Elastic Design
2009
It can be difficult to move from a static, pixel-based design approach to an elastic, relative method. Properly implemented, however, elastic design can be a viable option that enhances usability and accessibility without mandating design sacrifices.
A pixel is an unscalable dot on a computer screen, whereas an em is a square of its font size. Because font sizes vary, the em is a relative unit that responds to users’ text-size preferences.
It is perhaps easier to adopt a print-like, static approach to design because there is less to think about when dimensions don’t change. To employ an elastic approach, however, is to fully exploit the capabilities of computer displays and web browsers.
You may want your website to display in a specific way, but your users may want it another way. Enforcing anything on a user is bad for usability and therefore detrimental to the success of the website. Read the rest of this entry »
The only way that I know how to make your blog a success is “one post at a time”. I will say that I think there’s more to this answer than meets the eye.
A popular form of navigation is tabbed navigation-a group of links that give the impression of being protrusions attached to different areas of unseen content. With CSS you don’t need to be restricted to rigid images for every tab-you can maintain complete control over appearance and text at a fraction of the file size of image-only alternatives.
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