[thelist] Jumping In With Both Feet

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Tue Dec 11 09:12:02 CST 2001


> From: "Paul Backhouse" <paul.backhouse at 2cs.com>
[...] 
> My personal feeling is that newer browsers enhance the user experience
> (nows theres one of those cliches!)

not for me... i just see more ads with more JavaScript-delayed pop-
ups, i have to start over the whole security patch process, learn 
where old features have been moved, etc...

no, it certainly does not enhance my experience...

oh, wait, if you mean it shows pages as you intend, then sure, but 
only if you consider your design on your one site to be a better 
experience than all the other issues the user has to go through to 
upgrade and learn the new version.... IMO, it's not...

> As for money on the phone bill - thats another problem aswell - but
> things are changing - home users can now view the web, download for
> free at nights on week days with some suppliers - its a step in the
> right direction, we have to get the users to be more 'up-to-date' so
> we as developers can really start to change the way the web can work,

very US-centric perspective... not everyone *wants* to tie up phone 
lines over night... not everyone is in the US and has cheap rates... 
not everyone has a newer machine with a faster modem... we don't 
have to get users to be more 'up-to-date' at all... the web was doing 
a fine job selling products in old browsers... your argument is still 
only about making it easier for the developer, which, IMO, is not a 
valid argument...

yeah, it would be great is users upgraded, but understand why they 
don't before you try to force it on them...

> theres still so much more we can do with development, but we always
> seem to halt our progress because we have to cater for those users who
> don't want to upgrade, or cant afford to - solving this problem would
> make the web a better place and a better experience.

for who?  has the web suffered?  has it done anything but grow?  
and wasn't that on the backs of older, lamer browsers?  and not 
everyone is on an old browser by choice or cost -- believe it or not, 
some people really *are* restricted...

> Do we force the users to upgrade by not developing sites for they're
> browser....no, bad solution, but there has to be a cut off point on
> browser compatability, that way maybe we can squeeze out the gruddy
> browsers - but you can't do this until the users can readily get new
> software and upgrades for free, quickly and easily - bring on more
> bandwidth and we're sorted, this is after all the 21st century and how
> long has the web been going for??

bringing users bandwidth won't solve it, neither will pushing them off 
your site until they upgrade (they'll just buy somewhere else -- i 
know i do)...

> Has anyone written anything about this for evolt, the on-going saga,
> im sure it would rate up there with the Star Wars trilogies.

in pieces in articles... instead of addressing the aggregate, i 
address aspects... like screen resolution, or CSS vs. tabled 
layouts...

To Hell With Bad Editors
http://evolt.org/article/list/25/6096/

640 x 480 Isn't Dead Just Yet
http://evolt.org/article/list/22/275/

Real-World Browser Size Stats, Part II
http://evolt.org/article/list/20/2297/

Inside the evolt.org Rebuild: The HTML and CSS
http://evolt.org/article/list/20/5816/




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