Alternatives to the W3C

[Steven Livingstone, ITS, SENM]

I think you're missing the point. Are you a content developer or application
developer? From your responses I'd say content (E-Commerce based sites for
me are in the main content based sites where you can click "buy-me" - not
applications) where I agree your site should be built for multiple browser
types.

I develop weblications. I don't develop for the latest innovations just
because I want to be on the cutting edge. It is practical.

I am just out of a 2 hour meeting where we tried to follow in our previous
project *exactly* what you have been suggesting. They want these menu's to
ease navigation, they want different page looks depending on who they are,
they want help when they press F1 etc etc etc... This is more than 2000
people saying this.

In our case, the front-end clearly *is* critical - what they want
(window-like in MS windows or X-Windows interfaces like they had in
client-server) can only be done using the latest technologies.

>(same in web design, most users don't have 1024x768 or
>higher resolutions on 19 inch monitors -- so an argument of "it looks best
>for ME like this" holds no water). 

In this case you can get the screen resoliution at the client and display
your pages to fit.

steven

Steven Livingstone
Glasgow, Scotland.
07771 957 280 or +447771957280

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> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Ann Navarro [SMTP:ann at webgeek.com]
> Sent:	20 January 2000 14:51
> To:	Tyler Baker; Dave Winer
> Cc:	'XML Dev'
> Subject:	Re: Alternatives to the W3C
> 
> At 10:56 PM 1/19/00 -0500, Tyler Baker wrote:
> 
> >The idea of new types of user interfaces being "too" complicated is often
> a 
> >case of people
> >not having enough faith in people to learn new things. 
> 
> No one's arguing that such menus are "too complicated". But when over half
> the installed software base doesn't support them, that's generally a poor
> design decision. 
> 
> 
> >P.S. - For the E-Commerce folks, if your users cannot afford to upgrade 
> >their 486 to a
> >modern 500 dollar computer so they can run the latest version of
> Navigator 
> >or IE, the
> >chances are they are not gonna spend a lot of money online anyways
> because 
> >the don't even
> >have enough money to upgrade their ancient computer.
> 
> 
> Faulty assumption. Not all users who run something other than IE5 are
> "poor" people who run "ancient" 486 machines. 
> 
> They're often corporate users with strict IT policies about what software
> is run -- and it's not the software of YOUR choosing. They're educational
> users and other institutional situations. 
> They are people like me, who spend tens of thousands of dollars online a
> year, between myself and the two businesses I purchase for, who simply
> prefer a different browser, and won't launch another one just so your
> nifty
> little menus will work. If you make it hard for me, you simply won't get
> the sale. 
> 
> I forget who ran the commercial, but it was about a business interviewing
> to outsource their web presence. Two very young, geeky guys were giving a
> presentation, laughing about how the technology would be obsolete as soon
> as they left the room, but that was ok, because they could come back on a
> new contract. That they'd use <this spiff thing> on the web site, because,
> hey, that's cool. Ah, now I remember, it was FedEx, because the tagline
> was
> "but you always ship FedEx". 
> 
> Developers who insist that the newest innovation is somehow critical to
> the
> product or application are alot like those guys -- you don't develop
> applications for clients and for the general public based primarily on
> what
> entertains YOU or relies on cutting edge software that is used mostly by
> other developers (same in web design, most users don't have 1024x768 or
> higher resolutions on 19 inch monitors -- so an argument of "it looks best
> for ME like this" holds no water). 
> 
> Play and innovate on demo-ware, or in arenas where you truly CAN control
> the environment, but doing so elsewhere is self-indulgent at the expense
> of
> the client/audience. 
> 
> Ann
> ---
> Just Released! - HTML BY Example
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> Also in print:  Effective Web Design: Master the Essentials
> 
> Founder, WebGeek Communications            http://www.webgeek.com
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> Director, HWG Online Education
> http://www.hwg.org/services/classes
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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