Richard Nantel

A week ago, I switched to browsing the Web using a portrait- rather than landscape-oriented monitor. Although my new monitor can pivot back and forth between the two orientations, I haven’t moved it back to landscape mode since trying out the Web in vertical format. This is definitely the right orientation for all the reasons I listed in my last post.

This discovery has made me question other dumb things I’ve been doing for no other reason than I’ve always done them that way. Here are four others:

1. Typing

My colleague Gary Woodill turned me onto voice recognition software last year. My brother-in-law, a surgeon, had given me a demo of the same software package a decade ago, and the results were so terrible, I suggested he’d have his medical license revoked if anyone ever saw his dictated medical reports.

Software has come such a long way in a decade, I should have realized the time for voice recognition might now be here.

After going through the requisite “training” period, the software I selected, Dragon Naturally Speaking, works beautifully. I can honestly say that it’s now a much faster and more precise way to input words than typing.

I start up the program when preparing to write a lot of text but sometimes forget to use it for small tasks such as composing e-mail. I need to break the bad habit of typing all the time and need to remember to keep the voice recognition software open all day.

2. Lugging around a laptop

When traveling, or when I just need a change of scenery by heading to Café Marmalade down the street, I’ll take my laptop. Sometimes I can’t get a spot next to an electrical outlet, so I end up swearing when my laptop shuts down after a couple of hours.

If it’s not the anemic battery, it’s the weight that has me cursing. I’ll find myself walking somewhere carrying my laptop and all of its related accessories until my shoulder aches for relief.

Ninety-five percent of the time, all I’m doing is writing or working within a spreadsheet. Is a laptop really the best tool for this? No.

I need to stop reaching for my laptop and take a PDA and a folding keyboard on my next trip. (I don’t think the other coffee shop patrons will want me using my voice recognition software, so here’s a case where typing makes sense.)

The battery for my PDA never seems to die, and the setup weighs almost nothing. Plus, both keyboard and PDA fit into my coat pockets, so my shoulders will thank me.

3. Emailing documents

Old habits die hard. I still often find myself working on a document and sending it by e-mail to someone for revisions or input. I need to be better at remembering to put the information in a wiki or in Google Docs and sending a link instead.

4. Spending time showing someone how to do something without looking to see if the procedure already exists on the Web

The other day, I created a short tutorial to show some team members how to edit their Outlook signature files. Had I been smart, I would have Googled or Youtubed “edit outlook signature” and sent them one of many links.

I think this is a generational thing. I learned to do things on computers by exploring. My 14-year old daughter doesn’t waste her time. She’ll just turn to Google and type “how do I connect to a home network using Vista?”

In an era where answers are ubiquitous, being action-oriented can be a waste of time.

Middle-aged eyesight led me to a computer store in search of a monitor that provides crisper, easier-to-read text. What I found there were shelves stacked with relatively inexpensive, high-resolution, wide-screen monitors ranging in size from 19 to 30 inches. Given our consumer lust for electronics, the affordability of these screens, and our aging population, many people will soon be upgrading their monitors.

What these people will find when they plug in their new wide-screen monitors is that they will be browsing a vertical Web through horizontal eyes. Thanks to the writings of usability gurus such as Jacob Nielsen, almost all Web sites have been designed to eliminate horizontal scrolling. According to Nielsen:

We know from user testing that users hate horizontal scrolling and always comment negatively when they encounter it. Customer satisfaction is surely reason enough to avoid horizontal scrolling.

Anti-horizontal scrolling dogma has created a vertical Web. Because Nielsen, et. al. approve of vertical scrolling, almost all Web sites use a set page width (often about 800 pixels) but a variable page depth. The result is that the Web looks ridiculous on new wide-screen monitors. For example, here’s my Facebook page using my new 22-inch monitor set to a resolution of 1680 x 1050:

Here’s a screen showing the results of a Google search:

Here’s a page from the BBC News site:

Clearly, these pages are best viewed on a screen oriented in portrait, rather than landscape, format.

The reason computer monitors are overwhelmingly being designed in a wide-screen horizontal format is almost certainly because many of the same hardware companies also produce televisions. The dimensions of modern digital televisions are driven by the aspect ratio of movie screens. So, modern computer monitors are better designed to watch full screen video than to browse the Web.

As high-resolution, wide-screen monitors gain adoption, Web designers need to redesign their sites to better work in these formats. It’s tempting for Web developers to address the screen width problem by making the width of their pages variable. But, this can create significant usability problems. Typographic best practices dictate that a column width of text should contain about 60 characters. Any wider, and the eye has difficulty tracking the line. So, wider columns of text may significantly reduce readability. Here’s an example of what not to do:

A better solution is to design pages so that text columns are constrained to a maximum width but other elements are elastic and able fill the white space. Amazon does this brilliantly. Here’s the same Amazon screen at three different resolutions.

Resolution 1680 x 1050:

Resolution 1024 x 768:

Resolution 800 x 600:

At 800 x 600, some horizontal scrolling is required to see the information at the far right of the page. But, usability doesn’t suffer because this right-hand information is secondary. The core components, the left-hand navigation menu and the important information in the middle of the page, are visible without horizontal scrolling.

All Web and instructional designers should study the Amazon site for a crash course on usability.

Web developers should also investigate design solutions that allow users to move components around on the page. iGoogle, Facebook, and Netvibes are three technology platforms that are built this way. With each platform, users have some control over the order and placement of the information on the screen. Here’s an example of moving content around an iGoogle page:

Until Web designers complete the redesign of their sites to better display on high-resolution monitors, consumers may want to consider monitors that pivot from landscape to portrait mode. Originally, pivoting monitors were expensive and restricted to graphic design and typography applications. Now, inexpensive models are becoming available to consumers. HP makes monitors with this feature, as do others.

Here’s a demo of one of these pivoting monitors:

You can also achieve a portrait mode orientation without changing your existing monitor. Portrait Displays Inc. provides Pivot Software, and Ergotron sells mounting hardware, which, together, will convert landscape monitors to vertical format.

Switched to portrait mode, the Web makes visual sense. Here’s my Facebook page again:

And here’s the BBC News home page:

Browsing in portrait mode significantly reduces the need for scrolling. (The BBC News page above requires no scrolling at all.) Consequently, you spend less time moving a mouse pointer around and more time reading what’s displayed.

From now on, I’ll be looking at the vertical Web in portrait mode.