[Sigia-l] RE: Printer-friendly button

[Linda Kolar]

Piet -

I think you should avoid the "surprise" factor whenever possible. Although
the majority of folks who wish to print the page probably are most
interested in the content (and thus will not care whether you've removed the
navigation, masthead, etc.), there may be times when someone actually
intends to print the page as they see it on the screen. If you only allow
one option (e.g. apply the new style sheet automatically whenever they use
the browser's built-in print function), you may still alienate some users.

In other words, I think it's great to find ways to simplify the "print
friendly" coding, but I'd still link that functionality to a specific "print
friendly" control for the user to activate.

Linda M. Kolar, DVM MPH
User Experience
THINK Interactive, Inc.

p.s. On one of my hobby sites (sci-fi fandom *grin*), I link my "printer
friendly" version to a completely different style sheet AND header/footer
includes, allowing me to place copyright and other information around the
content when it is printed. You can see it in action at
http://sg1web.com/arts_nitpick-c.php.


>From: Piet Kopka <kopka at publicform.de>

>My questions are: Is the surprise good for enough users to wipe away 
that there is a surprise at all. A suprise is normaly a bad thing, 
because it reveals, that something don´t work as expected. Do users like 
the "Print version" buttons and use them so much that it would bother 
them if this button isn´t there?