[thelist] New Site -

[Moe Rubenzahl]

>http://www.miniusa.com

I love it. Fun site, attractive, and effective way to view the product.

But I would probably not have done it this way. Beyond the Flash 
question, there is the page size question. Modems still rule and 
people are still impatient.

I think many here are asking the wrong question -- it's not whether 
this is right or wrong but what percent of users are you sending away 
and to what end? Could they have designed a modem and 
browser-friendly site that would have done their job? Are you willing 
to disenfranchise 5% or 10% or whatever percent of your audience (my 
guess is that it's much higher than the Macromedia spin would have 
you believe, even before considering download speed).

People are surmising that the target for this product are the type 
that would have Flash and I question that assumption. I will bet the 
makers of that site made that argument but I would bet with odds that 
they never -measured- it.

When we use big pages and plug-ins and Java and such, we must test 
and measure even more. I don't think many companies -- and many web 
designers - do that. They don't consider all the customers -- the 
ones who can't get wideband, who are using four-year old computers, 
road warriors with laptops, foreign customers connecting across half 
a planet.

It is a natural tendency to design for oneself, to imagine that the 
audience is like oneself, but it is a bad habit.