SpaceGirl said:
I suppose... but its the current trendy, and I doubt it's going to get any
easier for narrowband users. Broadband user demand more and more broadband
content - which means they are more likely to fall for the slick graphics
and pretty convent, buy products etc etc. It becomes a self perpetuating
cycle, because then the market realises the big online spenders are the
broadband users, which means even less effort is spent on narrowband
content...
I disagree. A totally unscientific survey amongst friends and family
tells me that users switch to broadband to get the same content
faster, not to get more content at the same speed. Things that are
only practical with broadband (downloading mp3s, movies, software,
etc.) are seen as something extra to the basic web surfing experience.
Where you might notice a difference is amongst the younger audience
(pre- and early teens) who won't have experience of anything except
broadband. However, and this is digressing rapidly, when a project I
worked on conducted usability tests on an early teens group we
discovered that their attitude to the web was not what we expected -
they were actually quite resistant to innovation. As they had grown up
with the web it was part of life and not something special, as such
they expected it to work and to work reliably. Basic things such as
always underlining links (which some people think of as only important
to boring old usability pedants) were mentioned as being very
important by 12 and 13 year olds.
Steve