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Author Topic: Site readability  (Read 13896 times)

Torbjörn Tapani

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #40 on: January 21, 2014, 10:23:19 am »

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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Rob C

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #41 on: January 21, 2014, 01:29:59 pm »

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

mguertin

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #42 on: January 21, 2014, 03:19:13 pm »

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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Manoli

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #43 on: January 21, 2014, 03:36:00 pm »

Mark, just two words - thank you!
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Farmer

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #44 on: January 21, 2014, 03:58:31 pm »

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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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #45 on: January 21, 2014, 04:02:56 pm »

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 Roussak

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #46 on: January 22, 2014, 03:53:43 am »

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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jasonchickerson

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #47 on: January 22, 2014, 04:28:29 am »

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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Schewe

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #48 on: January 22, 2014, 04:52:25 am »

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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jeremyrh

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #49 on: January 22, 2014, 05:23:22 am »

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Rob C

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #50 on: January 22, 2014, 05:37:13 am »

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
« Last Edit: January 22, 2014, 08:39:27 am by Rob C »
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Rob C

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #51 on: January 22, 2014, 05:38:55 am »

Mark, just two words - thank you!


Seconded, with all sincerity.

Rob C

Isaac

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #52 on: January 22, 2014, 02:08:26 pm »

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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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #53 on: January 22, 2014, 02:16:03 pm »

Isn't it time to finally declare the winner of the pissing contest?
Or is it open end?

Isaac

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #54 on: January 22, 2014, 02:22:59 pm »

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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Jack Varney

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #55 on: January 22, 2014, 08:52:58 pm »

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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Jack Varney

BJL

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #56 on: January 22, 2014, 08:57:16 pm »

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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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #57 on: January 23, 2014, 12:10:02 am »

pixel-peeping the mouth of a gift horse.
+100!   ;D
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Rob C

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #58 on: January 23, 2014, 03:48:23 am »

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

mguertin

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Re: Site readability
« Reply #59 on: January 23, 2014, 10:19:31 am »

Thanks folks, I'm going to close this thread now as it's mostly derailed and off-topic anyway.
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