On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, Luke Mewburn wrote:

>Matt Chapman writes:
>> > "More colorful" is right.  On the left, using Netscape, I see blue links
>> > on a yellowish with brown flecks background.  Almost unreadable.  Can
>> > we get rid of the background (or change it to something that contrasts
>> > well with the text/link colors)?
>> > 
>> The background is actually yellow with grey fader on the left and right
>> margin I am not sure what res. you are at so you may be seeing flecks for
>> that reason.  I had done it originally with a flat yellow which looked
>> better for any res., what do you think?  
>
>i don't believe that the home page (or any of the pages for that matter)
>should have background colours set; in most cases the use of background
>colours (and superfluous use of color for other items) detracts from the
>primary purpose of the page - delivering information to our customers...

I quite disagree, I find that color can be an effective tool to both
convseay information and to add to the visual appeal of an image or
text.  I have for a long while thought that the NetBSD home bage could
use both better design and more timely updates.  I have not expressed
this sentiment since I dont have the visual design skills to do
a better job myself and I don't want to add work for others, but now
that we have some one who both wants the jobs and show initiative
I feel better about saying so.

>professional web designers with background in typesetting, page layout
>and graphics design usually agree with my sentiments.

I don't really give one whit what 'professionals' think, this page
is a tool meant to be used by ordinary people and to that extent that
ordinary people like this better than the old, that all that matters
in my book.  This is mind, as and ordinary person, I express my
preference for the visual appeal of the proposed page. I would
however, like to keep the old home page picture around somewhere,
(in addition to the new picture and not as a replacement) as I really
liked it.

>as others have said, the usuability in lynx and ``non standard'' www
>browsers has to be taken into consideration. unnecessary use of graphics
>as separators or text boxes, excessive frames, too high expiry (to foil
>www caches), etc, are all Bad Things and should be avoided...
>
>ps: i've up my graphical browser (netscape 3.04 in this case) to
>ignore document colours and display everything as green text on black;
>i got sick of not being able to read a page because somebody thought
>it was ``cool'' to have a funky background image.

That fine and it is your right, and I doubt any would tell you you
shouldn't, in return perhaps you would allow the rest of us to make
the same choice for ourselves?  I don't really see the problem here,
however, it is not as if gratuitous picture was used as a backround,
rather it seems to me that a consious (and INMHO effective) choice was
made to use differing colors to offset the distinct function and
palcement of the two visual components of the page.

I think that even if we are not completely happy with the form of the
proposed page, we ought to at least commend the initiative and encourage
the impulse to contribute.  Perhaps there are improvements that can
be made and we ought to discuss them.

PS: I do wish the text was a little bigger, I had a really hard time
reading it.

---------
Christopher R. Bowman
crb@ChrisBowman.com
My home page