OT: Poor Web Design

[D . Thomas Podnar]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 07:03:51PM -0500, Fairlight wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 06:17:39PM -0500, D . Thomas Podnar, the prominent pundit,
> witicized:
> > 
> > I heartily disagree, Bill.
> > 
> > I think all web ``designers'' should target their web site to the likely
> > capabilities of their desired market.
> > 
> > If their target market is people likely to access the internet via
> > dialup modems, then sure, you've got it right.
> > 
> > We used to develop our web site in vi, with no tables or frames, such
> > that Mosaic users could read it. Our target market was users likely
> > to have Mosaic as their primary browser, i.e. old SCO systems.
> > 
> > The world has progressed on both fronts.
> 
> What's the point?  Just because I use linux servers doesn't mean I don't
> use Windows desktop software.  Just because I have a sweet machine at home
> doesn't mean my laptop is a powerhouse.  For that matter, I've heard of
> cellular service that has phone where they're lucky if they get the
> equivalent of 9600bps.
> 
> If I was out somewhere like I am now and wanted -quick- information about a
> backup software solution, I'd be gone -long- before the 68 seconds
> www.microlite.com took to load JUST the home page.  Mind you, I've gotten
> no -useful- information from that page.  This says nothing of the 20
> seconds to get to the Products page, nor the 10 seconds to get to the
> product literature index for Backup Edge, nor the 78 seconds it took to
> load the PDF with just the feature list.

Let's revisit this down at the XXX below.

> I'm in a position to recommend or reject products here, with an influence
> on my clients' decisions.  If someone doesn't want to make it easy to get
> the information -QUICKLY-, I go elsewhere.  When I go elsewhere, my
> recommendations go with me.  When my recommendations go, and I recommend
> something else, you just lost money.
> 
> GRANTED...I am not always on this laptop.  In fact, hardly ever.  But as
> I said, I've heard of major cellular phone browsing service that actually
> runs slower than what I'm on right now.  And who knows if those phones
> support PDF, as well.  Moot point, as nobody but a saint, or someone trying
> to convey a point with speed benchmarks like I am now would ever bother.
> (Thankfully it at least loads in Acrobat 5.0 though.)
> 
> But if you want to lose potential sales because you like bloat, feel
> free--I'm not the one potentially losing money.

I said nothing about bloat. A web site provides useful information but
is also doing advertising. You match the target clientele. I don't need
to play a video from my home page but that doesn't mean I can't think
of a site that might need to do so. 

It is only prudent to plan for the average. To design today's web sites
for 14.4 modems can load pages in, let's say, five seconds, is not
prudent. You wouldn't be able to even load tables, since old, slower
browsers on old, slower processors can take more time to render a table
than to download them.

> "The world has moved on," does not hold up as an excuse for sites that
> won't load quickly unless you have met minimum requirements--which you
> wouldn't even know until you put in the time to load the first page, even
> if it were listed.  All that sentence says is, "Even if you have the money,
> I don't want it because you refuse to upgrade hardware that's none of my
> concern, switch cell providers, etc."  Heck, if someone was even in a WiFi
> environment that was either saturated or really flaky, there might be a
> speed hit that limits people's download rate.  Universities regularly
> throttle speeds.  So do companies.

Agreed.

> Just because some of the world -can- go that fast doesn't mean it's the
> least common denomenator for your intended audience.  Sure, 99% of the time
> I'd be likely to hit your site over broadband.  If I needed info while I
> was out, and I was using this laptop...pffft.  No sale.  And it could be
> for several machines, who knows?  I work with a lot of different places
> that can (and some do) use Edge.  If someone gets me on the phone and this
> is all I have, that's all I have.  And I'm also gone when I can't get
> information in a reasonable timeframe.

Hmm. Let's follow that train.

> I'll say that your site is better than www.ctar.com, which took 121 seconds
> to load and didn't -display- anything in IE 4.0.  At all.  All that waiting
> for nothing.  Also better than the 130 seconds to load www.cactus.com's
> main page.  Which means that, among the products I -remember- compete
> with you, I had the best experience with your site.  What I'd be likely
> to do in this case is wait until I'm somewhere with a decent connection
> and system and try again--problem being that the places that frustrated me
> most with lousy, bloated web design are the ones I'd visit -last-.  In this
> particular instance, I'd go back to MicroLite.  The other two would already
> have a strike against them.

You've called my site slow and fast (by comparison) in consecutive
paragraphs. I'm glad we won your comparison, but we weren't trying to.
In fact you may have proven that our web site's download times are pretty
much mainstream or less, and if you'd given up back at XXX you'd just
have been more miserable when you decided that we were a terrible company
because our web site was slow at 9600 baud, only to find out that we were
quite useful by comparison.

Our goal is still to provide the best possible products, and the best
possible support (including our web site) that we can, and I'll settle
for slower if it means more complete. I know going in that using commercial
web site design software makes web sites larger (we use NetObjects Fusion)
but it is the price we have to pay for providing easier and more responsive
publishing content.

That DOESN'T mean that I'll go out of my way to make it slow by pumping
up on Flash files, and I'm not going to be looking to require IE7 as a
minimum browser, but I'll continue to be practical about it. It will never
again be designed with the 14.4 modem user in mind. That's now an
extraordinary circumstance and I'd suspect those who occasionally have to
deal with it will understand.

We determined that our client's best interests were served by providing
all our documentation in PDF. We optimize it, and the files are (relatively)
small, but they convey and present information EXACTLY the way we want it
viewed.

> Yes, I -have- been known to totally LEAVE a store if they refuse to have
> enough cashiers managing the checkout lanes.  More than a few times.  Same
> principle--the company either gives a damn enough to make it a painless
> experience and easy to spend money with them, or it doesn't.  Those that
> don't, lose.  I've been known to pay 40% more for a set of DVD's because
> it's quicker to go to Hollywood/Sam Goody and snag it than it is to wait at
> Wal*Mart, even COUNTING the further drive.

Ok.

> I don't think there's an excuse for bloated web design, any more than you
> likely feel (and I feel the same way) that there's an excuse for losing
> data.  I mean, what would you think if you heard someone say, "Ah, the vast
> majority of our machines won't suffer an HD failure before they're replaced
> nowadays anyway.  Forget backups."  You'd think they're nuts, right?  Well,
> that's the same sort of thing you're advocating--going with what's -likely-
> rather than covering all the bases.

Nope. I still said nothing about bloat. I'm all about using the right tool
for the job.

> It's not personal--I hear these arguments all the time.  And every single
> time, I disagree, no matter who it is presentng the opposing view.  I'd
> rather have a text-only bulletted list that was here in two secnds than one
> I have to wait even 10 seconds for.  It's the information that I'm after
> that counts, not how dazzlingly it's presented.

Not taken personally. I respect your opinion, Please remember that in the
grand scheme of things, other people like to / Want To / NEED TO be dazzled.
None of them are wrong, either. The magic is in satisfying as many people's
needs as possbile, and I suspect we all have differing opinions about that.

Tom

> mark->
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