Grim reality...

[Luigi Donatello Asero]

Obviously you are not watching, They have found signs of water on
mars ages ago.

The question is whether dorayme found it......

 

[Jim Higson]

So you believe the demand is more or less caused by the marketing
departments (they are the people that"pay" for the sites) driving
web development.

Pretty much. If web design companies are paid just the same for a broken
site, what incentive for their managers to spend money to train their staff
to make fixed ones? Web design is pretty much a free market afterall, a
buyer who doesn't insist on quality standards gets the site they deserve.

Also, CSS makes sites easier for other people to take over and add content
to a site in future... maybe that's a disincentive to use it if you want
keep a contract to maintain the site.

I also lean that way.
But I also think people
are accepting or god forbid enjoying it. Especially if they have
broadband.

This raises an interesting question: if most people enjoy the most sites I'd
consider broken, maybe the market is functioning correctly by giving them
what they want? The point of the site wasn't to be discussed highly on
alt.html afterall.

And I suppose there's nothing wrong with Flash etc in the right place... I
could point to sites I've created that use Flash, but if the user doesn't
have it they get almost the same experience (and no nagging message to
install it!)

There's a difference between writing invalid HTML and using non-universal
file formats on the web.

 

[Travis Newbury]

This raises an interesting question: if most people enjoy the
most sites I'd consider broken, maybe the market is functioning
correctly by giving them what they want? The point of the site
wasn't to be discussed highly on alt.html afterall.

I have found that I am one of those that enjoy the sites many here
consider broken. My main browser is FF with Ie if the site I need
to go to doesn't functionon FF (and I almost never run into a site
like that) I have Javascript turned on, and had added the activex
plugin for FF (useful when the site has a need for javascript to
communicate with, say, a media player.)

I find when I run into a site does not work exactly right I really
don't care. I make the needed adjustments and move on. Every now
and then I will leave a site. But more often or not it is because
it is too plain rather than too fancy.

 

[JDS]

Starting from scratch they could have done anything. But they
didn't they did this (warning it may not work in your particular
browser with yor particular settings):

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org

I blame it on Dreamweaver. It is clearly a DW site -- look at the
"function MM_"s in the Javascript.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

This raises an interesting question: if most people enjoy the most
sites I'd consider broken, maybe the market is functioning correctly
by giving them what they want? The point of the site wasn't to be
discussed highly on alt.html afterall.

It's hard to argue against that, isn't it? However, web sites aren't
sold to the end-user (i.e the readers), but to whoever is
commissioning them. If their sites can reach "most people" (by which
*they* presumably mean Windows users with some fairly recent IE
version? <grumble/>), it still may be interesting to consider how to
reach the ones who were left out. And maybe alt.html can help them to
do that, *without* the high-cost reworking and loss of function that
the push-and-click designers keep saying would be needed.

"They" have been telling us, for at least a decade, that the only way
to make flexible and accessible sites involves (1) full-scale
reworking that they can't afford and (2) take out all the geegaws.
How often I've heard them whining about "lowest common denominator"[1]

These assertions weren't true then, and they aren't true now - or
rather, they don't have to be true unless someone has set out to make
them so! Reworking is something that's needed if the job was done
wrong in the first place. And all kinds of nice *optional* extras can
be incorporated if it's done right. But you know all that:

And I suppose there's nothing wrong with Flash etc in the right
place... I could point to sites I've created that use Flash, but if
the user doesn't have it they get almost the same experience (and no
nagging message to install it!)

That's an example of what I mean, indeed.

cheers

[1]which itself is a misunderstanding of what the mathematical term
really means, but we know what they *intended* to mean.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

Yea, but when I want someone to make me dinner, I want the chef to
add his own personal touches.

Of course. The architect too, if I've got the dosh to commission it.

The recipe is only a guide...

Yeah. If the dish comes with a level of food poisoning that has no
harmful effects on "most" of the diners, is that adequate? Surely,
the dish should not only be appetizing, but also conform to applicable
health and hygiene standards?

Proving analogies are meaningless to prove a point...

To some extent you're right, and a collapsing web site will not itself
prove fatal, in the way that a dangerous house, or infected dinner
could do. But I don't see that *your* particular line of argument had
really discredited the original analogy. Sure, the web site should be
attractive, but that doesn't in itself mean throwing the interworking
specifications out.

Considering now the wide differences even between different versions
of MSIE (thanks partly to the various security rollouts), it's far
from good enough to say "look, the site works with IE, *most* users
are surfing with IE, end of job". Not that I ever would have done,
but *some* designers evidently do take that view.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I blame it on Dreamweaver. It is clearly a DW site...

Na, Dreamweaver is a tool. You have to blame the developers. These
guys are smart enough to make any kind of site they want. They
choose to make this kind of site.

 

[kchayka]

Here is the grim reality of the world. The new Georgia Aquarium
was just built (the largest in the world I might add) Anyway, they
obviously needed a website.

Starting from scratch they could have done anything. But they
didn't they did this (warning it may not work in your particular
browser with yor particular settings):

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org

It's painfully slow to load, even on DSL. The layout doesn't adapt so
well to my larger than average text size, either. It looks sloppy and
unprofessional, just like most other image slice-and-splice designs. I'm
underwhelmed, to say the least.

Others have already mentioned what happens when images aren't loaded.
Note that if they didn't rely so heavily on images of text, or used a
text size that wasn't so blasted small, I wouldn't bother disabling images.

I sent them a polite email about my less than wonderful experience at
their site. We'll see if I get a response, and what kind it might be.

they hired this company to do it for them:

http://www.spunlogic.com/

They repeated claim to have an "in-depth understanding of online
behavior" as well as "put ourselves in the shoes of your audience".

It appears that their understanding doesn't include varying browsing
environments, and their clients' audiences don't include anyone with a
vision problem.

BTW, their new City of Atlanta web site hurts my eyes, but at least that
one seems to be usable with images off.

 

[dorayme]

As to design itself, colours and so on they are often a matter of personal
taste..

If I ever had any doubts about this, I do not now. You have
taught me this from your website and posts. And the importance
of freedom.

 

[dorayme]

The question is whether dorayme found it......

OK, I will confess: part of the reason I am here is the
water up there was hard to get in drinkable form. I searched and
searched for somewhere to go. Earth, Australia had the best beer
so that is where I headed...

 

[Travis Newbury]

It's painfully slow to load, even on DSL. The layout doesn't
adapt so well to my larger than average text size, either. It
looks sloppy and unprofessional, just like most other image
slice-and-splice designs. I'm underwhelmed, to say the least.

Yep, not a disagreement in then entie paragraph.

I sent them a polite email about my less than wonderful
experience at their site. We'll see if I get a response, and
what kind it might be.

If you do get a response (unlikely) it wold be great if you posted it
here.

It appears that their understanding doesn't include varying
browsing environments, and their clients' audiences don't
include anyone with a vision problem....

Na, I think they know all the differences. I think they choose to
create websites this way because they sell. (That is obvious, look at
what is out there)

BTW, their new City of Atlanta web site hurts my eyes, but at
least that one seems to be usable with images off.

The spent a fortune (250k+) for a new "Atlanta Theme song" What they
came up with is some hip hop song where the hook sounds like a cop
telling some hoodlems to "put our hands up" (not kidding)