

A Crash Course in Information and Visual Design - sfard
http://throwww.com/a/1q3

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sfard
I wrote this cause I had some time and figured I could have used something
like this when I started out. I hope it's helpful.

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ville
It gives a good overview of the topics that made me want to learn more about
them. I think some links to resources for further information after each
section would be very useful for someone using this article as a starting
point.

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sfard
Good point - I'll add some reference material.

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hnreader123
I never appreciated design until I sat down with one of my graphic designer
friends. He would spend hours on what I thought were simple things such as
typography and placement of objects. Graphic design is under-appreciated and
usually goes unnoticed unless it's bad enough to be noticeable.

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alok-g
>> Consider why newspapers are written in columns rather than across the
entire page. Or why the text block on this site is only 600 pixels wide.

Why are multiple columns not preferred on the web as opposed to wasting half
the screen space. I guess there may be issues with scrolling but those should
be solvable.

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johncoltrane
I see three main reasons.

1\. The web has its origins in the world of research and academia where most
publications have at most 2 columns and usually only one. The current
"newspaper/magazine" trend and the challenges associated with it and large
display sizes are quite recent.

2\. In the early 90s, the average display size was 800x600. At that size, a
line of text set at 14px contained roughly 100 characters. Nobody really felt
the need for shorter lines. Besides, newspapers don't lay out their content in
columns because of legibility concerns but because it makes cutting and moving
(parts of) articles easier an improves the general flexibility of their
composition. And that's good for advertising, too.

3\. Back to the origins of the web, one of the main design goals of its
creator was to create a medium that was as independant of the client as
possible. From that point of view, columns seem to be quite difficult to
execute well. But of course, most of today's web doesn't really fit in their
original view.

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ayush_gupta
In it you say >The "Articles by" pane floats on the right side of the page,
but below the title, not inline."<. Do you think having the Articles by
section on the right as a fixed div is better since a user will always have
them visible on the right? Instead of it getting lost the moment you're
finished reading the mere beginning of the article?

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ndunn2
Excellent post. Would have left a comment on the original article but I'm not
about to give permissions to a new app just to leave a comment. Please
consider an alternate comment system.

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sfard
Thanks ndunn2. When I built the commenting system, I figured that asking
people for the bare minimum information from their twitter account would be
enough to get them to sign up, but it really seems I was wrong. I worried anon
posts would result in too many "stfu nigger fag" type comments, and didn't
want to give up any design to Disqus. And sign-up on the site I figured was
too much of a hastle. Ugh......

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nanch
I love this site, keep up the good work.

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ayush_gupta
excellent read. thanks.

