Re: [SLUG] Advocacy & Getting What You Want [Was:St.George Browser Based Banking Feedback]
On 19 Oct 2002 15:20:39 +1000, Richard Neal wrote: >> Remember that Internet Explorer has accounted for over 90% of browsers in >> some studies. So, whilst that may mean they could be ruling out 10% of their >> potential customers, I don't think that the extra expense to support or >> develop (and train people to support and develop) for those platforms would >> be very attractive to them. >> >Actually that figure is under challenge now because many users set their >alternate browsers to say they are IE 5.0 even though they aren't. when I 1st started analyzing web logs, several years ago, we were getting roughyl 50/50 IE/N these days, sadly, N doesn't rate just looking at my ski club site; Top 15 of 83 Total User Agents # Hits User Agent 1 35586 94.50% MSIE 2 17197 45.67% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; ( t w e e 3 5639 14.97% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90)" 4 2913 7.74% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 95)" 5 1899 5.04% Mozilla 6 1425 3.78% Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;)" 7 1198 3.18% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98)" 8 830 2.20% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)" 9 818 2.17% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0)" 10 800 2.12% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)" 11 657 1.74% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90)" 12 635 1.69% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)" 13 558 1.48% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)" 14 398 1.06% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0; Suncorp Me 15 329 0.87% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 95)" my ski users wouldd't have a clue what's a user agent, let alone, how to change it -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Advocacy & Getting What You Want [Was:St.George Browser Based Banking Feedback]
On Thu, Oct 17, 2002 at 05:49:27PM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: > Issues are interesting, name calling less so -> could you imagine a Labour > supporter on election day discouraging you from voting for "Howard the > Duck"? It may be funny, perhaps even accurate, but it's not convincing. isn't that what the politcal parties do though? oops OT > 2) "My browser supports standards, your website does not..." > > Don't bother telling them what you're using - they're only going to > support the big ones, and probably have office jokes about Netscape/ > Mac/Linux/Amiga/OS/2 users anyway. However, if you tell them the benefits > of standards and accessibility, they might think twice about what they > offer, and who to. "Imagine if I couldn't send an email to you because the > software we used didn't speak the same language, wouldn't that be bad?" yeah well that just sounds patronising. BTW some places/people just don't care anyway. I've complained about the HR website of the mob I work for, it uses some weird javascript to disable drop-down menus and doesn't work properly in anything other than IE (netscape < 7 and mozilla crash loading it, netscape7 doesn't crash but doesn't work properly either). I've pointed them to the HEROC rules and pointed out the irony of the HR website discriminating against non-IE users, I've even offered to add simple text links (like alt tags) for them if they don't know how, and got no where. Dave. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
[SLUG] Advocacy & Getting What You Want [Was:St.George Browser Based Banking Feedback]
> I think you are going completely the wrong direction with what you have said > above. At present Linux users are more computer Savvy than M$ Windoze users. Just some comments on your response. First one being: Don't refer to Windows as "M$ Windoze" to people who see it as their primary supportable user base, and do not care for software politics. They won't get the 'joke', and will tune out pretty fast. Issues are interesting, name calling less so -> could you imagine a Labour supporter on election day discouraging you from voting for "Howard the Duck"? It may be funny, perhaps even accurate, but it's not convincing. > The bank should be looking to support all potential users, not just the > majority. In the long term, support for other systems could be increased > as your support personnel become more experienced. Remember that Internet Explorer has accounted for over 90% of browsers in some studies. So, whilst that may mean they could be ruling out 10% of their potential customers, I don't think that the extra expense to support or develop (and train people to support and develop) for those platforms would be very attractive to them. Now that everyone is sufficiently amazed that I'm not interested in support for Linux browsers... Here's two arguments that really matter: 1) "I will take my business elsewhere, such as..." I said this to the National Bank, closed my account, and switched to the Commonwealth, who had a reasonably compatible netbanking system. I told them why I was switching, who I was switching to, and why I chose them. Should I take credit for the National's new netbanking stuff? No, but I'm sure it helped all of the other Blind/Netscape/Mac/Linux/Amiga/OS/2 users. 2) "My browser supports standards, your website does not..." Don't bother telling them what you're using - they're only going to support the big ones, and probably have office jokes about Netscape/ Mac/Linux/Amiga/OS/2 users anyway. However, if you tell them the benefits of standards and accessibility, they might think twice about what they offer, and who to. "Imagine if I couldn't send an email to you because the software we used didn't speak the same language, wouldn't that be bad?" It will be a very hard slog getting disinterested companies to support us. It's just too hard, and we haven't given them a big enough incentive yet. But there are other ways around it. :-) - Jeff -- "It's like having someone say to you, 'You should get back together with your first wife. You guys were good together'. It's not that simple." - David Byrne on Talking Heads -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
