Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
Can't help but do the math. 100,000 hits can't possibly be insignificant. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Please ... I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample of over 5 million hits. ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
At 08:59 AM 1/18/2001 -0800, you wrote: . i'd be curious to see if amazon.com uses javascript. I remember reading somewhere that Yahoo initially had a tiny javascript to set the cursor in a form field box when the page loaded. They took it out to save the extra loading time (which was what ...1/2 a second?). ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 4:10 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding? Please ... I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample of over 5 million hits. So? You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of maintaining the various website variants. Browser-compatibility is not an extra cost in our project-budgets, as I don't expect wheels to be an extra cost when I buy a car. Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and capture them. If you develop the application with cross-browser compatibility in mind, there is no extra cost. One of our developers actually developed a site that depended on cookie and javascriptenabled browsers - without me knowing. When the customer got the first complaint from a user, who had to spend a day rewriting on our expense? I did. - Of course. It wasn't difficult to make the site work with no javascript and cookies. - If it was done in the first place, there wouldn't have been an extra day of rewriting either. Cost verus payoff? In this case we had to bare the cost of not doing the job properly. Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! Whenever it's possible, yes. In some cases where advanced login is required, it is difficult though... And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site in Yiddish? I don't think you are serious in this comparison, so I won't comment this. You got to be kidding! Nope... God how I WISH I could depend on a user having javascript and cookies enabled, but then again - I wish for world peace as well... Have a nice day! rgds * Holger Lockertsen, Solutions Developer * Pixelduck AS - Nedre Slottsgate 5, N-0157 OSLO, Noreg/Norway * 23 31 03 04 / 91 83 20 51 * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://www.pixelduck.com/ ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
Also, is your site already built for version 4+ browsers? If it is, people aren't likely to stay long if they are using NS 3 and the site is unusable. Kevin [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/18/01 08:33AM Does it say how many have their JS/cookies turned off though? geez .. if I was spending 50k on a project, I'd want that whole 100% ;) Todd Ashworth - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "CF-Talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:10 AM Subject: Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding? | Please ... | | I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all | browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample | of over 5 million hits. | | You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands | of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of | maintaining the various website variants. | | Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that | don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and | capture them. | | Cost verus payoff? | | Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop | non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! | | And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see | 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site | in Yiddish? | | You got to be kidding! | | Bill Reichard | Willow Gold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.willowgold.com | | In a message dated 1/18/01 9:42:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, | [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: | | | There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed | to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How | you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work | because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This | seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you | potential customers and clients. | | Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some | browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have | right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that | you're trying to convey to the user. | | Kath | | | | | | | ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
Also, is your site already built for version 4+ browsers? If it is, people aren't likely to stay long if they are using NS 3 and the site is unusable. Kevin [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/18/01 08:33AM Does it say how many have their JS/cookies turned off though? geez .. if I was spending 50k on a project, I'd want that whole 100% ;) Todd Ashworth - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "CF-Talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:10 AM Subject: Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding? | Please ... | | I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all | browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample | of over 5 million hits. | | You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands | of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of | maintaining the various website variants. | | Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that | don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and | capture them. | | Cost verus payoff? | | Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop | non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! | | And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see | 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site | in Yiddish? | | You got to be kidding! | | Bill Reichard | Willow Gold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.willowgold.com | | In a message dated 1/18/01 9:42:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, | [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: | | | There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed | to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How | you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work | because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This | seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you | potential customers and clients. | | Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some | browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have | right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that | you're trying to convey to the user. | | Kath | | | | | | | ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
Let me guess ... the good of the many does NOT outweigh the good of the few! Geez ... do you develop all your web pages strictly in English? Hmmm ... talk about 'the height of arrogance'. Bill Reichard Willow Gold [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.willowgold.com In a message dated 1/18/01 8:25:55 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Adam, I applaud you for doing things the right way - assuming that the client won't have javascript enabled. As a web developer, as well as a user of a variety of browsers in which there either is no javascript, minimal javascript, or javascript which works differently from version to version (lynx, netscape communicator 4.x and 6.x, and IE 5.x on Solaris), as well as a user who encounters users regularly who work in government or other industries where security requires them to disable both java and javascript, I applaud those doing the right thing - using javascript only in arenas where they total, 100% control of the user's environment. To dismiss any user who doesn't configure their browser to meet the the server's requirements seems to be the height of arrogance - similar to the car dealer who won't talk to a customer unless they are wearing a 3 piece suit, regardless of how much money they have to spend... ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you potential customers and clients. Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that you're trying to convey to the user. Kath Katherine Maltby Senior Producer -- United Kingdom http://www.thoughtbubble.co.uk/ Ph: +44 (0) 20 7387 8890 -- New Zealand http://www.thoughtbubble.co.nz/ Ph: +64 (0) 9 419 4235 The information in this email and in any attachments is confidential and intended solely for the attention and use of the named addressee(s) . Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Thoughtbubble. This information may be subject to legal, professional or other privilege and further distribution of it is strictly prohibited without our authority. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not authorised to disclose, copy, distribute, or retain this message. Please notify us on +44 (0) 20 7387 8890 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 18 January 2001 13:52 To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding? Let me guess ... the good of the many does NOT outweigh the good of the few! Geez ... do you develop all your web pages strictly in English? Hmmm ... talk about 'the height of arrogance'. Bill Reichard Willow Gold [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.willowgold.com In a message dated 1/18/01 8:25:55 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Adam, I applaud you for doing things the right way - assuming that the client won't have javascript enabled. As a web developer, as well as a user of a variety of browsers in which there either is no javascript, minimal javascript, or javascript which works differently from version to version (lynx, netscape communicator 4.x and 6.x, and IE 5.x on Solaris), as well as a user who encounters users regularly who work in government or other industries where security requires them to disable both java and javascript, I applaud those doing the right thing - using javascript only in arenas where they total, 100% control of the user's environment. To dismiss any user who doesn't configure their browser to meet the the server's requirements seems to be the height of arrogance - similar to the car dealer who won't talk to a customer unless they are wearing a 3 piece suit, regardless of how much money they have to spend... ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
Please ... I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample of over 5 million hits. You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of maintaining the various website variants. Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and capture them. Cost verus payoff? Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site in Yiddish? You got to be kidding! Bill Reichard Willow Gold [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.willowgold.com In a message dated 1/18/01 9:42:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you potential customers and clients. Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that you're trying to convey to the user. Kath ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
How you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you potential customers and clients. Our site is geared to a specialized sector of health and nutrition and we find that a lot of our customers are 55+. MANY of these folks have hand me down computers from their kids or bought second hand "cause they heard about this newfangledinternetthingie. (ok this is changing a bit...) Looking at our site statistics from the last year is interesting Netscape 3 - 3.52% MSIE 3 - 1.09% WebTV 1 - 0.71% AOL 3 - 0.64% Netscape 2 - 0.16% Other - 0.14% Netscape 5 - 0.06% MSIE 2 - 0.03% IBrowse 1 - 0.02% AOL-IWENG 3 - 0.02% This tells me that almost 7% of our visitors are using outdated browsers (and those few poor souls who are using Netscape 5...hehe). When I took over admin of the site 2 years ago, I removed a ton of javascript which was making a mess of things. (especially with IE3.0 users). I also got rid of animated gifs, a scrolling java applet and a bunch of other geewhiz stuff. I went completely the other way and set the site up as almost entirely text based and got a ton of mail saying thank you. Our customers didn't want any of that stuff. They wanted information, an easy shopping experience and that its IT. Based on these changes (and some work on search engine placements), our site usage (which had been pretty static for several years) has increased 400% in 2 years. We also have something like a 14% Browser to Buyer conversion rate which is better than a lot of the top ecomm numbers (amazon.com 8.7%). Granted our overall numbers are tiny compared to the volume that the big guys do..(but then again we MADE money last year...hehe) The biggest thing I notice is that I almost never get mail about the site anymore, which tells me that people are using it and not fighting with it. BTW, one good thing that happened this year was the certificate expiration which forced a lot of folks to upgrade to newer versions so we are seeing a lot more 4+ versions showing up on the site these days. Haven't had a Netscape 2 user for a couple months now...lol ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
the point isn't whether the browsers can use javascript, it's whether or not the technology you want to rely on can be turned on or off by the user. the key word is RELY. i use JS on sites but if it's turned off or otherwise unavailable it doesn't break the application in question. as far as "downward capability", the biggest clients i've worked with want simplicity and reliability, not complexity. i'd be curious to see if amazon.com uses javascript. i seem to recall they don't. you could argue they should in some places, but they design for older browsers as the minimum. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:10 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding? Please ... I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample of over 5 million hits. You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of maintaining the various website variants. Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and capture them. Cost verus payoff? Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see . 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site in Yiddish? You got to be kidding! Bill Reichard Willow Gold [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.willowgold.com In a message dated 1/18/01 9:42:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you potential customers and clients. Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that you're trying to convey to the user. Kath ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
So let's talk about IE 5. If I remember correctly (and I am known not to occasionally) the security patch for IE that came out after the big virus scare disables JS in IE5. They aren't talking about creating different versions for cross-compatibility; they're talking about planning a single version that is cross-browser compatible. They're talking not very much extra development cost. Try telling a business man that he only made $100,000 today when he could have made $102,000 and see how long you keep your job. Planning for cross-browser compatibility, lack of cookies, non-JS enabled browsers, non-flash-enabled browsers, non-frame-enabled browsers, and proxy-caching is good form. For a little extra planning and a little extra development you can make more profit in the long run. Even at 2% (which is actually a pretty low estimate, in my opinion), 5 extra hours of work (which is really quite a lot considering the error checking you could do in JS) means a 2% higher number of happy customers. Over a year, that can add up to a lot more than the $1750 the client would spend on that 5 hours of your time at $350/hour (which is probably a lot more than you actually charge). Imagine if Amazon lost 2% of its yearly business because it required JS. How much money is that compared to your 5 hours of development time? At 10:10 AM 1/18/01 -0500, you wrote: Please ... I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample of over 5 million hits. You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of maintaining the various website variants. Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and capture them. Cost verus payoff? Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site in Yiddish? You got to be kidding! Bill Reichard Willow Gold [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.willowgold.com In a message dated 1/18/01 9:42:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you potential customers and clients. Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that you're trying to convey to the user. Kath ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
Does it say how many have their JS/cookies turned off though? geez .. if I was spending 50k on a project, I'd want that whole 100% ;) Todd Ashworth - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "CF-Talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:10 AM Subject: Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding? | Please ... | | I just checked Webtrends for browser types hitting our site and 98% of all | browsers are NN 4+ and IE 4+ ... with the over 60% being IE 5. With a sample | of over 5 million hits. | | You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands | of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of | maintaining the various website variants. | | Let me see ... you could lose one or two sales to the 2% of browser that | don't support scripting/have scripting enabled ... or you spend 50K and | capture them. | | Cost verus payoff? | | Ohhh, and let me guess ... you also develop | non-cookie-based/non-session-based site variants also! Cha Ching! | | And don't even think about all the people who can't read English? Let me see | 2% of the people speak Yiddish ... so let's spend 50K to present our site | in Yiddish? | | You got to be kidding! | | Bill Reichard | Willow Gold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.willowgold.com | | In a message dated 1/18/01 9:42:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, | [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: | | | There's no point putting 'basic' functionality on a web site that's supposed | to be for all of your users if it won't work on some of their browsers. How | you can expect users to go back to your website if half of it doesn't work | because they haven't got the right settings or the latest browser? This | seems to be a very narrow minded attitude to have and will cost you | potential customers and clients. | | Granted, a lot of the time you can have things that won't work on some | browsers, but only if there's an alternative for people who may not have | right settings and it doesn't loose any functionality or the message that | you're trying to convey to the user. | | Kath | | | | | | | ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Great idea Adam! [Was: Re: Adam, you got to be kidding?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You really are going to tell the website owner to ante up another X thousands of dollars to develop downward browser capability? Not to mention the cost of maintaining the various website variants. In a lot of cases, it's the incompatible, browser-specific development that's the extra cost. The Web was designed to get away from platform-specificity, so you get accessibility for free unless you go out of your way to screw it up. Make a site that works, then add bells and whistles to enhance the experience for people with certain browsers. For example, you have to do server-side validation regardless, unless you want people to corrupt your database. It's nice to have client- side validation, too, but that's the add-on. And no one's suggested building multiple versions of sites. Does the phrase "graceful degradation" mean anything to you? --Keith ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
