Re: Collected suggestions for index.html changes...

[Steve Hall <digitect mindspring com>]

From: "Curtis C. Hovey", Tue Jan 13 01:03:29 2004
> On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 00:47, Steve Hall wrote:
> >
> > Ok, attached is patch and image required to complete. One caveat
> > is the png transparency--somebody will need to verify in IE and
> > let me know if it needs to be indexed to 256 colors or something.
> > 
> > Open to comments.
> 
> It's very bad form to replace nice semantic and accessable text with
> an image. 

A title tag and alternate text easily accomplish the same thing. Let's
not forget that GNOME is also intended to be beautiful, not *just*
accessible.


> "The GNOME Project" is the single most important piece of
> information about this page, and it must be absolutely clear to
> idiots (search engine bots are first-class idiots). 

So are we writing pages for search engines or for humans? Sorry, but
the title appears as such an afterthought graphically. Indeed it was,
as the entire rest of the site attests.


> Even if the image were used, it is semantically a h1. 

Squeezing it up to the top may mathematically make it first, but
graphically it doesn't read at all. (Well, ok, it is big, it has
*that* going for it.)


> I think we could get the same presentation CSS using font-size and
> relative positioning. 

As posted much farther up thread, relatively positioned objects are
not easily accomodated among absolute ones. Try pushing your font size
up a few clicks, particularly on any browser other than gecko-based.
(The majority of web browsers.) I even start getting overlap in
Epiphany at two clicks.

I think the real issue is that the design is changing. The original
design was a very basic page with a simple graphic/nav header. H1 on
the page was the title.

Now we have columns, right sidebars, splash graphics, header graphics,
header titles... it's too much. We're arguing over where the title
goes because it's no longer obvious. Let's keep it simple, it will be
easier to maintain, clearer to read and in line with the remainder.


> I like the image design.

Just trying to balance text on the right with the graphic on the left.
It still concerns me that we're using a proprietary font, but I was
only matching the current splash graphic below.



-- 
Steve Hall  [ digitect mindspring com ]