Michael Gaigg: Über UI/UX Design

5Mar0

Highlights of Week 09/2010

Posted by Michael Gaigg

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8Sep3

Design Guidelines: Print Stylesheet

Posted by Michael Gaigg

One of the most elegant techniques in web design is the use of a print stylesheet to control the style of a webpage on a hardcopy. Being so easy and cheap it is by far the most undervalued technique out there.
Often overseen bonuses are

  • adding copyright statements or thank you notes,
  • controlling which elements should not be seen (remove menu, commercials,...) and
  • in general ensure that the printed page is legible (contrast especially for links, fonts, ...).
Results of applying a print stylesheet to the page

Results of applying a print stylesheet to the page

Design Guideline for a Print Stylesheet

  1. Make page legible
    • Use serif font family (e.g. Georgia)
    • Use points (e.g. 12pt)
    • Ensure good contrast (e.g. color: #000; background: #FFF)
  2. Maximize paper use (e.g. width: 100%)
  3. Hide elements not relevant to print (e.g. display: none)
  4. Add content relevant to print (e.g. spell out links, thank you note)
  5. Use correct markup to reduce amount of styling (e.g. h1, h2,...)

How it works

Embed an extra stylesheet designed for print media into the page.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="print.css" />

This stylesheet takes effect when a user invokes the print function of the browser and overrules style elements in other stylesheets on the page.

Then either provide a button or link that triggers a javascript function to print the page or have the user go through the browser's menu, even print preview would show you the expected layout already.

<a href="#" onclick="window.print();return false;">Print page</a>

I know, evil javascript, but hey, if turned on it works cross-browser (except IE6 with multiple IE versions installed).

Code sample

I recognize that many samples can be found on the web but I also found them incomplete in many cases. I don't claim to be compete myself, but I really like with what I came up with and most of all would like to hear your comments and feedback or even better references or links where you applied it to.

Download sample code

index.htm

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css" media="all">
@import "main.css";
</style>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="print.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="statement">Legal statement and thank you note.</div>
<div id="header">Header</div>
<div id="content">Content plus <a href="http://link.com/">Link</a></div>
<div id="footer">Footer</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

main.css


/**
Elements
*/
html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe,
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code,
del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp,
small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var,
dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
fieldset, form, label, legend,
table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
font-family: inherit;
vertical-align: baseline;
}
/* remember to define focus styles! */
:focus {
outline: 0;
}
body {
line-height: 1;
color: black;
background: white;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
ol, ul {
list-style: none;
}
/* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */
table {
border-collapse: separate;
border-spacing: 0;
}
caption, th, td {
text-align: left;
font-weight: normal;
}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after,
q:before, q:after {
content: "";
}
blockquote, q {
quotes: "" "";
}
/**
Classes
*/
/**
IDs
*/
#wrapper {
background: #FFFFFF none repeat scroll 0%;
margin: 0pt auto;
width: 600px;
}
#header {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
}
#content {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
background: #EEE;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
height: 200px;
}
#footer {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
}
a:link, a:visited {
border-bottom:1px dotted;
color:#AE4F0C;
font-weight:bold;
text-decoration:none;
}
a:visited {
color:#333333;
}
a:hover, a:focus {
border-bottom-style:solid;
color:#D03900;
}
a:focus {
/*background:#FFFFCC none repeat scroll 0%;*/
}
#statement {
display: none;
}

print.css


body {
font-family: Georgia, serif;
background: #FFF;
color: #000;
font-size: 12pt;
}
#wrapper, #content {
width: auto;
height: auto;
margin: 0 5%;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
float: none !important;
color: #000;
background: transparent none;
}
#content {
margin: 10px;
}
#header, #menu, #sidebar, #footer, .noprint {
display: none;
}
#statement {
display: block;
border: 1px solid #666;
padding: 10px;
}
a:link, a:visited {
color: #781351;
background: transparent;
text-decoration: underline;
}
a:link:after, a:visited:after {
content: " [" attr(href) "] ";
}

References:

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28Oct0

Best Practices for accessible Links

Posted by Michael Gaigg

It is essential that users can find, identify, and comprehend hypertext links quickly. Even though there are no Level 1 (A) checkpoints associated with links it is pretty easy to fulfill Level 2 and even Level 3. It's definitely worthwhile the little effort with the added benefit that e.g. most browsers render the title attribute as a tooltip.

Basic Rules

See also my Design Guidelines for Links.

  • Contrast link text color and regular text color
  • Underline link text
  • Ensure link text is descriptive of its destination
  • Make visited links change color
  • Limit link text to a maximum of four words
  • Place important words at the front of link text
  • Minimize amount of links to seven (excluding the menu) unless they are presented in a clear structure
  • Use meaningful pathnames when creating directory structure

Best Practices

Level 1

No Level 1 requirements.

Level 2

Level 2 Checkpoints - Section 508 Compliancy Standards
Checkpoint Description W3C 508 Example
Links Clearly identify the target of each link 13.1 n/a <A href="my-doc.html">My document is available in HTML</A>,<A href="my-doc.pdf" title="My document in PDF">PDF</A>,

<A href="my-doc.txt" title="My document in text">plain text</A>

Level 3

Level 3 Checkpoints - Section 508 Compliancy Standards
Checkpoint Description W3C 508 Example
Links Create a logical tab order 9.4 n/a <A tabindex="2" href="link2.txt"">Link 2</A><A tabindex="1" href="link1.txt">Link 1</A>

<A tabindex="3" href="link3.txt">Link 3</A>
Links Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links 9.5 n/a <A accesskey="2" href="link2.txt"">Link 2</A><A accesskey="1" href="link1.txt">Link 1</A>

<A accesskey="3" href="link3.txt">Link 3</A>
Links Include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links 10.5 n/a [<A href="a.htm">Link A</A>] [<A href="b.html">Link B</A>] or<A href="a.htm">Link A</A> | <A href="b.html">Link B</A>

Templates

Find out more about <a title="Michael Gaigg IT Solutions Webpage" href="http://www.mgitsolutions.com/">IT Solutions</a>

References

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About Me

Michael GaiggI'm Michael Gaigg, Lead UI Engineer at Esri's Prof. Services.

I have over 8 years of experience in designing map interfaces and can't stop thinking about improving them.

Help me by sharing your thoughts, ideas and comments.

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