This Resource was created using Front Page (!), and has been designed particularly for access by Internet Explorer 6. However, there are many problems associated with designing a web site that works well for most users. 

The design problem

Actually, there is not one design problem, but many.  If I wanted to design a brochure, I would create the copy, choose a paper format and lay it out. That's not the way it is with a computer - I can't choose to use A4 landscape or A5 portrait format, and for a whole variety of reasons.

• Computer displays are different physical sizes, from 12 inch or less to 22 inch or more; they can have different aspect ratios and resolutions.  So, size and format cannot be defined.
  
  
• Personal computers come in two main flavours - Windows and Apple Mac.  Physical differences and differences in the operating systems affect the way a web page is presented. In particular, Windows uses a standard of 96 ppi (pixels per inch) whereas Apple Mac has a standard of 72 ppi.  This means that the same image is displayed smaller on a Windows system than on an Apple Mac.
  
  
• Even if the size of the display in pixels were known, the browser may well be run in a window which is smaller than the size of the display.
  
  
• Browsers (the software you use to view a web page) come in two main flavours -Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape.  Commercial competition between these two companies means that the browsers are often incompatible, and display the same  page in different ways.  Even worse, both browsers have evolved through a series of versions, which have incompatibilities.
  
  
• It is not even possible to control the fonts that a page is displayed in, since different computers can have different ranges of fonts, and the decision on which font to use is made by the browser,  Which is why most web pages (like this one) are designed to use Arial or Times New Roman, since these are the fonts which are most commonly available.

But the worst problem of all is that the "language" in which the web pages are defined - html (hypertext mark-up language) - has a fundamentally flawed philosophy.  The original designers of the language recognised the problems I have enumerated above and took the bold decision to remove any capability for the designer to control the layout - for example html does not allow     more than one space between     successive    words - so clever designers have found work arounds, which often fall foul of the compatibility issues.  Now, taking away the ability to control the layout might appear a very sensible and clever idea to a computer buff, but is anathema to a graphic designer, because it becomes impossible the create a visually satisfying layout.  For the moment, computers does not understand the aesthetics of graphics design, nor is there any possibility that they will for a long time to come.  Under pressure, successive versions of html (yes, that is changing as well, creating further problems) have introduced an ever increasing number of features to enable specific aspects of the layout to be controlled; however the html standards committee has still not faced up to the fact that the fundamental philosophy is flawed and needs to be abandoned.

There is one further problem with html, which is that the format of the language itself is very poor and over complicated.  There are two consequences of this:

• It is very easy to produce incorrect html, which may work on some systems and not on others.
  
  
• It is very difficult to produce a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) interface, which enables the correct editing of the underlying html while looking at the formatted page.  As a result, most of the web page authoring tools, like Front Page, produce poor quality html, and provide inadequate support for many of the features in html.  The consequence is that most web pages are still produced by editing the html format directly - an incredibly archaic and inefficient approach - imagine having to produce a Word document by editing the underlying .doc text (which you can see if you look with something like WordPad).  Still, it has created a whole new class of professionals - web authors - even though their job should be entirely unnecessary.

Solutions to the design problem

There are two, or possibly three, approaches to the design problem. 

The approach that is most commonly adopted, particularly by commercial sites is really a cop out, and is not appropriate for the longer term. It is based on the observation that, at present, most displays (more than 50%) are set to a resolution of 800x600 pixels.  So the web page is designed to a fixed width of 800 pixels and, where appropriate, a depth of 600 pixels.  This means that if you have a display with a lower resolution, like 640x480, or use a window, only part of the page will be visible, and it will be necessary to scroll horizontally to read each line - not very convenient.  It also means that if you have a display with a better resolution than 800x600, the page will only use part of the screen.  This may be no great problem at a resolution of 1024x768, but is a problem at greater resolutions, because the page becomes too small to be readable.

The approach adopted by the Ketogenic Resource is to try to use html as it was originally intended - so that the pages are fully scalable.  This means that only a restricted set of the html facilities can be used, but it does maximise the range of systems on which the Ketogenic Resource should be easily viewable.  By being creative, it is even possible to make the pages look attractive.

Oh - the third approach?  Just forget the problem and produce html.  It works quite well for sites with a lot of text and it works for many viewers.

Getting the best from you web browser

It is my observation that many people do not have their systems set up to get the best from their web browsers.  The following are some tips about optimising your system which may be of interest.  They are specifically targeted at Windows systems using Microsoft Internet Explorer, although some of them may be applicable to other systems.

Use the latest browser

It really is a good idea to use the latest version of your browser.  It will ensure the best performance from advanced web sites, and provide the best protection from viruses and all those other horrors that lurk in cyberspace.  The manufacturers have made it easy to download and install their browsers:

•   Internet Explorer  
  
  
•   Netscape  

The only good reason for not using the latest version is if you have performance or disc space problems.  Each new version seems to use ever more compute capability and ever more space.

Use Internet Explorer

No, I don't like Microsoft either. But Internet Explorer is more than 90% of the market, so most web sites will be optimised to work with that browser, and will work better with Microsoft Explorer.

Optimise the browser options

In Internet Explorer the options are found under "tools" > "Internet options".  The basic rule is to leave the options set at the default values - a web page designer can't do much except to design for the default values, so these will work best for most pages. 

Under the "General tab":

• Colours are best left at their default values.  It is a good idea to have the hover colour turned on, since this helps to identify hyperlinks, which can be difficult to identify on some sites.
  
  
• Do not set any of the options under accessibility - that way leads to disaster.
  
  
• You need to consider carefully which option to set for checking for newer versions of stored pages.  I usually find that the "automatic" option works well, but if you are accessing sites with rapidly changing data, you may need a different setting.  These option are found under the "settings" button for temporary internet files.

The other tab which affects viewing is the "advanced" tab:

• The only one that I change is the "underline links" - from the default of "always" to "never" - I prefer to have the links identified by hovering.

Text size

It is possible to change the text size for a site, if the font is too small to read, or to large for convenience. This facility is found under "View" > "Text size".  Unfortunately this facility only works if the web site has been designed as originally intended by the designers of html.  If the font sizes have been specified in absolute, rather than relative sizes, as is the case for most sites specifically designed to an 800x600 format, the fonts won't resize, even though this is often the case when it is most desirable.  Also, on some sites, some of the text may scale and some text may not.  Sorry about that.

Screen resolution

The most important optimisation has been left till last.  Most personal computers are not set to the best screen resolution for viewing text, and increasing the resolution will greatly improve the quality of the text and so reduce eye strain.

There is a perceptible improvement in text quality as the screen resolution increases all the all up to 1600x1200, but not  at greater resolutions - or at least to my eyes.  The resolution at which your system will work is determined by two things - the quality of your monitor and the capability of your graphics card.  Most systems are set to 800x600 when they are delivered, but will work at higher resolutions.

It is quite easy to change the screen resolution.  Right click on the desk top and select "properties". The adjustment is found under the "settings" tab, and can be done on the fly without turning your system off.  As a result, it is perfectly feasible to optimise the screen resolution for individual programs.

So far, I have only talked about pixel resolution - it is also possible to change the colour resolution. Personally, I find that 16 bit resolution (high color) is adequate and that 32 bit resolution (true color) is not essential. The point is relevant because there is a trade off between pixel resolution and colour resolution.  Your graphics card has to store a screen of information, which is so many pixels x the number of bits of colour resolution.  Since the memory on the graphics card is fixed, it can display twice as many pixels at a resolution of 16 bits as it can at a resolution of 32 bits.  Personally (again) I think it is better to have more pixels, even if this means reducing the colour resolution to 16 bits.

Changing the colour resolution is exactly the same as changing the screen resolution.   Right click on the desk top and select "properties". The adjustment is found under the "settings" tab, and can be done on the fly without turning your system off.

However, there are three problems with increasing the screen resolution:

• Most games software, and much mickey mouse software, is designed to run at 800x600 resolution, and if you use a higher resolution, they will not scale and will only occupy an area of the screen and be difficult to read.  You have a choice, therefore, and the screen resolution you standardise on will depend on your pattern of use.  However, as I have noted above, it is quite easy to change the resolution to suit individual programs.
  
  
• There is a fundamental flaw in the Windows operating system - almost everything, from icons to message boxes is scaled in pixels (the only thing that is not are the windows themselves).  So, as the resolution is increased, the Windows information becomes smaller and increasingly difficult to read.  There are ad hoc fixes in Windows to cope with this; it is possible to use large icons and pointers, and the font sizes can be scaled.  These things are not so easy to do, and the effects are not perfect.  Also, not all programs use the Windows facilities correctly, and the windows in some of these programs may not scale properly.
  
  
• CRT displays are essentially analog, so scaling the resolution has a reasonably linear effect on the quality.  Flat panel (TFT) screens, by contrast, are essentially digital, and are optimised to work at a specific resolution (usually greater than 800x600).  To display at other resolutions they use hardware interpolation, which reduces the quality of the image, sometimes disastrously at particular resolutions.  It is highly desirable to use a flat panel screen at its design resolution, in order to get the best quality image.

To change the resolution setting for Windows, it is necessary to do the following:

• The icons setting can be found by right clicking the desk top and selecting "Properties" > "Effects" - choose large icons.
  
  
• The Windows appearance settings can be found by right clicking the desk top and selecting "Properties" > "Appearance.  experimentation is then necessary to get just the appearance you want.
  
  
• The pointers setting can be found in the control panel.  Select "Mouse" > "Pointers" and then choose a large or extra large scheme.
  
  
• The fonts can be scaled by right clicking the desk top and selecting "Properties" > "Settings" > "Advanced".  The first time this facility is used it may be necessary to load new fonts from your system disc.
  
  
• It will also be necessary to restart the system to make these various changes operational.

Personally, I use a flat panel display set to 1280x1024 pixels, with 32 bit (true color) resolution.  I use large icons, the Windows appearance icons scaled to 48 pixels (and other settings scaled commensurately), and Windows inverted extra large pointers.  The fonts are scaled to 200%.  the effect of all this is to create a screen which is almost exactly equivalent to a 640x480 screen in terms of the relative sizes at which everything is displayed.  And that is the size for which Windows was designed to be used and is most legible.  However, the image actually has twice the resolution (1280x1024) so that the quality of the text is far better, and it is a pleasure to read.

return to   A tour around the Ketogenic Resource

(checked: )
(update 1.1: 28 January 2003)
(issue 1: 30 November 2002)