Visitor studies

Every so often, blogmasters need a small reminder that insofar as their websites are means of communication with other hoomanz and the world at large, usability should always be key. My latest reminder came by way of a critique left here by commenter Cassie:

ummm… first trip here. and yes it is purty …. but when the background is dark and the text is white, the reader gets eye strain similar to repeatedly walking out of a dark movie theatre into the bright sun light. (sorry to be a debbie downer, but it’s an old pet peeve of mine …..) also, the muted look is not user friendly for old broads like me. squinting is something i try to avoid ….. have enough frown lines.

My initial and internal response was something close to “harrumph!”, informed by the kind of thinking inherent in this statement by WordPress impressario Matt Mullenweg when he unveiled the latest design of his own, immensely more popular blog (with a beautiful header the size of a Highway 40 billboard):

It’s refreshing to be able to have a design where the only person in the world it needs to please is me.

It didn’t take very long, though, before I developed a powerful case of remorse over feeling that way myself. Of course a blog design should please more than the blogmaster him/herself. To maintain a scheme that creates an impediment to the user – and that what the webfaring population is, a trackless sea of potential users – is the equivalent of saying ‘boo ya sucks’ to people whose only offense is wanting to read what you’ve written. And that’s not very nice, is it?

So. I set about creating an alternate stylesheet for this site, one that would present the content in a more, ah, illuminated fashion; a scheme that would be less of a visual hardship for the presbyoptics among us. Having accomplished that, I then cast about for a way for users to switch back and forth as desired between the default and alternate presentations. I stumbled upon a lengthy article on style switchers posted by the wonderful web-info resource called Smashing Magazine (‘We smash you with the information that will make your life easier. Really.’) Rummaging through the article’s list of style switching tutorials and resources led me to David Appleyard’s CSS Style Switcher approach. With some timely advice from Thesis Theme cognoscenti kristarella, I was able to apply it here.

Thus: A handy style switcher, conveniently located in the navigation bar to your right (my left). Activated styles should be persistent; if you choose the alternate (‘light’) style, your browser should remember to use it when you visit the site again using that browser. How long will it remember? Two weeks, two years, or perhaps something in the middle.

The function is not entirely seamless; in certain browsers, the inactive style may flash briefly into view when loading a page. I may be able to address the issue. That hiccup aside, though, the switcher does just what it should. I encourage anyone who has trouble with the default dark style of the website to use it.