h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For an example of Good website design, go to your H2G2 preferences and change the Skin to Alabaster. Alabaster features:
- A respectable sized, readable type-face
- Small graphics (so it loads fast)
- A muted colour-scheme which is easy on the eyes
- A formalised layout, so it's easy to find everything on the page.

For an example of Bad website design, go to your H2G2 preferences and change the Skin to Goo. Goo features:
- White-On-Black (or white on dark navy blue), internationally recognised as being impossible to read.
- An oversized font, which is hard on the eyes...
- Massive graphics which take hours to download (so you can't use any of the navigation features)
- ... and a poorly (in my view) organised layout, which is difficult to decypher, find anything in, and which doesn't Flow...

- TBBMWSBNTL

I haven't looked the site since I first signed up. I just tried it, and now I remember why I chose Alabaster in the first place.

Very painful.

(sorry, guys!)

Myjo

Now I find that I don't get eye strain nearly as much when I have a dark background and white text, in fact if I'm programming for long periods of time I will set my editor to something like white or yellow on black.

As for the large fonts, it saves me squinting!

I must admit the pics are heavy going but I like them and while I'm at work I have the speed to download them easily!

As for the Layout, I tried Alabaster but I just couldn't cope with the home page, everything was in the wrong place! I s'pose it's what you're used to!

Well at the end of the day it's each to their own!

Mel

Yes, each to their own... goo skin! Haha!

Okay I admit it, I'm a goo-addict. I do agree about the images being a pain sometimes, but (a) when they're in your cache it's not so band and (b) I love staring at the goo! I'm still waiting for a lovely goo desktop, but I seem to remember asking long ago and the person that originally created the classic skin has long since departed.

Also, I find staring at large, easy to read white-on-blue much nicer when my eyes are tired than squinting at a blinding white page with black text. And of course the goo stands out more when compared to Amazon, Altavista, Google... in fact pretty much every popular site*.

*of course this could indicate that these sites are popular in part due to their format, e.g. not white-on-blue goo...

Goo is just so distinctive, I haven't found anything else like it on the web, so what if it's not exactly corporate, this is the guide after all!

Mel