[thelist] Browser Stats

Michael Kimsal michael at tapinternet.com
Thu Aug 29 00:10:01 CDT 2002


the head lemur wrote:

>>If the difference between my site looking attractive to 95%
>>of visitors (tens of millions of people) vs being 'compliant'
>>to reach 4% of people (who have already demonstrated an aversion
>>to keeping up with technology) and the compliancy causes
>>things to look/appear worse to the 95% majority, you'd
>>be stupid to blindly push everyone into catering to the 4%.  Most
>>businesses can't afford to alienate the majority to service
>>an extremely small minority.
>>
>>
>
>I really love these kind of things.
>
>"who have already demonstrated an aversion to keeping up with technology"
>
>Show me your numbers.
>
I believe the original poster showed us his numbers - less than 4% were
using non IE browsers.

>Rather than pulling things out of thin air or darker places, show me your
>mission to third world countries, second world countries, and even in the G7
>countries where You Personally have offered to upgrade not only the
>browsers, but the hardware(which is the box attached to the screen and
>keyboard), the phone lines, infrastructure, laid cable or fiber, and taught
>folks to understand that compliancy is just a matter of overcoming their
>'aversion'.
>
>
The crux ot the initial argument was someone who threw out 280 million
people
in the US as a potential target audience, stating that 3% would be 1
million, and a
lot of visitors to lose.  Nothing was ever said of third world
countries, or areas with
metered access, etc.  Obviously, if those are you target markets to get
your information
to, cater to their level of technological capacity.


>Show me where you have eliminated access by metering, where you have
>personally stepped up to pay by the minute access charges so that your toys
>can be seen, where you have installed broadband, where you have gotten
>corporations to overcome their 'aversion' to undertake a major upgrade in
>equipment and infrastructure, where you have translated this information
>into just the major foreign languages so that the great unwashed masses can
>understand what a wonderful  opportunity you are offering them.
>
>

I have no toys.  Actually, having people use relatively new technology
which
enables *decent* (not perfect) CSS support would dramatically reduce
bandwidth -
it would eliminate 300 'font' tags embedded in every bleeding TD tag
because NS3 didn't
handle fonts properly in tables, for example.

>"the compliancy causes things to look/appear worse to the 95% majority"
>
>I am glad that an authority has stepped up to assume the mantle as THE pixel
>critic and we can all use the same central authority for taste and style. It
>will certainly cut down on the number of colors, positioning, styles, and
>those damn folks who browse without images turned on as their cost of living
>prohibits them from being online 24/7.
>
>

I'm glad you've recognized me, after all this time.  :)

I'm really against eye candy, flash, etc.  We're not graphic designers,
and I'm constantly
arguing with graphic designers who insist on pixel-perfection across
multiple platforms,
primarily because it can't be accomplished.


>"you'd be stupid to blindly push everyone into catering to the 4%."
>
>Oh Yeah! Right on! We will finally be able to overturn all those pesky
>accessibility laws and take back the good parking spots. After all, the
>prevailing wisdom is that we are all white males between 26 and 45 with
>college edumications making over 50 thousand bucks a year.
>
>

Catering to the 3.3% of users stuck in 'netscape' mode (many of whom are
linux users
who won't go to mozilla or konqueror) doesn't help accessibility
compliance one iota.  In fact,
having *one* set of HTML code that renders acceptably in current
browsers as well as
older browsers is impossible, and you end up either having to abandon
the considerations
for the older browsers or do 2 sets of HTML.  In fact, that time could
be better spent
working on accessibility compliance concerns instead of catering to 3%
of users solely
on browser 'look' issues.  Quit embedding FONT tags all over the place
to keep
Netscape 4.7 happy - work on CSS and more forward compatible
technologies which
will enable more access by a broader range of devices.

SPEND RESOURCES WISELY - YOU ONLY HAVE SO MUCH TIME TO WORK
ON THINGS.

For public sites, or people that want to reach the widest audience, by
all means
focus on compliance.  If people WANT to have whizbang flash crap that
prohibits a large number of users from doing business with them, and
they're a
private company, yes, let them do that.  I wouldn't counsel them to do
so, but
if they are 100% private, then fine.  It's their own competitive noose they
are tightening.

I'm also one of those 'zealots' who thinks that someone who owns a
bar should be allowed to make the decision him or herself as to whether
or not people should be allowed to smoke in that establishment.  Call me a
wild-eyed raving lunatic, I guess.

>The fact that folks who through no fault of their own have a disability of
>some sort,(in my case I am a cripple because I am red/green and blue green
>color blind, have a bad attitude and do not suffer fools at all) should be
>told to go somewhere else and play in traffic with what seems to be the hope
>that the final solution will take them, knocking down the 4% figure that you
>seem to hold so dear.
>
>

Wow.  We're talking browsers statistics here.  Get a grip, please.
 'final solution', etc.
I think you've got some other issues going on that unfortunately have made
their way into this discussion which are causing you to read WAY too
much into this.

4% wasn't my figure - read the start of the thread.

COMPANIES HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF TME AND MONEY TO SPEND ON
WEBSITES.

Given that maxim, would you prefer they spend their time making sure
they don't
offend the 4 Netscape 3 users over in Zimbabwe, or would you prefer that
they learn
proper CSS so that a multitude of other technologies can more easily
render the sites
for other platforms?  (Text to speech, for example).  Your call?
 Support old crappy Netscape,
or spend time on newer technologies DESIGNED to address a wider range of
issues?

>The fact that the Internet is probably the most democratic communication
>medium invented in history must really frost you, let alone according to
>ComScore Media Metrix who spends a lot of money to find out what is really
>happening on the web:
>"overall Internet usage, where 48 percent are men and 52 percent are women,
>according to comScore's studies of adult Internet use."
><http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=582&e=3&cid=582&u
>=/nm/20020828/wr_nm/telecoms_wireless_dc_3>
>
>

So now you're bringing gender into this, perhaps to accuse me of misogyny?
It's been awhile since I've been in school, but I *think* this is
referred to
as a 'straw man' argument.

>"Most businesses can't afford to alienate the majority to service an
>extremely small minority."
>
>I'm not sure if we are on the same planet here, but it has been my
>experience not only as a pixel mechanic, but also as a construction foreman,
>commercial drywaller, project manager on new and existing construction
>projects, such as life safety renovations, Accessibility construction and as
>a salesman, that the whole point of business is to sell stuff for money and
>using that as a rationale, the Internet gives them a much larger reach for
>their goods and services than any other communication medium, that servicing
>as you so elegantly put it, that extremely small minority that has had its
>tiny voice heard in the Americans with Disabilities Act, The Section 508
>Regulations, the various Laws in countries around the world regarding the
>fair and equitable treatment of all it's citizens regardless of disability,
>race, creed, color, preferences both religious and personal, and sex.
>

Whew - I was looking for some sentences to jump in between but didn't
get a chance.

Again, we're talking browsers, which are pretty agnostic when it comes to
religion, gender, race, creed, etc.  Moving on:

"the whole point of business is to sell stuff for money"

Precisely.  And it takes money to do that.

I'll repeat myself in case you just jumped towards the end.  :0

No, I'll illustrate.

Company X comes to us and we build a site for them which meets their goals.
Cost - $15000.
Works fine in IE5 and 6, and Mozilla 1 and Netscape 6.2.   Good use of CSS,
not graphic heavy, fast loading, etc.

Client says "hey, this looks like crap in NS4.6 on a Mac".
We say "well, we can address that, but it would essentially mean doing
browser
detection and writing about 80% of the pages over with broken code to
address known limitations.  It'll cost an extra $4000.  Do you want to
do it?"
"How many of our visitors are using this platform?"
"1.4%"
"So, it's an extra 25+%  in development costs to cater to 1.4% of my
visitors?
Let's not bother."

They're in the business of trying to make money.  25% premium to reach
1.4% of
people *running demonstrably old technology* doesn't make sense for them.
It doesn't make sense for most businesses either, and as consultants
we help people make those decisions.  In the end, it's their decision,
and yeah, we'd make more money doing the work, but it's not just about
lining
our pockets doing crap work.  It *really* wouldn't make sense ROI-wise,
and we'll look stupid for suggesting it 6 months later when they've
realized it was a waste of money.



>This
>treatment extends to businesses that sell to the public, and a lot of these
>laws were on the books before the first browser was ever built or the
>internet had images.
>
>That it offends your sense of style/design or prejudices is too bad.
>
>

Very little offends me.

>But I wouldn't try to sell it to a client who actually would like to make
>money using the Internet, because their great aunt will be calling them up
>and asking them why they can't see their nephew's website.
>
>

Which is exactly what we were talking about.  Catering to 3% of users
who use old technology
is bad business.

>You are entitled to your opinion, and may continue as you are. You are not
>alone but that is not a reason I would particularly care to defend.
>
>
>
????  You lost me here.  :(


Michael Kimsal
http://www.tapinternet.com
734-480-9961




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