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From: jorn@MCS.COM (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Re: What's the smallest screen you design for?
Date: 1996/10/21
Message-ID: <54ftl2$pll@Venus.mcs.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 190973032
references: <3267E6A6.29C5@interlog.com>
organization: The Responsible Party
newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,alt.ascii-art


[ xposted to alt.ascii-art because of the WebTV-screen-width question ]
[ xposted from comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, so observe proper
  decorum (heh!)  ;^]

In article <3267E6A6.29C5@interlog.com>,
Lorne Tontegode  <ideas@interlog.com> wrote:
>I have seen discussion in the past regarding not designing for a
>specific resolution but rather design for all resolutions.
>But, how low do you go? Do most designers go all the way down to an old
>Mac screen of say 300 or so pixels wide or do you not go lower than 640
>pixels?

I'm baffled why no one in this thread has brought up WebTV, and the
other browsers that use NTSC video for the display (640*480, more or
less, I think).

Apparently the first versions have hit the stores, and use anti-aliased
text, so are quite readable.  But the screen shot I examined in an ad
looked like about 13 rows of 65-char-wide *proportional* text-- so <PRE>
text probably ought to be wrapped at 50 chars or so, I'm guessing.

I don't understand, either, why none of the previews of WebTV offer an
exact number for readable-monospaced-screen-width...?

I use PRE a lot, including clickable ascii imagemaps, so will probably
redesign my screens to work semi-decently for WebTV apps.  But what's
the dang number, already???

In general, the only reasonable philosophy seems to me twofold:

1- design your site in minimal HTML that will work fine in Lynx or other
   non-graphic browsers

2- finetune it with bells-n-whistles that will maximize its appeal for
   your intended audience.  last year, this just meant Netscapize it,
   but in the future it may even require multiple versions with b's-n-w's
   finetuned for: Netscape, Explorer, WebTV, ...and AT&T's inevitable
   touchtone browser!  ;^/


I've been distracted from this group for some time, but traffic to my
hypertext-theory pages has been growing anyway:
<URL:http://www.mcs.net/~jorn/html/hyper.html>.  If you haven't visited
these, please give them a look.  There's a timeline of hypertext
history that gives a very broad perspective, a checklist of common
design errors that's completely different from the usual ciwah lists,
detailed rants about various sites' designs, and some abstract
explorations of cognitive science and hypertext design.



j

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