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

Mark Cheng mark.cheng at ranger.com.au
Thu Jul 12 20:37:06 CDT 2001


>-----Original Message-----
>From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
>[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of
>martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
>
>Subject:  RE: [thelist] Old Browsers old Software, cut bait and move on.
>
>>>>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?
>
>No. It means that if you've locked people in like MS have for their desktop
>apps, you can abuse them. That's why monopolies are seen as Bad Things.
>
>But if you're creating a web site for a commercial client, they don't have
>their
>audience locked in. The competition is a couple of clicks away, so if your

ahh, so microsoft customers would switch to lotus if the microsoft online
support is hard to use?  lotus spreadsheets are backward compatible? no.

Every business makes decisions in respect of how to attract clients.  They
don't advertise in every national or local newspaper.  Now, why should
online be different?  or are you advising clients that they should advertise
in every paper in the country as well?

>site is hard to use, they'll go elsewhere very, very fast.

True, but whether a site is hard to use is not really relevant to this
discussion.  You can have a site that was designed to be cross browser which
is hard to use.  The issue here is whether someone with an older browser
would switch to a competitor because they didn't get the eye candy. (ie
because the site didn't degrade properly.)  When I say degrade, the older
browser user would still see the content, ie they could still buy, but they
won't see the pretty design.

>
>>
>>>>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.
>
>No, I said the opposite. You've made an enormous assumption that
>you *will* reach that max - there are all the other factors in getting to
>those people and motivating them to use the site and change their
>behaviour.
>

umm, i didn't say will.  I said "can reach".  Also, I am very aware that
reaching them is different from converting them to customers.  However, I
stick to my original point.  Being able to reach 80% of users, and know that
your design will appear more or less as you intended it, with eye
candy/functionality intact, is still a hell of a lot of people.

lets say I need 100,000 sales from the web site. (actually, lets also assume
for simplicity that customers only buy the product once because it is so
good and lasts so long ---- and we can ignore the effect of repeat sales.)

350 million users : @ 80% = 280 million potential users.  Therefore I need
to convert 0.0003571% of that potential audience, through advertising,
promotion etc to buy, or 1 in every 2.8 million.

Now lets do the same with a site designed to layout the same in older
browsers : 100,000 sales from 350 million means I need to convert 0.0002857%
or 1 in 3.5 million.

Now consider the cost of achieving the same layout in an older browser -
possibly a double site is required, especially if flash was used.  So, it
becomes a business call whether the cost of that justifies the reduction in
the coversion percentage.

Assuming you have a client to which the average statistics apply, imho it is
difficult to justify the cost of getting the layout the same in older
browsers compared to the benefit.  Especially when you consider that a site
targeted at the 80% which degrades properly wil still show older browsers
the content, they just may not get full functionality/eye candy.


>>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?
>
>Customers are a subset of users. And your assumption above made
>them congruent.
>

I never said users = customers.  I said you can reach 80% of users.  It is
up to the business to convert users to customers.  My point is that you
don't design to the capability of the older browser, you design the site to
layout to the target 80% and allow it to degrade in the older browser.

If the clients know their target audience, and you design an accessible,
useable, site, you should never need a double site.

eg  if your target audience is mainly in the 80% design the site to convert
users to customers using functionality available to the 80%.  Don't double
site it so that you can convert users to customers in older browsers as
well.  Just let your inital site degrade.  Sure, it may not do as good a job
of converting older browser users to customers, but any conversions are a
bonus.  Keep the site focussed on the primary goal of converting users to
customers in the target market.

similarly, if your target market is in the older browsers - design to that
much lower functionality and accept the higher complexity - fortunately you
get a free bonus here as the other 80% will get the design for free.


>
>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.
>
>Oversimplified, because of the assumption that you're running with
>100% marginal costs. Almost no businesses do - and some are 100%
>fixed costs (most service industries)

ahem, salaries are not a fixed cost.  ask a web design firm.

>
>Example:
>I run a hotel. It costs me $8k a week to run that hotel, full or empty.
>I have 100 beds, each charged out at $100 a night. When I sell
>80% of my weekly capacity, I make $8k. I break even. I only make
>a profit when I sell over that.
>
>Now if you've artificially limited my maximum sales to 80%, I'm
>screwed.
>

interesting analogy.  what you have highlighted is a pricing issue, not a
user base issue.  80% of the 8k of revenue will probably come from 20% of
your customers. (note, customers, not users).  the other 80% of your
customers will provide the balance of your 20% of the revenue.  So, 100% of
your customers provided you with 8k.  In other words, you didn't make a
profit from any of your customers.  Your price is too low or the costs too
high.

The fact that your weekly capacity is 100% is irrelevant.  The fact that you
may have advertised your hotel to the entire planet is irrelevant.  Your
customers are only buying 80%.  your business should be built around
profiting on that 80% utilisation, not hoping that additional customers are
going to show up to fill up the 20%.

>>
>>>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.
>
>Whose risk is it? If it's the business risk, you have that right. If it's
>the consumer's
>risk, you don't.
>

Ummm, business ecomm site built to business risk standards.  If the customer
wants to use lower security they can call.

>Besides, there's much more risk with non-online channels - unless someone's
>installed a scrambler on the phoneline I use to call my bank.
>
>>Done business with an online bank lately?
>
>Yup. Worked with and for them, thanks.
>
>I believe I was talking about cc payments...

So cc payments don't need as much security as your bank statement?

>


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