Via Kevin I discover that SMOFcon 26 has a web site at last. It is a little light on details (I’m sure they have more than three members), but at least it looks professionally put together. Progress. And Kevin also reports that there are plenty of good places to eat nearby.
Of course even competent web designers can make mistakes. Is it really a good idea to have your header graphics so large that most people have to scroll down to see any content at all? (What, you mean that ordinary people don’t have massive screens like I have on my development machine?)
Was searching on SMOFcon info when I found your entry. I wouldlike to make several points.
1. I know that the smofcon.org webmaster has been email several times, starting in April, requestion that the link be added. It has not been done as of this post. The midohiosf.org site wet online April 30, 2008.
2. As someone that deals with websites and their trafic Analytics on a daily basis, let me share some statistic with you.
a. Less than 5% of people that visit the 40 sites I monitor have a monitor of 600×800 or small.
b. Over 45% are at 1024×768 or higher.
So, in looking at the smofcon 26 page it was designed with this in mind. If the technology waited for eveyone to catch up with it before moving forward were would we be?
I would also point out at this time that you must do the same thing on SMOFcon.org.
And as for the size of a developers monitor, I personally only use resolution of 600×800. Doing this ensures I don’t design so big it doesn’t fit on the majority of the web users screens.
My commiserations about the non-responsiveness of the SMOFcon.org webmaster. Sadly these things happen. But when they do the thing to do is not to sit and steam, but to get the message to other people that it is happening. Then we can all complain on your behalf.
As to screen sizes, I happen to maintain quite a lot of web sites myself, so I’m well aware of the issues. It isn’t very sensible to condescend to people online when you don’t know them very well.
I generally use a 1024 x 768 screen. I have a few menu bars on Firefox, and at full screen I can just see the top of the first line of actual content on your home page. On 600 x 800 I suspect all you would be able to see is the graphic. That’s not sensible design, that’s telling people that your pretty pictures are more important than the information that they are trying to find. Or, to put it more succinctly, it is arrogant.
Try reading some Jakob Nielsen some time.
And then go and find out what an Asus EeePC is, and after that tell me if you still think that the trend amongst users will always be to bigger and bigger screens. (Not that you are the only one to miss that – Google reader doesn’t work well on an Asus.)