tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738895827017892820.post715708768452382715..comments2009-05-30T07:03:32.629-07:00Binish Mathewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18406914944555044185noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738895827017892820.post-36955917719088348102009-01-30T17:03:00.000-08:002009-01-30T17:03:00.000-08:00Er... I don't get it. What is this supposed to actually achieve?<BR/><BR/>I've tried the examples above. When I click on the images there is an annoying delay while various pointless fades and animations take place, then eventually an image appears on a black background... on what appears to be a new page but isn't really, so it gives the impression that the "back" button is broken because you can't use it to return to the content that you were viewing on the "previous" page, it forces you to use the "close" box.<BR/><BR/>Yes, *I* know it's not really a new page so you can't expect the "back" button to work, but Joe Bloggs doesn't realise that. It *looks* like a new page but it doesn't behave like one - it confuses people's expectations.<BR/><BR/>Also the fading backgrounds and animated growing rectangles serve only to delay one's access to the bit one actually wants to see - the image itself. People want pages to load *fast* - that's why they upgrade their internet connections to higher-speed products and buy faster computers, and that's why webmasters prefer to host their sites on servers with high-bandwidth connections. Page response time is important; slow servers and slow connections are annoying enough, but things that *deliberately* slow down the loading of a page are much more annoying because it's deliberate.<BR/><BR/>It's very easy to demonstrate the problems simply by turning off javascript and reloading this page. Without the script, the images load straightaway, without pointless delays, and the "back" button does what you expect it to... it's fast and it conforms to user expectations, which makes for a much more pleasant user experience than with the script working.<BR/><BR/>As for styling the displayed image with borders and annotations, that's perfectly simple to do with straightforward HTML and CSS techniques, which still work if you've got javascript turned off.<BR/><BR/>Pages that don't work like you expect them to and stuff that deliberately delays access to content are not things that will encourage visitors to a website to return. If they can find comparable content on a website that does not pose pointless accessibility problems then it is that other website which they will prefer.<BR/><BR/>So unless you actually *want* to discourage visitors to your site, I don't see the point of this.Pigeonhttp://pigeonsnest.co.uk/noreply@blogger.com