July 2004 Archives

Don't Link to this Site

Sellotape don't want anyone linking to their site without their permission. "Hyperlinking to this site, is not permitted without the express prior permission of Sellotape" says the legal bumf on their site.

I watched a TV programme the other day and a voiceover said "You are not permitted to talk about this programme without written permission from the programme makers."

On the inlay of one of my CD's it says "You must not tell anyone about the existence of this album without explicit permission from the record label."

And I was shopping in a supermarket not too long ago when I saw stickers on the watermelons that said "If you tell anyone about these watermelons without the permission of the watermelon farmer you will be prosecuted."

Don't be silly Sellotape.

[Link via Zeldman btw.]

Monday 5 July, 2004 ( 3:56 PM GMT) | Comments (32) / Permanent Link

Use Dropdowns, Save Puppies

Yoda Zeldman has been explaining how he hates dropdowns more passionately than old mouldy bitter font-tag pie.
"They make me SICK" says Jay-Z (I'm paraphrasing a bit).

His comments come at the same time as he publishes a new ALA article on dropdowns, based on the original incarnation of Suckerfish Dropdowns.

Contradiction? No. His point is that although he despises them with every ounce of his being, they're a web design reality, a popular one at that, and if someone's going to have to make a web page that utilises them, they might as well apply the technique in the best possible way.

It's a shame that so many of the comments on the article aren't about the article at all, but rather about the value of dropdowns as a whole and the usability and accessibility problems associated with them. The same happened when the original Suckerfish Dropdowns article went up.

Even if we ("we" being web designers) believe that dropdowns are a bad idea and we have sound, informed, logical reasons for reaching that conclusion, in business we are often confronted with clients or project managers whose logic boils down to "yeah, but I like 'em". We can intelligently argue for hours, carefully explaining their flaws, but even an attentive client/project manager/whoever, nodding in apparent agreement will often respond with "yeah... but I like 'em".

I don't tend to use dropdowns if I have a choice, but there have been times when I've been forced to use the technique ("do it or the puppy dies, Griffiths"). So I use them. To be honest, this doesn't erk me half as much as using frames, for example ("stuff the puppy"), but whenever I apply anything, whether I want to do it or not (makes no difference, really), I want to do it in the best possible way. That's where Suckerfish comes into play for dropdowns.

The very simple point to all of this is that some people like 'em. They're a reality. Deal with it. No puppies need to die.

Thursday 1 July, 2004 (11:34 AM GMT) | Comments (7) / Permanent Link

July 2004 Archives

Don't Link to this Site

Use Dropdowns, Save Puppies

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