Helping visitors+designing for context

[francis]

Rather spiffing issue of Alistapart (http://www.alistapart.com) with two great articles. The first is designing for context with CSS (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/designingforcontext/), a good article on using CSS to display different content dependant on a certain media type. A bit like I did on my Green Farm site where contact details for the business are hidden when viewed in a browser, but exposed when printed. However, as readers point on in the the discussion for this article (http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/designingforcontext/), this can impact some screenreaders and non-CSS aware user agents, so it should be used spareingly.

The second is helping your visitors (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/helpingvisitors/), which contains a lot of good, sensible advice on designing a website and helping visitors negociate large amounts of content.

[Tom]

Re 'helping your visitors', I applaud the principles more than the examples. Take the Dell.com (http://www.dell.com/) site. You could say I am an oddity but I have always found the Dell categories confusing. What am I? Home? Home office? (Very) small business? Education? You could say that it does not matter but it always leaves me wondering about the different specifications and prices offered to these groups. If I go in under education will I get a lower price and a worse video card?

Two other points (1) my recollection is that the old Dell site use nested tabs, as Amazon still do, rather than drop-down menus (2) Nick Usborne, in helping your visitors (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/helpingvisitors/) makes an excellent point: 'The fact that no two sites are exactly the same creates a roadblock or speed bump for each new visitor.' We will get to this, in the seminar on design methods, when we discuss the use of a pattern language for web sites.

[francis]

I'd make the same point about the Dell site. It's not so much the categories that are confusing, it's more when you need to use their support material. I only had to use it once, but rapidly found myself going round and round in circles, with each promising link turning out to be nothing of use.

As you said, the principles may be fine, but the examples maybe less so (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6181/right.htm)

[Tom]

Beats me how Francis finds so many witty websites. I spend my time mired in pretentious claptrap.