Oh dear. Bennites.com

[matgb]

K, I'm reading a comment notification from bagrec. We're talking about how we cut our hair. The things people listed in "Iain Dale's top blogs" talk about. Google gives me a sponsored link. It's entitled "Tony Benn". Y'know, of course I'm going to click that.

I get here. Y'know every so often I do a rant about bad web design? I've never before been prompted to submit to wpts. I have now. For an interesting experiment, once you've got past the splash page (yup, a splash page on a site updated yesterday - bad designer, no biscuit), look at the link descriptions, and increase the font size. You may not need to, as odds are it's already too big. I tend to browse with defaults for verdana at 15pt. Does the page even look readable to you?

(to increase font size, Fx users can use ctrl+mouseroller. I have no idea what IE users need to do. Opera/Safari users are smart enough to know the answer anyway, right?)

Y'know, I think there's some good content on that site. Someone has obviously put some effort into it. I, um, am giving up finding it. I mean, Benn's cool, and I agree with the quote on the splash page completely, but, well, that site isn't.

Comments

[js84.livejournal.com]

As someone not too interested in the content I felt I couldn't stay there for more than 20 seconds. Is it designed for readers with a hangover?

For those not blessed with a mouse wheel, in Firefox you can also use Ctrl and + or - to change font size, and Ctrl + 0 to reset the size. In IE I think you have to manually set the text size 'Large' or 'Larger' from one of the menus. If the size was originally set in pixels, resizing the text doesn't work! A few CSS guides like this one (http://www.clagnut.com/blog/348/) advise you to set text in ems for full compatability, but I don't take notice of this.

I've gone and changed the layout of my LJ recently. You're there in the flickr feed. ;)

[matgb]

Yeah, setting in ems is good practice; as I only ever edit other css, it's something I'm used to.

I'm not actually sure what it's designed for. I'm not even sure it's designed, I think it just exists. And yes, that is a picture of me. But not really one I can make an avatar of. I've got one of me with my hair flying eferywhere, but that'd be silly.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

That’s a bad case of clickhereitis.

[matgb]

Yup, and they don't align properly half the time. Plus, navigation from sub pages is using a button marked 'back', which always takes you to the homepage, even if you came from a different page.

Really, really badly thought through. Ah well, not a great loss.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

Red + black + any typeface = "owww, my head"

Good submission there.

[matgb]

Aye, the colour scheme doesn't help. Strangely, I didn't even think to list it, it shows how little I care about colour (the monochrome on all my sites? It's because it works. The whole goth/black thing? Mostly because I don't do colour).

Aside: d'you know anyone involved in Xtv, specifically their website? May need to get a programme they're broadcasting Monday linked around (a lot). Because I'm "evil", apparently...