[thelist] Old Browsers old Software, cut bait and move on.

Mark Cheng mark.cheng at ranger.com.au
Thu Jul 12 02:47:39 CDT 2001


>-----Original Message-----
>From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
>[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Martin
>Sent: 12 July 2001 15:02

>>Accessibility. Not useability or degradeability.  Try running
>your Excel 98
>>Macros in Excel 2000.  Or worse, vice versa.
>
>Which is fine if you have no effective competition in the Office Apps
>market.
>
>But online is very, very different.

Huh?  why?  Are you saying MS can design their website to ie6 functionality
and its ok for them, but it is not ok for Lotus?

>
>>>exactly... which is why so much of this thread is academic... many
>>>larger sites do focus groups and have qualified researchers tell
>>>them what those numbers are, and how they break down... for
>>>sites without those budgets, you have to rely on aggregate stats
>>>and experience...
>>>
>>
>>Actually, is it academic?  aren't the aggregate stats saying you can reach
>>80% of a hell of a lot of people by targeting ie5+?  That's a hell of a
>>potential customer base as it is
>
>Nope. That's absolutely not what the stats say. They *do not* say that
>"Design for 5+ and you will be seen by 80% of the universe of web
>users". They say "Design for 5+ and 80% of the universe of web users
>and segments thereof is the maximum you will *ever* be able to

Martin,  you have just said the same thing I did.  Design for 5+ and you
reach a max of 80% of the universe of web users.  That is 80% of a hell of a
lot of people.

>get." Or another way of putting it "Design for 5+ and you lose 20%
>of your turnover for no good reason".
>

ahem, since when was a user by definition a customer?  Whilst many
businesses would love that to be true, I think history has shown that users
are not all customers.  Your comment would be fairer if it said "Design for
5+ and you lose 20% of the total web users, which is xx% of your customers".
Get your client to fill in the xx.  Don't try and do it for them.

>And remember that for most fixed cost businesses, it's usually that
>last 20% who are pure profit - the other 80% pay the overheads.
>Kind of like spread betting.
>

disagree. on average 20% of customers will provide 80% of revenue.
Therefore 80% provide 20% of revenue.  Pure profit - no way.  Anyway, the
key word you used is customers - a user is not automatically a customer.


>>Yeah, but if I was advising a client on an e-commerce site I'd go for the
>>highest level of encryption available in the browser population.  For an
>>ecom site security of comms between the browser and the server should
>>dictate - business risk will dictate what level of encryption the
>client is
>>happy to accept.
>
>But good marketing sense suggests that you'd give the customer the choice

Like hell, if my business risk said 128bit encryption, you had better
believe that I'd enforce 128bit encryption.  Done business with an online
bank lately?

>-
>as Amazon does. "We strong suggest you use the secure server (it's the
>default option), but if it doesn't work for you, then you can use the
>other one because you're 2 clicks away from giving us your money
>and we don't want to prevent that"
>

If their business risk analysis says that's ok - fine.  Don't force it on
other business though, their risks and customer profile may be different.


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