[thelist] targeting effectively

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Sun Mar 24 23:30:00 CST 2002


> From: Erik Mattheis <gozz at gozz.com>
>
> The simple fact that we're talking about the web automatically leaves
> out about half of the English speaking world - and a clear majority of
> the rest of the world. It's ridiculous to argue that it's a major flaw
> if a website doesn't work for 1% of it's potential audience ... or 10%
> ... or even 70%: Quicktime! You've got to be out of your MIND! only
> 30% of web users can experience Quicktime!
>
> There is a major market in which Quicktime has a 100% penetration.
> Where are the "lost sales" people are so fond of citing in these types
> of discussions if you use Quicktime on a site to promote a Mac-only
> product?
>
> Read the subject of the thread: "targeting effectively." ... a
> healthy direction this could take is talking about what you should
> consider when deciding if a site is going to require browser feature
> X.

since this all started as a discussion of being able to navigate a site without
JS, i view watching movies about an iMac (when the specs are available on
the same page) as moderately different than sitting on the home page unable
to move...

if i can't get *any* info on the iMac because i can't see the movie, that would
be dumb... after all, corporate environments with plug-ins disabled, dial-up
connections, version issues, etc., all add up to reasons why the penetration
numbers actually hide some of the more salient facts about users -- that
browser stats in server logs don't say it all, and that market researchers often
don't know how to correctly interpret the numbers...

i'm also not talking about plug-ins... otherwise we'd be better off starting up
the Flash threads again, and i don't think we want to switch over to that right
now... and after all, plug-ins only degrade if the developer takes the time to do
it, so i don't buy it as an analogy...

> A good deal of the major sites you listed _do_ require cookies. It's
> just a matter of how high from the ground you're going to hold the
> bar. Those sites _could_ use a query string and sessions on the server
> instead of user cookies - but they don't for good and obvious reasons.

many of them also only use session cookies, allowing people like me to use
the site with cookies locked... i can use many sites, like evolt.org, without
cookies, but if i turn 'em on, i get to skip logging in... but i'm not prevented
from using the site without cookies...

and cookies have obvious exceptions, like allowing many shopping carts to
work... but if i went to a site and couldn't navigate the pages without cookies,
i'd be pretty disappointed...

notice, i'm not disagreeing with you, but i am framing it in my perspective so
you can see where i'm coming from...

> Many web projects with less generous budgets have equally valid
> reasons for requiring JavaScript.

i don't see how less generous budgets equates to JS use...

for instance, it's faster for me to do form validation on the server than on the
client side... a lot less script, a lot less compatibility issues to worry about...

[...]
> Great if you can make a website that works in NS 1.0 and for a 84 year
> old user from the Ozarks who views the web through a mercury filling
> in his molar ... and will probably render decently in Netscape MMXCIX.

i wanna meet this guy...  i wanna see what resolution he's running at... and
his font sizes...

> That sounds like it's your bag, but it's not everybody's.

but it could be so easily it's painful to see people not even consider it an
option...

and imagine that poor lonely Ozarkian, probably searching for love on Yahoo
personals... *i* wanna be the one to build it, so that poor mercury-ridden soul
can get a chance at happiness...

> There's no way around leaving some potential visitors out to achieve
> some things which are undoubtedly valuable from a marketing or even
> usability perspective.

marketing, perhaps... after all, configuring a car online can be more enticing to
a buyer (although they all run so slow, i just go to the dealer now)... usability
is a harder sell...  i still say using the <label> element for checkboxen and
radio buttons is a usability boon that leaves no one out...

[...]
[cut stuff i didn't say]




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