Earlier I was suggesting that, instead of stats telling us who to
target, they really tell us who to exclude.
A fellow poster wrote:
my blog 800x600 accounts for less than 2.5% of the traffic
That poster appeared to be advocating for leniency, but let's take
this example of screen resolution stats and turn them around. Let's
say his stats apply to your website audience as well.
800x600: 2.5% = 100/2.5 = one in 40 visitors uses 800px-wide screen
resolution (window width not mentioned).
Let's say you design your site to look good at 1024 but crappy at 800.
Every 40th visitor, on average, will have a bad experience.
Is this what you want? Ask yourself not how many people you want to
have a good experience on your site but rather how many people you
want to have a crappy experience.
What's your expected site traffic?
100 visitors a day? So two to three people every day will have a
crappy experience on your site.
1,000 visitors a day? About 25 people every day will have a crappy
experience on your site.
10,000 visitors a day? About 250 people every day will have a crappy
experience on your site.
Why would anyone want this?
Why do web designers even think this way?
For the most part, I think, they don't. They read the stats the
other way around: they think, oh, great! 97.5% of my users will have
a good experience! And they stop thinking there. Instead of trying
to solve the problem they're relieved that the problem can be
expressed as such a small number.
Instead of thinking, "How can I make this work for everyone?" they're
thinking, "Can I make this work for most?" "What's the cost of
expediency?" "Can I afford to piss off a few people in order satisfy a lot?"
So they don't actually perform the thought-experiments that lead to
innovation and new design.
This, I believe, is where you come in.
Regards,
Paul
__________________________
Paul Novitski
Juniper Webcraft Ltd.
http://juniperwebcraft.com
*******************************************************************
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*******************************************************************
