Re: Narrowest Web Page

Scott Meyers wrote:
[SNIP]
> My point is that only users know what is most important to them,
> hence they should be able to make the decision.  My comment on
> "scanability" was in the context of line width on a web page, and I
> believe it is reasonable for people to be interested in playing
> scanability off against readability.  In particular, as a user
> myself, I don't wish to have that ability precluded.
[SNIP]

One old example of scanability: if you ever have to wait in a shop in
Hungary because the good have a bad barcode... well you have to wait a lot,
because the poor cashier has to find the thing in a long (scrollable) list
of all articles... and usually she finds at least two names matching the
thing you wanted to buy.  Then comes the "Rita come here please, which one
is this...".  Of course with all equipment this was the best one could do.
But visualization CAN help a lot on those issues of indecisiveness (I know
that there is no such word :-) ).  One example is the popup calendar from
Scott. Another might be region selection using a map or article selection
helped by pictures etc.  So if we do go for scanability we must take into
account the human nature of "one picture is worth of a thousand words".  So
I would say: if you can: visualize.

Attila