[thelist] targeting effectively (was: navigation through form posting)

David Kutcher david_kutcher at hotmail.com
Sun Mar 24 16:28:01 CST 2002


> > Yes, I'm certain that some user is going to go to your
> > site with a WAP handheld to view your content and pay
> > $1.95/minute.
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
>
> did i say wap?  no, i said handheld.  the ambiguity was on purpose.
>
> as an example, i could pull up any number of sites using my palm (if i had
one) and wouldn't pay a dime to do it.
Incorrect.  You're paying a per minute charge for wireless access on your
palm or at minimum a $30/month ISP cost over a (at best) 19200 baud
connection.

> nope.  however, if a handheld user were to visit my homepage, i'd hope
it'd degrade gracefully and still be usable.

WHY?  Why must it?  I fail to see why a site should cater to all users as
opposed to their target audience and target devices.  That's the point of
market research, branding, and audience development.  To target a sector(s)
and market to them effectively.  Diluting your presence to "degrade
gracefully" so that one user who uses Netscape 1.0 can view the site nicely,
IMHO, is ridiculous.  Making "one site" to cater to all devices is equally
ridiculous.  Determine the device, route it to the "sub-site" that displays
effectively to that device.  That's why they have device types.

If a company researches their site statistics and recognizes that 99% of
their audience uses IE 5.0+, why cater to that 1% using lynx at the possible
expense of not wowing the other 99% with a remarkable presence?

Maybe I'm in the minority on this one, but hell, I educate the client in
what their site statistics mean.  When we discuss how to proceed, I tell
them exactly what will be gained and lost by optimizing for 4.0+ browsers.
I have NEVER had a client say "please make it accessible on text only
browsers" or "yes, I would like it minus functionality that 1% of the users
of my site will not be able to enjoy or will cause them an error".

They ask me questions like "when were 4.0+ browsers released", "what percent
of the market uses non-4.0+ browsers", and even "how will it look on AOL"...
but with those caveats (AOL visibility), they invariably decide on using
DHTML, possibly flash, and almost all require javascript.

David
www.confluentforms.com




More information about the thelist mailing list