door-butt-way out comment from Jeff.
So, after what, after 4 posts in your lifetime, you're done?
Wow...
OK, I'll jump in and say don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out...
(that make your day?)
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So, after what, after 4 posts in your lifetime, you're done?
Wow...
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=85939.msg697169#msg697169
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Rob - I think your perception of what "the little ladies" are doing with their time and spending their money on may be a bit out of whack, as usual.
From 1960 to 2012, the average Employment to Population ratio across all OECD countries was 64.2% for 15-64 year olds with a standard deviation of just 1.16 (quite flat). From 2005 to 2008 it was about 65.5 up to 66.5 (highest ever in the period) and then the GFC hit and it dropped down into the 64s but is back in the 65s as of 2012 (no 2013 data available).
For the same group/period, the average Participation Rate was 68.41% with a standard deviation of 1.78 (fairly flat). The GFC had very little impact on this and in fact 2012 is the highest level in the data set at 70.9%.
Again, for the same group/period, the average Unemployment Rate was 6.1% with a standard deviation of 1.66 (fairly flat). The GFC saw increases from 6s up to 8s but 1983 is the highest at about 8.3%. The lates 60s/early70s had the lowest rates.
In other words, things aren't very different across the last 52 years. There are cycles, but in fact the number of people actively working and contributing to the economies of the OECD countries has never been higher both in total numbers and percentages. I don't think it supports your suggestion that technology is putting people out of work, or that your "delicate creatures" are now lamenting their removal from typing pools and into the widest variety of roles that has ever existed with the best opportunities for female employment (quantity and quality) that has ever existed (despite remaining sexism and mysogony!).
Basically, you like things the way they were - you enjoyed your life. That's excellent, really. But it's not the present or the future. You're entitled to your views, but don't be surprised when people call you out not for having them, but for basing them on fallacies.
~In my pocket I have a device that provides me with access to the sum total of human knowledge, and I use it to look at pictures of cats and argue with people I have never met~
:-)
Lost in your figures, the differences between steady jobs offering careers, pensions and opportunities for making savings and buying a home, and today's reality of Macjobs, part-time jobs, minimum wage jobs, training-for-work jobs and other figure-fudging fantasies. It used to be done through a now dead device called National Service, where all of those young males between the ages of seventeen and twenty-nine or so, and without a reasonable future in favoured apprenticeships and/or education were simply swept up and dumped into the Forces for a two-year period of grace, thus keepìng many thousands off the streets and off the registers.
We Brits were supposedly known as, and derided for being a nation of shopkeepers; where now the shops? The little family businesses that ran generation through generation have mostly gone; charity shops appear to thrive as shopping streets empty, their main occupants, other than the charities, being Asian operations where families work more hours per day than there are hours per day. Oh - you can still place bets and perhaps buy a drink.
So basically, figures were ever a lie, and the only reality worth knowing is the one before your eyes. I lived in Glasgow and owned my own home. Completely. I would have loved to up and go and try my luck shooting fashion in London. With the faith in myself that if I could make it in Glasgow, where I felt I'd had almost to invent the genre for myself, London would be a piece of cake. One tiny flaw there: my house in Glasgow, nice as it was, would have perhaps - perhaps - raised enough money to buy a garage in Photographic Mecca. I would not do that to my family. So even where things have a surface of calm and ease, there exist tides and currents that don't reveal truths that matter a great deal. Since leaving Glasgow, I discovered that several excellent former clients have vanished, been absorbed by other companies or destroyed by economic reverses. Even national institutions have disappeared.
Come over to Spain, and you'll find entire 'towns' built up and still empty, nothing ever sold; where the workers today from those construction industries? Lost and forgotten, is where. They sure don't work in IT, though they certainly do reflect off the unemployment listings.
I rather believe the world to be in the state that I see it to be, than believe in the version about which I read - but as we both agree, that's a personal choice. And as you note, " may be a bit out of whack, as usual."
;-)
Rob C
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Mark, just two words - thank you!
Seconded, with all sincerity.
Rob C
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a nation of shopkeepers
A phrase from the late 1700's.
Since leaving Glasgow...
Which decade was that?
I rather believe the world to be in the state that I see it to be...
Presumably you no longer see Britain on a daily basis, except on TV.
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Isn't it time to finally declare the winner of the pissing contest?
Or is it open end?
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The winner --
Basically, you like things the way they were - you enjoyed your life. That's excellent, really. But it's not the present or the future. You're entitled to your views, but don't be surprised when people call you out not for having them, but for basing them on fallacies.
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Are there any photographers here? If there are why not grab a camera and go make some photographs.
For eight or ten years now I have been here almost daily when not shooting. I've learned a lot here or have been routed on to other sources of knowledge that have made digital a real deal for me.
It's time to move on folks.
Thanks, Michael!
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Hi Folks
I would just like to address a couple of things here. While the comments are (mostly) constructive and pointing to great resources, while the sentiment is good and appreciated the reality breaks down to a couple of things:
Thank you! For this explanation and your work on this site.
And let me mix a metaphor by saying that some people around here are pixel-peeping the mouth of a gift horse.
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pixel-peeping the mouth of a gift horse.
+100! ;D
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A phrase from the late 1700's.
Which decade was that?
Presumably you no longer see Britain on a daily basis, except on TV.
I still have family there; I have neighbours who come out here on holiday every month or so; all the newspapers from the UK are available here on a daily basis; I have satellite tv giving the entire BBC offering and Sky News... Oh - I also have to deal with the UK banks. In fact, I believe that I may be even more aware of what's going down where it matters than had I still been living within the confines of my Glaswegian base: as an expat, one takes a helluva lot more interest as a measure of protection of one's assets and, importantly, options, should the blessed Euro finally collapse and life here become untenable. So really, I don't think I need fear your appreciation of the situation as being rather more accurate than mine. Anyway, I thought you'd indicated previously that you lived in America...
And if still living in Britain, where would better information be sourced than from the very same outlets to which I am privy today? The man in the pub?
Is your contact with Britain any the more valuable or representative than mine? I doubt it.
Rob C
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Thanks folks, I'm going to close this thread now as it's mostly derailed and off-topic anyway.