In this evolution, I would also love to see American people stop thinking that the whole world and the Internet is for them only, as Davegolden says below :-)
I would also love to see all country in a REAL alphabetic order, when a site ask me to choose my country (Switzerland).
There is also absolutely no reason about the .com associated with USA. Why .us or .usa doesn't exist ?
The Internet is not an American thing. It was developped in different country (a part in Geneva, Switzerland, in CERN).
Any discussion of design that omits the customer is suspect. The question is not what design standards should be, but rather: What customers will you lose when you make certain decisions? Who are your customers?
Do you have laptop users and road warriors? International markets? Schools? The elderly? WebTV users? Designers must always evaluate decisions through the customers' eyes and too often we imagine them to be like us, using 21-inch displays and connecting with megabit lines. When I see a gorgeous 140K site, I wonder if the designer even knows that modem users must wait 45 seconds to see it? Do they know how loooong 45 seconds really is?
I'm not saying everyone should design in least-common-denominator mode. But we had better know why we are doing it and how it affects our audiences.
Submitted by MRubenzahl on Tue, 10/03/2000 - 16:16.
I remember in art school (70's) being sneared at by the purists for using acrylics and not oils.
I remember in the 80's being sneered at by artists for turning into a computer geek.
I remember in the 90's I was looked down apon for taking a eager plunge into digital art.
I remember daily that I am earning a living, doing what I love, still painting and NOT asking anyone "if they want fries with that!"
The html purists had a point, but advances in technology has opened new doors, either you enter or you stay behind.
Submitted by crisnaugle on Thu, 09/28/2000 - 21:00.
I've gotten to the point where, as long as a page degrades gracefully, I don't care if it looks exactly the same in every browser. A non-web safe slate blue may degrade to a gray on Netscape but stay a nice slate blue on IE. Is it readable? Fine. On most of my sites, less than twenty percent of visitors are using Netscape. It's no longer worth my time to kill myself to make everything perfect for the lowest common denominator.
I am far more concerned about slow download times. Flash is still in the era of "Look what I can do!" instead of being usefully integrated into pages. In a few years we're going to look back and laugh.
When was the last time you looked at one of your pages in AOL without turning off their proprietary graphics compression? There are people who have no idea the web looks any other way.
Users are going to see your pages in a variety of ways. Plan ahead, and do the best you can with insuring they'll be readable to almost everyone.
The fact that most users have larger screens, latest version browsers etc is no excuse use technology that may not be accessable to all. What about WebTV, there's a fixed 640x480 resolution with limited support for media types.
More importantly what about the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are still a number of users who will need to use text based browsers.
Submitted by davegolden on Wed, 10/04/2000 - 10:54.
I have to disagree somewhat with the idea that most people have 15" monitors. There are a large number of laptop users that have 10", 12" or 14" monitors. I have also seen many people with 15" and 17" desktop monitors that set them to 800 by 600, instead of 1024 by 768. Most of these will have thousands, or millions of colours, but most people are still on 56 kpbs modems. Download times have more to do with colour use than screen settings.
Also, Flash is not nearly as universal as Macromedia may claim. There are regular updates to Flash, and not that many users are willing, or able, to get every update. I have also seen Flash driven sites coincide with browser crashes. This turns many away from using it. Also, I have seen many IT departments that do not allow users to install anything, including plugins, without the IT department testing it first. And few IT departments are willing to commit to browser plugins, unless the company web site uses them.
I hope that W3C and Adobe can finalize SVG. This will be the way of the future, since it is based on XML and CSS, which many businesses are likely to adopt.
Submitted by Flash Gordon on Wed, 10/04/2000 - 13:17.
We've all lamented the loss of control that occurred when we went from the high-resolution world of the printed page to the decidedly low-resolution realm of the Web. In the process, we've learned to work around these limitations, but I think that Mr. Penston's tenets are correct. The medium has moved forward and it's time that we start embracing the new(er) technologies available to us. I say this without having been able to get my arms around SVG or Flash yet myself. I have been eager to learn Flash for a long time, but have yet to commit the time or energy to do so-lacking a client or project that requires it, I suppose, is prurient reason. Anyway, I think that as more of us adopt these technologies, we will see an easier time in convincing those clients that have hesitated to see the benefits of them that it's time to move on.
Submitted by Kevin Palmer on Thu, 10/05/2000 - 12:21.
In the last six months our company has been getting a tremendous amount of business from other web development companies who are saying "Help, our client wants their site to look more exciting!". After creating a more robust graphic design for them, I continually get the usual, "That's nice, but you can't do that when building a web page."
Developer's need to get on the band wagon and start getting familiar with tools such as Dreamweaver and GoLive. Learn to integrate these tools with the Cold Fusions of the world, or your going to get left in the dust.
Branding is becoming more and more important in the world of the web. I'm not saying that you should sacrifice efficiency by overloading a site with heavy graphics. If you use some of the newer features, such as layers and combined them with creative graphic design, you can create a great looking site and still keep the download times respectable.
I know, there are bugs and inconsistencies with some of the newer features between IE and Netscape, but there are work arounds. Learn them and you'll not only create better looking sites, but you'll also create them faster.
It's about time that somebody stated this!
It's about time that somebody stated this!
When Americans still think that they are the WORLD !
In this evolution, I would also love to see American people stop thinking that the whole world and the Internet is for them only, as Davegolden says below :-)
I would also love to see all country in a REAL alphabetic order, when a site ask me to choose my country (Switzerland).
There is also absolutely no reason about the .com associated with USA. Why .us or .usa doesn't exist ?
The Internet is not an American thing. It was developped in different country (a part in Geneva, Switzerland, in CERN).
Yes, the Internet need a big EVOLUTION.
Frédéric BERTI
ESSANIA design
web design - 3D
Yes, but what about -- the customer?
Any discussion of design that omits the customer is suspect. The question is not what design standards should be, but rather: What customers will you lose when you make certain decisions? Who are your customers?
Do you have laptop users and road warriors? International markets? Schools? The elderly? WebTV users? Designers must always evaluate decisions through the customers' eyes and too often we imagine them to be like us, using 21-inch displays and connecting with megabit lines. When I see a gorgeous 140K site, I wonder if the designer even knows that modem users must wait 45 seconds to see it? Do they know how loooong 45 seconds really is?
I'm not saying everyone should design in least-common-denominator mode. But we had better know why we are doing it and how it affects our audiences.
art and design must advance with technology
I remember in art school (70's) being sneared at by the purists for using acrylics and not oils.
I remember in the 80's being sneered at by artists for turning into a computer geek.
I remember in the 90's I was looked down apon for taking a eager plunge into digital art.
I remember daily that I am earning a living, doing what I love, still painting and NOT asking anyone "if they want fries with that!"
The html purists had a point, but advances in technology has opened new doors, either you enter or you stay behind.
Old news....but firmly agree.
The subject of new standards is ever evolving.
Evolution
I've gotten to the point where, as long as a page degrades gracefully, I don't care if it looks exactly the same in every browser. A non-web safe slate blue may degrade to a gray on Netscape but stay a nice slate blue on IE. Is it readable? Fine. On most of my sites, less than twenty percent of visitors are using Netscape. It's no longer worth my time to kill myself to make everything perfect for the lowest common denominator.
I am far more concerned about slow download times. Flash is still in the era of "Look what I can do!" instead of being usefully integrated into pages. In a few years we're going to look back and laugh.
When was the last time you looked at one of your pages in AOL without turning off their proprietary graphics compression? There are people who have no idea the web looks any other way.
Users are going to see your pages in a variety of ways. Plan ahead, and do the best you can with insuring they'll be readable to almost everyone.
Accessablility
The fact that most users have larger screens, latest version browsers etc is no excuse use technology that may not be accessable to all. What about WebTV, there's a fixed 640x480 resolution with limited support for media types.
More importantly what about the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are still a number of users who will need to use text based browsers.
Large monitors not really used at maximum resolution.
I have to disagree somewhat with the idea that most people have 15" monitors. There are a large number of laptop users that have 10", 12" or 14" monitors. I have also seen many people with 15" and 17" desktop monitors that set them to 800 by 600, instead of 1024 by 768. Most of these will have thousands, or millions of colours, but most people are still on 56 kpbs modems. Download times have more to do with colour use than screen settings.
Also, Flash is not nearly as universal as Macromedia may claim. There are regular updates to Flash, and not that many users are willing, or able, to get every update. I have also seen Flash driven sites coincide with browser crashes. This turns many away from using it. Also, I have seen many IT departments that do not allow users to install anything, including plugins, without the IT department testing it first. And few IT departments are willing to commit to browser plugins, unless the company web site uses them.
I hope that W3C and Adobe can finalize SVG. This will be the way of the future, since it is based on XML and CSS, which many businesses are likely to adopt.
16 bit displays do not display colors accurately
look at this article in webmonkey:
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/00/37/index2a.html
The Print to Web Transition is Not an Easy One
We've all lamented the loss of control that occurred when we went from the high-resolution world of the printed page to the decidedly low-resolution realm of the Web. In the process, we've learned to work around these limitations, but I think that Mr. Penston's tenets are correct. The medium has moved forward and it's time that we start embracing the new(er) technologies available to us. I say this without having been able to get my arms around SVG or Flash yet myself. I have been eager to learn Flash for a long time, but have yet to commit the time or energy to do so-lacking a client or project that requires it, I suppose, is prurient reason. Anyway, I think that as more of us adopt these technologies, we will see an easier time in convincing those clients that have hesitated to see the benefits of them that it's time to move on.
A mental change of pace is badly needed in many of today's web d
In the last six months our company has been getting a tremendous amount of business from other web development companies who are saying "Help, our client wants their site to look more exciting!". After creating a more robust graphic design for them, I continually get the usual, "That's nice, but you can't do that when building a web page."
Developer's need to get on the band wagon and start getting familiar with tools such as Dreamweaver and GoLive. Learn to integrate these tools with the Cold Fusions of the world, or your going to get left in the dust.
Branding is becoming more and more important in the world of the web. I'm not saying that you should sacrifice efficiency by overloading a site with heavy graphics. If you use some of the newer features, such as layers and combined them with creative graphic design, you can create a great looking site and still keep the download times respectable.
I know, there are bugs and inconsistencies with some of the newer features between IE and Netscape, but there are work arounds. Learn them and you'll not only create better looking sites, but you'll also create them faster.