[Web4lib] Web technologies and public access

[Mike Taylor]

David McDonald writes:
 > His primary complaint was that the web site required the use of
 > Flash in order to view some its pages.  Unfortunately, when he
 > clicked on the "update to the latest Flash player" link, he was
 > confronted with the following message from Adobe: "We are unable to
 > locate a Web player that matches your platform and browser."
 >  
 > [...]
 >
 > In my opinion, Flash should not be considered something extravagant
 > that the average "citizen" doesn't have on his/her computer (or
 > can't download).  Libraries should feel perfectly comfortable using
 > Flash on specialty web sites as most people can use this type of
 > software.

That seems a strange assertion to make in the very same message that
you tell us of how your user was NOT able to download Flash.

 > To what extent do you believe that we should cater to patrons who
 > may not have the latest and greatest hardware and software?  Do we
 > need to kowtow to the lowest common denominator?  Should we include
 > alternative pages that require no downloads?

It's not a matter of "kowtowing" to " least common denominator", it's
just a matter of realising what's out there.  Firefox market share
recently reached 28% in Europe --
	http://slashdot.org/articles/08/01/30/2053218.shtml
All the world is not MSIE any more.  Not all plugins are maintained to
the same level for Firefox as they are for MSIE.  Do you really want
to turn away 28% of your customers at the door?

Of course, there are sites that just need Flash, and make no sense
without them.  For those, you have to accept that you will miss some
potential customers.  But sites that use Flash for basic navigation
are ... not wise.

(To be clear: I am not saying that Flash never works on Firefox --
just that things are not as straightforward, and versions are not
always as up to date, as on MSIE, assuming that's what your developers
used.)

 _/|_	 ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike at indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Things happen to you, and you don't know why.  Your mental
	 model is a mess because you are trying to model a mess" --
	 Jakob Nielsen on the parlous ubiquity of buggy software.