While it's possible to code a site with all the excessive bells and
whistles, commercial and nonprofit sites ultimately need to develop
their pages to attract customers/clients, not the script-kiddies putting
the sites together. It's not necessary to have lots of scripts and Flash
to create an attractive a site, especially when basic HTML with a few
simple extras will sell the product just as well. Techno-porn doesn't
appeal to people who just want to get some information or to buy
something. It belongs on game and video sites.
For example, I want to buy a new AA/AAA battery charger. I had to wait
and wait for each animated page to load at 4 different corporate sites,
and didn't find the specs I wanted, before I finally gave up and called
the toll-free numbers that the web sites are supposed to replace. Then I
found out that the specs weren't on the main site but on a related
parent company site. What a waste of my time--and theirs. Bad design,
poor planning don't make a flashy site any better or more useful.
Of course the technology advances, and some users are left behind.
However since alternate simplified sites have been developed for cell
phones, then non-flash, minimally scripted, minimally animated sites can
be provided in the same way. Or the B&B will just have to wait for their
prospective guests to upgrade their computers, or to go elsewhere with a
more accessible site. Too bad about the food bank, though.
Betty
I think Tom's point was that technology leaves the old stuff behind,
eventually. For example, not many computers from the 1980's would be of
much use today, if one wanted to use that computer to connect to the
internet. Many web sites will also become unreadable by the oldest
browsers, too. Not a question of fairness, but one of standards and
capabilities.
Thank you,
Mark Snyder
-----Original Message-----
Far be it from me to disagree with our Fearless Leader, but the Internet
doesn't just belong to us and to other nerds, wonks, and graphics
specialists.
It also belongs to the grandmother in Des Moines who's keeping up with
her grandchildren's school via their website and who maintains the
church's Food Bank webpage, because there's nobody else to do it. It
belongs to the young couple in rural Virginia who are just getting their
bed-and-breakfast off the ground and who have put together their new
website from a template, with the help of their brother-in-law in
Nevada. Or the ten-year-old kid in an inner city school who has just
gotten access to a computer--a used laptop--for the FIRST time, and is
trying to find his way around, to get material from the Net for a class
assignment. He has to figure out how to use the Internet really fast,
because in half an hour, he has to pass the laptop on to the next kid.
Such people don't have huge amounts of time--and probably don't have the
knowledge--to mess around with tekkie things like downloading a new
browser and spending hours delicately adjusting it so that it actually
works.
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