Design, friends. Don’t forget about it!

I am currently screening chess glossaries and dictionaries. There is one observation I would like to share right away: Chess and design – seems that doesn’t go together to well. I find glossaries, well equipped with the most important chess terminology and obviously written with love and expertise, but – oh my – the designs are terrible!

Should that matter at all? Isn’t it the information that counts in the end? Yes, it should. Even a glossary on a personal page, written for no commercial aim, is written to be read. It should be easy to use and clearly structured. And design is part of this. If a page design forces the glossary user to partially close his/her eyes to overlook the surrounding in order to concentrate on the content, something went terrible wrong.

Take the chess glossary ranked number 1 in the Google research results: Chess-Posters.com Chess Glossary. It can get an award for the most disturbing background image! Something I am ready to overlook, but starting with the letter T – the background changes to black – and well you do not see text written in black on black background?

For sure Chess-Poster.com is aware of this, so why do they not change it? Might be the owner of the site doesn’t know to much about HTML ? What a pity.

The Usage of the Sitemap

Still a work in progess, but pointing into the right direction. I added a Sitemap to DictionaryNet where you easily can see the reference works that have been added to my blog.
I hope this new feature will help you to find dictionaries and glossary more easily. The sitemap offers you a link to the discussed dictionary as well as a link to the blog post about it.

Enjoy,
Your DictionaryGuide

About Comments

Finally DictionaryNet got its first comment. What an excitement! But I had to erase it. My take on comments is very clear. I am happy to get feedback, praise or critics, BUT I will not approve comments only done to promote websites, especially when talking about a website about a rather strange sexual preference.

So – I am still waiting for the first relevant comment.

One Word about Copyright

No doubt to respect the intellectual rights of others is one of most basic and important rules for a fruitful interaction on the Internet. What is widely taught to students at universities’ bibliography lessons is quite unknown to regular Internet user.

But there are case worse than that. Many times I see one and the same glossary on different websites. Then the puzzling begins, who original content is it, who was copying (with or without permission).

Here is an example:

Perfumes Net (www.perfumes.net) – I site not to my taste – offers a “OLFACTORY FRAGRANCE TERMS Glossary” at http://www.perfumes.net/perfumes/glossary.html. No copyright or remark concerning the glossary can be found. When working with online glossary for years you get a feeling about if or not a glossary is suitable to the overall content of a site. Here I had the feeling that it didn’t. So I chose an example term and googled on its definition.

Like this I came to the Fragrance Glossary at the Ministry of Fragrance (www.ministryoffragrance.com). Here I got one step closer to the main source thanks to a note after the glossary. “Most definitions come from the CFSS guide from the Fragrance Foundation.

Well done Ministry of Fragrance!!!

The “real” glossary is to be found at the Fragrance Foundation. This foundation was “established in 1949 by six industry leaders affiliated with Elizabeth Arden, Coty, Guerlain, Helena Rubenstein, Chanel and Parfums Weil, to develop educational programs about the importance and pleasures of fragrance for the American public.”

When you are interested to add a glossary to your site, don’t just simply copy and paste the text without giving reference and more important,without checking the copyright and reprint permission policy of the glossary owner. Fragrance.org is actually very generous about the reuse of their material:

Unless particular materials are specifically restricted as noted on the web page, it is The Fragrance Foundation’s policy to allow limited reproduction and distribution of the materials posted on our site as follows: You may copy, reproduce and distribute content from this site provided that: (1) the particular article or section is reproduced in its entirety in its original form; you may not edit or otherwise change the substance of the content, or change or delete any copyright, trademark and other proprietary notices; (2) all copies include a statement that the material was reproduced from senseofsmell.org with permission of The Fragrance Foundation; (3) all copies include the following notice “Copyright ©2001 The Fragrance Foundation. All Rights Reserved.”; (4) the copies are distributed only for educational or scientific purposes; and (5) the copies are distributed at no charge, or at most, at actual cost. Provided you comply with all of these conditions, The Fragrance Foundation grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the materials on our site.

What is left to do? I will add a new entry about a Fragrance glossary with giving you the URL to the real source….