[thelist] Tip o'the day (x2)

Tony Crockford tonyc at boldfish.co.uk
Sun Feb 18 02:21:49 CST 2001


Okay,

I'm persuaded.

ALA might be taking one step too far in shutting the door.

*but* the point being made is that sooner or later we're all going to
have to shut the door on some or other user, why not hurry it along?

I *totally* agree with you on making sites accessible to as wide an
audience as possible, but I think that eventually we'll all go mad
trying. (as a perfectionist who suffers from analysis paralysis I think
I chose the wrong career change last time!)

Here's what I'm planning to do:

* Code for standards compliancy. (by hand)

* Draw a line somewhere on how much backwards compatibility and cross
browser compatibility I will build in (using "know thine audience" as a
rule of thumb.)

* let users of non standards compliant browsers  (in the nicest possible
way) that they are making my life difficult.

* campaign for a simpler life.


When you rip all this apart it's about expectation.  When I travel I
fully understand the difference between tourist and first class.  If I
buy a cheap ticket I don't expect first class service, and I'm never
disappointed.

Unless we *educate* our users they'll never know there's a difference.

I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but experience
tells me that hiding things from people with great expectations leads to
bitter disappointment when we decide we can no longer afford to keep up
the pretence.

I'm dropping out of the debate, got *far* too much work to
do................


best wishes

Tony










More information about the thelist mailing list