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I don't think it's a bad design. I'm not sure that using dynamic menus
is a good idea (what happens to the increasing number of users who have
turned off JavaScript for external pages because it's used so often for
spam?), but they seem to work well here.
The support pages seem better designed and easier to navigate than the
SUGI pages, which I find confusing. Unfortunately, not all of the
support pages fit on 800x600 screens, still common on laptops. None of
the SUGI pages fit, so at least there's some improvement.
I wish sites wouldn't set font sizes to be smaller than the size I've
specified for my standard font. If I wanted my fonts to be tiny and
hard to read, I'd set my browser to display them that way. I haven't,
so why do web designers take it upon themselves to do so?
At least the pages still work if I set Internet Explorer's
Accessibility option to "Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages" -
I've been to other sites that don't handle resizing properly and put
text on top of other text.
Two interesting things I noticed by looking at the source:
1) They used an external vendor's code for the dynamic menus, rather
than writing it themselves, and
2) They're using JSP rather than SAS/Intrnet. I think JSP is SAS's
future direction, but for now it looks like they're not eating their own
dog food.
--
JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com
Manager, Technical Development
METRICS Department, First Health
West Sacramento, California USA
>>> "Mike Rhoads" <RHOADSM1@WESTAT.COM> 01/27/2003 2:39 PM >>>
At some point within the last several days, the previous "home page"
for
Support on the SAS web site has been replaced by a new "Customer
Support
Center" page at http://support.sas.com/.
While the new page is attractive, I expect that it is going to take me
more
clicks to get certain places than it did before, even with the
cascading
menus on the left. I found the old page extremely useful in the number
of
direct links it contained, although some may have found the look too
"busy."
I also face a small "project" of updating the bookmarks to specific
key
pages I had developed over the years, although so far everything I
have
tried has had a redirect.
Any other thoughts?
Mike Rhoads
Westat
RhoadsM1@Westat.com
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