"Jürgen Exner" <jurgenex@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:b790141qlqpks1nu9n98homcre5bq8olk4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Dudley Hanks" <hanks.dudley@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>"Jürgen Exner" <jurgenex@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>news:nv40141341tdan0va2du159aempg848i4j@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> "Dudley Hanks" <hanks.dudley@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>I'm trying a new feature on my site, and I'm wondering if someone
might
>>>>take
>>>>the time to drop by and test it for me.
>>>>
>>>>http://www.geocities.com/hanks.dudley/index.html
>>>
>>> The layout of that page is quite poor. Because a picture says more
than
>>> a thousand words I added my comments into a screenshot:
>>> http://mysite.verizon.net/jurgenex/images/comment.GIF
>>>
>>> Sorry, but you asked for it :-(
>>
>>Yes, I did, and I'd love to know what you posted. But, reading text
from
>>a
>>screen shot with a screen-reader is just about impossible. So, I guess
I
>>won't be able to learn from your expertise.
>
> Ooops, sorry, I didn't know that. Trying a verbal description:
> - The main text is cramped into a very narrow column on the left side,
> while there is plenty of empty space farther to the right, even between
> the text and the picture.
> - The right half of the text for the links is running into the picture
> and is therefore unreadable
> - there is a huge space underneath the picture. Why? In particular as
> you squeeze all the text into a narrow column, making it hard to read
> because of the very short lines
> - the text boxes for email and comment are halfway under the text and
> halfway under the empty space under the picture. That is confusing.
>
> In the meantime I also experimented a little bit more and found out that
> probably you didn't take into account that people are using browser
> windows in many different widths. In some widths the page looks pretty
> nice. In many it looks just awful. Experiment for yourself by changing
> the width of your browser window and you will notice how elements are
> jumping around and sometime are ending up in in really bad layouts.
> I had one size, where the first part of the title "Light, Sight, and"
> was on top of the page to the left of the picture and the last word
> "Photography" was moved underneath of the photo as if it were a caption.
> Not good.
>
> jue
>>
Thanks, Jurgen, that really helps.
For me, it doesn't matter how I size my browser window, my screen reader
just puts everything into a sequence and starts reading from the top. I
can
use keyboard commands to jump from heading to heading, link to link, table
to table, etc. But, I never get a sense of what the graphical layout is
like. If things are physically on top of each other, it doesn't matter to
the reader, it just pulls out the text and reads it.
However, the reader can only do that with text displayed in an application
workspace. Once it has to extract text from an image, it gets a lot
clumsier.
At present, I'm coding my page with a very simple text editor, so I'm not
sure how the various browsers slap my text onto a monitor. I've analyzed
the coding of a few other pages, but, as of yet, I haven't come up with
any
"rule of thumb" to use as a template.
As I work my way through the books I'm scanning (using omnipage), I'm sure
my pages will start to look better.
Once again, thanks for taking the time both to stop by my site, and to
clarify your comments. I've learned quite a bit from what you've said.
Take Care,
Dudley
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