[WEB4LIB] Re: browser differences

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 02:14:52AM -0700, Richard Wiggins wrote:
> The vast majority of users runs Internet Explorer these days.

Perhaps.  A few years ago, a very different statement could be made.
A few years from now, another very different statement will probably apply.
(Though I have no idea what that statement will be.  Mozilla?  Maybe.
I certainly think it blows the doors off Explorer.)

So instead of coding for the browser of the moment (or the year),
why not code to W3C specification and demand that the browser vendors
support the spec?  ("Demand" in multiple senses: tell them they must;
don't use their browser if they don't; etc.)

This solves a multitude of problems at once AND perhaps just as important,
it means that your web site (or my web site or their web site) won't
stop working just because browser X on platform Y loses or gains
market share.

See, for example:

	http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2001OctDec/0045.html

or more succinctly:

	"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X'
	label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days,
	before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a
	document written on another computer, another word processor,
	or another network."
		-Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996

I would augment those comments by saying that not everyone is as overt,
i.e. not everyone actually puts one of those silly "best viewed with"
labels on their pages -- but some people certainly code their pages
with one and only one browser in mind.  Or they only test their pages
on a high-speed local network and not over a modem link.

> So I'm afraid Mr. Kulawiec's appeal to support the "power users" simply
> isn't very scientific.

1. Mr. Kulawiec is a nice man who had a long career in typography, but is
unlikely to show up here and get all argumentative.  I'm just Rich.
He's Mr. Kulawiec. ;-)

2. I didn't make any appeal to support the power users.  I just pointed
out that including the latest whiz-bang (and oh-by-the-way often
Windoze-only) gadgetry in site leaves out not just the obvious group
(people on the technological trailing edge) but it also leaves out
the non-obvious group (people on the technological leading edge).

For instance, many clueful users run their browsers with Javascript
disabled.  They do this because they're aware of security exploits 
that can be implemented via Javascript.  So a hypothetical site that
depends on Javascript for navigation isn't going to work for them.
Same for a site that requires plugin Foo that only works with IE on W2K.


> 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.

I completely agree with this.  I'm not arguing that a site should be
tailored to a particular group: I'm arguing that it should be coded
to standards so that it is as accessible to as diverse a population
(platform, browser, skill level, bandwidth, etc.) as possible.  (My
sub-argument, or side point, was the bit about the non-obvious impact
on power users.)  In a way, I'm arguing that a site should be un-tailored,
that it should be as non-browser-specific, non-platform-specific as
possible.

After all, that's the entire idea behind the web.

> 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.

And I agree with this too, but caution that today's custom-but-workable
design for a relatively well-understood intranet kind of environment
can become tomorrow's unworkable hairball when the user community gets
extended.  (And having made this mistake myself despite best efforts not
to, I'm well aware how hard it can be to avoid.)

---Rsk