1. LIS650 lecture 3 Minor HTML Thomas Krichel 2004-02-20

2. today we have fun with minor HTML –tables –other HTML feature(s) minor points on line breaking –reexamining our Nielsen on page design, part II

3. Tables HTML allows to align contents is tabular form. Tables may have a caption and/or a summary. –Both describe the table. –The latter is longer than the former. Table rows are aligned vertically. Table columns are aligned horizontally. Cells are at the intersection between rows and columns.

4. table illustration A table is a matrix formed by the intersection of a number of horizontal rows and vertical columns. Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Cell

5. HTML table design it tries to make simple things simple without making sophisticated things impossible it takes account of the fact that the absolute width of the table can not be controlled by the HTML writer but it is the hands of the reader. Not all things one would like to do are supported. Sometimes tables can lead to excessive scrolling. Use of style sheets is recommended when the table has mainly a visual function, see Thomas' homepage for a bad example.

6. tags and attributes that I don't cover many points in the table spec of HTML have one or more of the following attributes –mainly important for non-visual rendering –complicate & abstract –little used –mainly a verbosity reduction feature so I am omitting some of them in the discussion

7. more table talk table rows may be grouped into –head section –body section –foot section table columns may also be grouped into more arbitrary ways. table cells can contain –header information –table data

8. the tag encloses a table. takes i18n and core attributes. The "summary" attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and structure for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and Braille. The "width" attribute specifies the desired width of the entire table and is intended for visual user agents. When the value is a percentage value, the value is relative to the user agent's available horizontal space.

9. the "frame" attribute of This attribute specifies which sides of the frame surrounding a table will be visible. Possible values: –voidno sides. This is the default value. –abovethe top side only –belowthe bottom side only –hsides the top and bottom sides only –vsides the right and left sides only –lhsthe left-hand side only –rhsthe right-hand side only –boxall four sides –borderall four sides

10. the "rules" attribute of This attribute specifies which rules will appear between cells within a table. Possible values –noneno rules. This is the default. –groups rules between row groups only. –rowsrules between rows only. –colsrules between columns only. –allrules between all rows and columns

11. the "border" attribute of This attribute sets the width of the frame of a table, if it is set to be visible. Rules and frames can make for visual noise.

12. the tag It is used to give a caption to the table. It takes the i18n and the core attributes. It is only allowed immediately after the tag start. There can only be one in any one. We will now study the alignment attributes. This is an attribute group widely used in tables. also takes those attributes.

13. alignment: the "align" attribute The "align" attribute specifies the alignment of data and the justification of text in a cell. Possible values: –leftleft-flush data or left-justify text. This is the default value for table data. –centercenter data or center-justify text. This is the default value for table headers. –rightright-flush data or right-justify text. –justifydouble-justify text –charalign text around a specific character as set with a "char" attribute

14. alignment: the "valign" attribute The "valign" attribute specifies the vertical position of data within a cell. Possible values: –top Cell data is flush with the top of the cell. –middle Cell data is centered vertically within the cell. This is the default value. –bottom Cell data is flush with the bottom of the cell. –baseline All cells in the same row as a cell whose valign attribute has this value should have their textual data positioned so that the first text line occurs on a baseline common to all cells in the row. This constraint does not apply to subsequent text lines in these cells.

15. alignment: "char" and "charoff" The "char" attribute specifies a single character within a text fragment to act as an axis for alignment. The default value for this attribute is the decimal point character for the current language as set by the "lang" attribute. The "charoff" attribute specifies the offset to the first occurrence of the alignment character on each line. If a line doesn't include the alignment character, it should be horizontally shifted to end at the alignment position. The direction of offset is determined by the current text direction, as set by the "dir" attribute. (obscure)

16. alignment: "cellspacing" The "cellspacing" attribute specifies how much space the user agent should leave –between the left side of the table and the left-hand side of the leftmost column –between the top of the table and the top side of the top row, –between the right side of the table and the right-hand side of the right most column –between the bottom of the table and the bottom side of the last row –The attribute also specifies the amount of space to leave between cells.

17. alignment attributes: "cellpadding" Does the same as cellspacing, but gives the distance between the border of the cell and the and the contents. Note that "cellpadding" and "cellspacing" can only one length. –if it is pixel, horizontal and vertical dimensions are the some –if it is a percentage, horizontal and vertical space are different as the percentage is applied to the

18. ,, These three tags enclose tags that belong to the head, the foot and the body of the table. Only one head and one foot, but optionally several bodies. Put head and foot first....header information......footer information......first row of block one data......second row of block one data......first row of block two data......second row of block two data......third row of block two data...

19. this tag allows columns to be grouped together it takes the alignment, core and i18n attributes it takes a "span" attribute that says how many columns are spanned it takes a "width" attribute, to give the width of the group. It takes percentage, pixel and relative length. A relative length is written i* where i is an integer. The higher i the more weight is given to the column when extra space is available for placing. "0*" means minimum space should be used.

20. example is the same as...a total of forty elements... In the latter case, you don't actually need the span=40 attribute.

21. tag contains data about a single column. takes the same attributes as, remember, these are –alignment attributes –core attributes –i18n attributes –span –width needs to be enclosed in a tag:

22. , and rendition and make it easier to render a table row by row. If you don't give them, the user agent has to read the whole table to find out how many columns there are at most. For long tables, this can mean additional delay.

23. encloses a table row it takes the alignment attributes it takes the i18n attributes it takes the core attributes.

24. the tag encloses a cell in a table that is not a header cell It admits the alignment and core attributes It has an "abbr" attribute for abbreviated contents. Its "rowspan" and "colspan" attributes say how many rows or columns the cell spans. It has a "headers" attribute specifies the list of header cells that provide header information for the current data cell. The value of this attribute is a space-separated list of header cell "id" attribute values. (you can ignore this) It takes an "axis" attributes, whose purpose is so abstract that I will not cover it here.

25. the element encloses a header cell It admits the same attributes as, but "headers" does make no sense here. Instead, we have a "scope" attribute that specifies the set of data cells for which the current header cell provides header information. It can take the values –row: The current cell provides header information for the rest of the row that contains it. –col: The current cell provides header information for the rest of the column that contains it. –rowgroup: The header cell provides header information for the rest of the row group that contains it. –colgroup: The header cell provides header information for the rest of the column group that contains it.

26. Example by Lesk (1976)

28. Lesk's most famous

29. subtle points of line breaking You can use the entity to indicate that you don't want a line break at that space, e.g. Prof. Dr. Krichel You can suggest the user agents to hyphenate a word at a certain point using the soft hyphen entity ­ For the curious: an entity is something out of SGML that starts with & and ends with ; and that has special meaning.

30. the tag in This can be used to include metadata in the header. It has an attribute "name" for the property name It has an attribute "content" for the property values it also takes the i18n attributes. There is no standard set of names and values. Example:

31. the tag in There is also a special way to pass http headers to the client The "http-equiv" lets you set http variable and send them to the client. Example: will tell the server to tell the browser that the page is written in html. more on this later, when we discuss http.

32. "scheme" attribute of You can give a scheme attribute to. Its content can be a name string, that the user agent may be able to do something with Or it can be a URI, where the user agent may find something to do. But there is no standard way to do things.

33. the tag in Can fix the baseline URL for all the relative links in the document. Within the confines of what we are working with, I do not see a reason for you to use it.

34. the tag in appears in the of the page. No tag end. creates a link between the current page and others takes the "href" attribute to say what page is being pointed to. takes "rel" attribute for forward link and "rev" for the reverse link. Example: –Consider two documents A and B. Document A: –Has exactly the same meaning as: Document B:

35. values of "rel" and "rev" attributes in alternate stylesheet !! start next prev contents index glossary copyright chapter section subsection appendix help bookmark

36. other attributes to takes the core attributes(no idea why) takes the "type" attribute for the MIME type of the page linked to takes the "hreflang" attribute to give the language of the page linked to takes the "charset" attribute to give the character set of the page being linked to takes the "media" attribute to give the media for the page being linked to. Use the CSS media types.

37. and search engines Using you can give search engine things like –Links to alternate versions of a document, written in another human language. –Links to alternate versions of a document, designed for different media, for instance a version especially suited for printing. –Links to the starting page of a collection of documents. I am not sure if current engines use this.

38. Nielsen on style sheets "one of the greatest hopes for recapturing the Web's ideal of separation of presentation and contents". Use a single style sheet for your site. Always use external style sheets. –organizational benefits maximized –faster loading create a manual for the style of the organization if you must allow for local styles, have these embedded in the HTML code. Make sure your site still looks reasonable in your browser when you turn CSS off and reload the page

39. Don't go crazy with CSS More than two font families (plus perhaps one for computer code) and your page starts looking like a ransom note. Gimmicky looking sites will hurt the credibility of you site. No absolute font sizes. If you have multiple style sheets, use the same HTML class tags in both.

40. Nielsen on Frames He writes: "Frames: Just Say No" He then has a few pages where he thinks about why in exceptional circumstances frames may be ok. We have not discussed frame in this course at all and just mention them here.

41. Nielsen on printing Many people prefer to read documents in print. For a long, important destination page, provide a print version. Have the header say accommodate us-letter and a4 formats –sheet as high as us-letter –sheet as wide as a4 This ends the Nielsen chapter on page design

42. Content design: writing write 50% of the words you would write in normal print, because research shows that reading on screen is 25% slower than print reading. write of scannability by using –short paragraphs –subheadings –bulleted lists Use hypertext to keep page size down. (hire a copy editor)

43. more on scannability structure pages with 2 or 3 levels of headings you may want to highlight keywords in some way, but not in any way that they could be confused with hyperlinks. Put the keywords in a … use meaningful, rather than cute headings. use one idea per paragraph almost no humor no metaphors no puns

44. page chunking Just simply splitting a long article by into different parts for linear reading is not good. Devise a strategy of front pages with the important information and back pages linked from the front pages with the detail. Base the distinction of important and not important stuff on audience analysis.

45. users rarely scroll early studies showed 10% of users would scroll. on navigational pages, users will tend to click something they see in the top portion. scrolling navigational pages are bad because users can not see all the options at the same time. the length of "destination" pages for users interested in details is less of a problem.

46. page needs to be cleverly chosen to summarize the page in a contents of a web search engine, esp. between 40 to 60 chars long different pages in a site should each have their own title. No –welcome –"a" "the" etc..

47. headline design Explain clearly what the page is about Use plain language Skip leading articles ("A", "the"..) in email subjects and page titles Make the first word the most important one Do not start all pages with the same word.

48. legibility Use high color contrast. Use plain or very subtle background images. Make the text stand still –no zooming –no blinking –no moving Left-align almost always No all uppercase, it reads 10% slower.

49. rules for online documentation (if you must have some) It is essential to make it searchable Have an abundance of examples Instructions should be task-oriented Nevertheless, you may have to provide a conceptual introduction to the system Hyperlink to a glossary

50. multimedia Since such files are long, they should have an indication of their size Write a summary of what happens in the multimedia document For a video, provide a couple of still images. This will give people –quick visual scan of the contents of the image –an impression of the quality of the image and

51. pictures Have a picture on a bio page No gratuitous images More pictures on background pages, that are reached by users with in-depth interest. Never have a picture look like an advertising banner. Maybe not have as many pictures of yourself on your site as Jakob Nielsen has.

52. animation Animal instinct draws human attention to moving things A spinning logo is a killer for reading, if you have it, have it spin only a few times No scrolling marquees, no moving text

53. animation may be good for Showing continuity in transition Indication dimensionality in transaction Illustrating change over time Multiplexing the display Enriching graphical representation Visualizing three dimensional structures Attracting attention but we will not discuss this as it is out of scope for the course

54. streaming video limited by available bandwidth could be used for –promoting television shows, films etc –give user impression of a speaker's personality (if any) –demonstrate things that move good for demo of physical products less good for demos of software watch out for narration quality

55. Downloadable video probably better than streaming breaks the interactive mode of use on the web should be limited in length, say < 1 minute big topics should be broken down on a web page into smaller ones, each having its own video.

56. audio probably a better way to convey a speaker's personality can teach the pronunciation of words can enhance the user experience, a classic study had users claiming that the graphics were better on a video game that had better sound but the same graphics than another.

57. 3D graphics has a range of problems –man is not made for 3D watching –screen is not made for rendering 3D –interaction tools such as mouse have not been made for 3D –poor screen resolution –requires plug-ins therefore it should not be used unless absolutely necessary.

58. http://openlib.org/home/krichel Thank you for your attention!