There's something about designing for the Web that irritates me. You may have noticed, many Websites have HUGE headers. I'm the first to admit, I've created many a site with chunky headers. We've all heard the rule Form Follows Function. And I totally agree with that! Yet we (the design community) continue to design sites that might look smashing because they have huge, graphic headers, but the main content of each page is at and below the fold, which forces users to scroll down to read content. How functional is that?! Call me lazy, but I really don't like to scroll. Do I have to assume it is just a necessary evil and everyone just has to deal with it? Can we rethink this dilemma? As designers and content developers, I know we can do better.The fact of the matter is it is really difficult to design for a horizontal layout. Maybe for a few reasons. Maybe we have looked at and designed for vertical pages on paper so long, that we can't get our heads around the horizontal screen we are now designing for. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think we need to be scrolling horizontally either. I'm talking about limiting the size of the header, and keeping content in smaller chunks to minimize scrolling. Is it better to click or to scroll?
I have noticed that sites developed in Flash tend to keep things in screen-size chunks. This is probably more difficult to achieve because it requires more links, and more condensed, less verbose content. In spite of all that, this might be the way to go for the future of more usable sites. I, for one, am going to attempt to develop HTML/CSS sites that follow this same rule. (I know... wish me luck!)
I would love some commentary from other designers on this subject. Do you think it is important? Do you think we tend to over-design sites? Is it time to start thinking of better ways to use the screen space? If you have already achieved this, I'd love to see some examples. Please tell me your experiences and thoughts on this issue.
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