Thursday, March 27, 2008

Irreverent!

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement:

Basic Web Comic Page Design is a Solved Problem.

There's really no excuse other than gross incompetence to have (A) more than 100 pixels of title banner height, (B) a navigation bar that is anything other than a sleek line of five buttons, or (C) a comic image that is not a link to the next comic.

I stumble across comics with hugely flawed page designs - several in which even the top edge of the comic is not visible from the top of the page - and I have to wonder... Do I dislike these comics because they are bad, or do I dislike them because they're hard to read? Maybe they're good comics, and the continuous distraction of trying to navigate the page diminishes them?

Why take the chance? The issue is SOLVED. It's SOLVED.

9 comments:

brackish meadows said...

Yes!

The comic-links-to-the-next-comic is so useful, and common enough, that I can't understand why anybody wouldn't use it. Don't they know?

Craig Perko said...

I mean, it's like they don't even read my blog or something! :D

Olick said...

You forgot one: a single address that always displays the latest comic.

Duncan M said...

All irregularly posting webcomics, regardless of their format, should have an RSS feed. Even if you dislike reading from the feed itself, at least you'll know when new comics are available.

Craig Perko said...

I certainly didn't cover all of the issues, just the few that were pissing me off.

RSS feed is pretty close to a must, but it is pretty technical, and some of the page-building software these artists use might not support it. So I can forgive that as something other than gross incompetence.

DmL said...

Hmm. I'll have to see if comicPress/stripShow support the clicking for next things somehow. Hadn't even thought of it since I always use the nav buttons personally.

DmL said...

Ah, I just realized it doesn't matter for my site since some of my "comics" are videos. Oh well.

Craig Perko said...

I'm afraid none of us know who you are, David. Your profile doesn't exist.

But good luck with whatever it is you do.

DmL said...

Oh, I never meant for you to follow a link or anything, but I can give you one if you like. I figured I would follow up later but realized from a useability standpoint it just doesn't apply to me, unfortunately. Good idea though. I kinda got around it by having navs at the top and bottom, and since the comics are always the same size, you shouldn't have to move your mouse at all to scroll through the comics. I've commented here before.