CHAT: web publishing (was: Re: Correction, I hope, of M/C URL)

Ty Power <ty@...> wrote:
>
> The other factors that come into play online are potentially more
> aggravating. There is the navigation of a large text, for example,
> because people *do* stop scrolling after a while (it's documented
> that the average Web user scrolls 1.5 screen lengths and then
> stops).
    But is this confined to the web?  How many pages of an article does the
average magazine reader read?

> The alternative to scrolling is to offer the "next page"
> hyperlink, as in the Media/Culture journal article.
    This is far inferior, IMHO.  You don't need a mouse to scroll to the
next screenful, you can just use the Page Down key.  If you want to go
further, say to reread something at the beginning of an article when you're
in the middle of it, sliding the scroll bar up and down is much quicker than
loading the old page and then reloading the current one.

> The problem with
> this is that (like scrolling) it requires the users to draw their
> attention away from the text and go through the physical motions
> of "point and click"...
    But that's not true with scrolling.  Just keep your finger on the Page
Down key.  Although this is in theory browser dependent, I think all major
browsers support it.  This is the main reason all my fiction on the web is
on a single page per work.  The only downside to this approach is the
initial download time, but if a work is mostly text, with little or no
images, then even this isn't a problem.

 ===========================================================================

             Dennis Paul Himes    <>    dennis@himes.connix.com
                  http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm

Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as
the air."                      - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99