[WEB4LIB] Re: browser differences

[Paul Taylor]

If you tune to the vast majority of your audience, then this means you are 
telling any blind users, "Tough luck, chaps!" and telling deaf users, 
"_______." While there may not be many blind users in a college setting 
(being a finite group), when you design for the real world, you have to 
contend with accomodating the blind (web reading software can't describe what 
a Flash animation is 'doing'), the deaf (mp3's used to 'enhance' a site will 
simply bog down that person's PC and add not a whit to their experience), and 
those still running 486s, 680x0s, and early Pentiums--all of which will run 
slow as molasses when it comes to Flash animations and other manner of 
multimedia beasties.

I haven't read the ADA to identify anything related to web services, but if I 
were desiging a site for a college or library, I'd want to make sure I was 
within at least the spirit of the law, inasmuch as serving my entire web 
audience. So, standards-compliance, though important, becomes just another 
issue, as you consider serving those who are disabled (is that the P.C. term 
these days?) in some fashion.

-Paul

On Monday 05 August 2002 05:15 am, Richard Wiggins wrote:
> While I personally agree with some of Rich's conclusions, I'm afraid his
> reasoning holds very little water if you believe in tuning your site to the
> vast majority of your users.
>
> The vast majority of users runs Internet Explorer these days.  The vast
> majority of those users are running Windows or Macintosh computers, not
> Linux or other flavors of Unix.  At most sites we're talking 90% or more.
>
> Here are recent stats from a large Midwestern university:
>
> Top Browsers
>
>  1.	Microsoft Internet Explorer	555,194	87.33%
>  2.	Netscape	58,358	9.18%
>  3.	Other Netscape Compatible	9,605	1.51%
>  4.	MSProxy/2.0	1,203	0.19%
>  5.	-	987	0.16%
>  6.	DA 5.0	846	0.13%
>  7.	Opera	642	0.10%
>  8.	webcollage/1.87	486	0.08%
>  9.	contype	470	0.07%
>  10.	ia_archiver	449	0.07%
>  11.	WebTV	415	0.07%
>
> Top Platforms by Visits
>
> 	Platform	Visits	%
>  1.	Windows 98	227,871	35.85%
>  2.	Windows 2000	207,795	32.69%
>  3.	Windows ME	78,050	12.28%
>  4.	Windows 95	37,016	5.82%
>  5.	Windows NT	33,836	5.32%
>  6.	Others	23,395	3.68%
>  7.	Macintosh PowerPC	23,333	3.67%
>  8.	Linux	2,202	0.35%
>  9.	Windows Win32s	909	0.14%
>  10.	SunOS	764	0.12%
>  11.	Windows 3.x	188	0.03%
>  12.	Macintosh 68K	111	0.02%
>
> This data is from last Spring (during the school year) from a version of
> Webtrends that probably didn't know how to report Windows XP. Now bear in
> mind that these stats are from a university, where you'd expect a higher
> penetration from Unix, Linux, etc users than at other places.
>
> So I'm afraid Mr. Kulawiec's appeal to support the "power users" simply
> isn't very scientific.  (Anyone who thinks you need to run a flavor of 
> Unix to be a power user needs read MaximumPC, or visit my office or my
> basement sometime...) Power users by his definition are in fact a
> vanishingly small minority of users.  Tuning your site to serve "power
> users" (as defined by RK) would be as foolish as tuning your parking lots
> to handle Hummers.
>
> I don't think small minorities of users should be ignored; I think all
> official content should be accessible to the blind, for instance.  But I
> don't think a mythical group of power users should be over-represented,
> either.
>
> Again, I personally don't like Flash as a means of window dressing a home
> page.   I don't like it for a number of reasons, the main one being that I
> want to get to information, not watch cartoons.  At a given site, there
> might be a coalition of "power users" (as defined by RK) and "serious book
> readers" and "NPR listeners" and "folks who hate Bugs Bunny" and "people on
> dialup modems" and others who would prefer eschewing Flash, but I think the
> only way to measure this for a given site would be to do surveys or focus
> groups.
>
> Still, if an institution standardizes on a browser and plugin technology
> and makes sure the site gracefully degrades for users who can't use the
> plugins, it seems to me that's their business.  Of course questions posted
> to a public forum invite general answers, but if the customers are happy at
> that institution, dogma from folks named Rich (including me) can be safely
> ignored.
>
> /rich
>
> Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 11:58:13AM -0500, Joyce M. Latham wrote:
> > > I would ask what the institutional identity is here.  In our web
>
> design
>
> > > task, we talk about designing for an audience, and, the web design
>
> will
>
> > > identify what audience you hope to attract.  High end, flashy web
>
> pages
>
> > > -- nomatter how nifty -- are targeting a particular audience, and
> > > leaving out a large user group -- the people who don't have high end
> > > flashy computers with the latest browsers (like alot of public
> > > libraries.)
> >
> > Well put.  I'll just add that the high end, flashy web pages also leave
> > out another group: power users.
> >
> > This happens for a number of reasons; here's some of them:
> >
> > 1. Power users tend to be more security-aware.  They tend to run browsers
> > with cookies turned off or with cookie notification on or with cookies
> > restricted to originating domain.  They tend to turn off JavaScript.
> > They may turn off Java.  And so on.  So the more of these sorts of things
> > you make part of the core functionality of your site, the less useful
> > your site will be to them.
> >
> > 2. Power users tend to use Unix and Linux.  Features which rely on
> > plug-ins that are only available for proprietary operating systems
> > on single CPU platforms are not usable by them.
> >
> > 3. Power users tend to make their Internet experience more useful by
> > blocking annoying content and/or practices.  I'm using a caching web
> > proxy that blocks most banner ads; I spend most of my time using a
> > browser (Mozilla) that allows me to turn off animated GIFs, resize
> > requests, etc. Other people have chosen to use delayed image loading or
> > to access the web through anonymizing proxies, and so on.
> >
> > Some of this is just personal preference (I find animated GIFs nearly
> > as annoying as the <blink> tag) but some of it has a more serious
> > rationale (security, privacy, etc.).  I suppose this is why my design
> > cycle has been to hand-code, use Amaya for testing, and then check
> > cross-compatibility with Mozilla, w3m, Netscape 4, Netscape 6, Opera
> > and lynx.  And then to swear quietly (ok...loudly, you caught me)
> > and start over again. ;-)
> >
> > More to the point, I would urge web designers to view their own sites
> > through (for example) Amaya using a dialup modem.  If that experience
> > isn't informative/useful/fun/communicative, then changes need to be made.
> >
> > ---Rsk
>
> ____________________________________________________
> Richard Wiggins
> Writing, Speaking, and Consulting on Internet Topics
> rich at richardwiggins.com       www.richardwiggins.com

-- 
Paul Taylor
Computer Coordinator
Salem-South Lyon District Library
9800 Pontiac Trail
South Lyon, MI 48178

248-437-6431 phone
248-437-6593 fax
http://south-lyon.lib.mi.us