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

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Sun Mar 24 20:30:15 CST 2002


> From: Matt Liotta <mliotta at iname.com>
[...]
> You are all over the place. First you say it is more like 80%, then
> you say you can get around 99% on your projects. Finally, you say you
> can achieve 100% unless you want to win a design award, which would
> then reduce you back to 99%. So what is it? The 80/20 rule or the 99/1
> rule?

actually, you've confused your numbers with mine...

the 90/10 rule you cite tends to exist more as an 80/20 rule in most
industries... it's also an old addage, that 80% of the work gets done in 20% of
the time, and the last 20% in 80% of the time...  it's an addage for a reason...
i just wanted to let you know that there is already a generalized number for a
lot of industries, namely because i use that number a lot (thanks to listening
to manufacturing and medical clients too much) and when i do, i might
confuse you...

on my projects, i usually hit the 99% or greater number, and i usually know
pretty damn well what the 1% is that i'm missing and how i'm missing it...  but
i never lose 100% of the core capability... that 1% loss is the "wow"...  for
instance, CSS background images are supported by NN4.x+ (if you code it a
particular way -- correctly) as well as IE4+, and that makes up 99.97% of the
audience of one of my sites...  so 0.03% of my users can't see the bg image,
but it doesn't impact capability, just look...

> Well that is all great, but you can make you site functional as per
> requirements for all 100% or even 99% for that matter, without winning
> a design award? Certainly not on any on my projects.

yep (assuming you meant *with* winning)... my 1% miss is on design, not
functionality, and since the AAF judges looking at three of my sites last
month all did it on IE5/mac, i know didn't lose them on the design side, even if
they never saw the capability under the hood...

as for your projects, i dunno, haven't seen 'em, but i'd bet i could get a better
hit than you think i could...

> Personally, I think you have experience in certain markets that allows
> for the numbers you are suggesting. However, I think you have no clue
> about some other important markets where those numbers just can't be
> reached.

name a market, and i've probably been there... everything from selling beef
jerky online to government sites to multi-billion dollar multi-national multi-
lingual behemoths to independent photographers... i've targetted kids, adults,
senior citizens, minorities, blind, yuppies, males in the 24-32 bracket, etc...

there may be some markets i haven't yet seen, and i only hope i can get
exposure to them so i can keep testing my ideas... a year ago people argued
it wouldn't work in some markets (like government, or medical, or a few
others), and i've moved into them sucessfully, so i'm not going to assume that
i can't move elsewhere successfully just yet... which means i'm not assuming
a 10% loss out of the gate...





More information about the thelist mailing list