I was thinking about where to go for lunch the other day, so I went to
hardees.com to see what the menu looked like these days. What
comes up is a big note that my flash version is not new enough so I
can't use the site. What complete losers!
When are businesses going to understand that the purpose of a web
site is to communicate with customers or business parterns and NOT
so your "web master or "web engineer" can show off what they learned
down at the community college last week!
So I went to Taco Bell. A couple or years ago a similar thing happened
when I went shopping for a new backpack. The frist place on the google
list refused to work because I didn't have flash install. I went to the
next business and orders several hundred dollars in gear. Hopefully
the losers at the first place went out of business.
I am beginning to believe that FLASH is, on total, a loss for the
Internet. It breaks browsers (especially mozilla/firefox), it chews
up cpu cycles on the clients, and it can write stuff on you
computer. And more.
To do my small part, I installed FLASHBLOCKER on by browser.
End of rant.
Jun 30 '06
115  13161 
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:32:57 +0100, Jack in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>>
You have no idea how scientific this business is.
>You don't seem to know what "science" is.
>Add to that a healthy dose of actuarial science. Lets call it what it
is, propaganda, and some types of it are very effective.
>Propaganda, hype, whatever. Everyone knows that suckers exist; there are
plenty of them, so it's said ("one born every minute"). The question
isn't whether marketer's hype works (FSVO "works"); obviously it does.
The question is whether some particular kind of hype works as well as
its proponents claim.
>I'm saying that Macromedia Flush probably doesn't work as well as you
believe.
>And I cite *your* reference:
http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/
>Try it on a browser without Flush support.
Bzzt We are disucssing Flash in the RIA context in this thread. So of
course you need Flash. Please stop behaving like a twit, you've lost all
credibility with moi -- Goodbye !
If you don't care to use Flash fine, but don't critique what you have no
clue of.
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:47:21 +0100, Matt in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>The irony is someone's fallen for Macromedia's advertising here...
LOL Whatever floats yer boat !
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 06:19:17 +1000, Eric Lindsay in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>In article <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>,
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
>Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
>A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
Well son, that's because you have to stop behaving like a luddite, and
use the Flash plugin -- You know like most normal people.
I suppose you don't have JRE installed either.
You guys are quite fun to watch. LOL
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:38:49 +0200, Rik in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Eric Lindsay wrote:
>In article <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>,
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
>>Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
>No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection, allthough
my connection is certainly not slow...
>And the fact that only after that loadperiod it states I should use Flash
Player 9, would you like to install? Nope....
Well, that's your choice, but of course to view Flash content you need
the Flash plugin. If you don't ever upgrade your browser than I can
understand your reluctance to upgrade Flash, but if you often do update your
browser, updating your Flash plugin isn't any different.
It seems many of you dislike Flash because of philosophical
reasons. That's fine, but cutting off your nose to spite your face
is a choice. I definitely wouldn't hire a developer that had such
a view on life.
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:47:56 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Rik wrote:
>Eric Lindsay wrote:
>> Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...
>Turn off JavaScript, and it is a blank page. Double Trouble.
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days. You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?
Come one man, give your head a shake. Accessiblity isn't the end all be
all. Usability trumps it. And don't argue that Flash isn't usable --
That's entirely up to the designer and the designer's expertise.
Stephen wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:38:49 +0200, Rik in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>Eric Lindsay wrote:
>>In article <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>,
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
>No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...
>And the fact that only after that loadperiod it states I should use
Flash Player 9, would you like to install? Nope....
Well, that's your choice, but of course to view Flash content you need
the Flash plugin. If you don't ever upgrade your browser than I can
understand your reluctance to upgrade Flash, but if you often do
update your browser, updating your Flash plugin isn't any different.
I do update my browser. Security issues you know.
I do have Flash 8 installed, but it seems the rule 'everything will have to
degrade with keeping as much functionality as possible' doesn't apply to
(this particular) Flash design?
If we're talking user-friendly, if Flash is installed, but has a to low
version, give as much functionality as possible & inform them they can get
more if they upgrade.
Now, I know when I see a message I should upgrade Flash, I can more or less
trust it, but will go their page itself to download & install it. Lesson 101
of less experienced users is that when a webpage sais: "would you like to
install?" the answer is "no" almost every time. They are afraid of
virusses/spyware and the like (and should be :-), so will navigate away if
they don't trust the maker of that website enough. This is good practice.
It seems many of you dislike Flash because of philosophical
reasons.
Philosophical? It's a highly undependable. For instance, if I used MSIE 4,
I'm sure a lot of added functionality on websites doesn't really work. On a
good page, I can get the bluk of the information though. Without requiring
an upgrade to display anything. I don't mind Flash persé, just think it
generally doesn't really add to the content and is a lot bulkier then a page
with the same information in HTML/CSS. A nice degrade for versions and an
alternative are requirements though, not optional.
That's fine, but cutting off your nose to spite your face
is a choice. I definitely wouldn't hire a developer that had such
a view on life.
Huh? Why would I want to spite my face? Plugging up my nose when eating
something really filthy on the other hand. Why do that when I just as well
avoid eating it at all?
Grtz,
--
Rik Wasmus
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Stephen wrote:
Do you actually keep your flashplayer up-to-date ? If you don't have
current plugins update them !
Speaking for myself, yes, I do. Yet I've lost count of the number of
flash sites that have bawled me out, even right after an update to the
latest version, that I don't have the latest version and so they won't
even try to send me anything (or words to that effect).
Since they won't send me anything, the Flasblock button never appears,
so I never get the chance to click on it and view their stuff.
Are they deliberately trying exclude those of us who make a choice, or
are they just too dumb to be let loose with flash?
What's so wonderful about the latest version, anyway, as compared with
one a year or so old? After all, MSIE is (in most material respects)
scarcely improved in the last 5 years or so, but it's still possible
(with minor restrictions) to use it to browse a properly-made
specification-conforming web page. The whole web is built on the
concept of version compatibility and graceful fallback. If I'm to
deduce anything from this insistence on always using the latest
version, then Flash is not.
And don't ever forget that there are whole armies of potential readers
who don't get a choice: their brower is installed for them by the
corporate I.T department, or by the student cluster controller -
whatever, and they must use it as they find it: attempting to install
extra software could get them thrown out, and rightly so. Flaming
them because they haven't installed the author's favourite extra is
not only rude, but pointless and silly, and shows just how little the
author comprehends of the web "in the wide".
ttfn
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:09:17 +0100, Alan J. Flavell in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Stephen wrote:
>Do you actually keep your flashplayer up-to-date ? If you don't have
current plugins update them !
>Speaking for myself, yes, I do. Yet I've lost count of the number of
flash sites that have bawled me out, even right after an update to the
latest version, that I don't have the latest version and so they won't
even try to send me anything (or words to that effect).
I can't comment, haven't seen an example of what you're referring to.
>Since they won't send me anything, the Flasblock button never appears,
so I never get the chance to click on it and view their stuff.
Well doesn't it allow you to disable it on a per site basis ? If not
then that Flashblock extension is seriously flawed in my view.
>Are they deliberately trying exclude those of us who make a choice, or
are they just too dumb to be let loose with flash?
I've heard some do, but don't know how wide scale it is.
>What's so wonderful about the latest version, anyway, as compared with
one a year or so old? After all, MSIE is (in most material respects)
scarcely improved in the last 5 years or so, but it's still possible
(with minor restrictions) to use it to browse a properly-made
specification-conforming web page. The whole web is built on the
concept of version compatibility and graceful fallback. If I'm to
deduce anything from this insistence on always using the latest
version, then Flash is not.
The same can be said for JAVA, for some applications one needs to update
to the latest JRE, same with the plethora of other uses for plugins,
<ieQuickTime, Windows Media Player. Flash is hardly an exception in
this regard.
Not many people are willing to accept the WWW as it was
originally intended -- As simply a medium to exchange scientific
papers/research. That was why HyperTextMarkupLanguage was developed, as
you probably know.
So sorry, I don't' accept the premise that such technologies should
remain stagnant. HTML was never designed for the purposes it's often
used today -- Therefore Designer/Developers like moi, are happy to
accept technologies that give a richer experience. People want that
experience on the whole.
## In answer to what's so wonderful about the latest version:
There were security issues with Flash Player <8. It's suggested that
people upgrade for that reason alone, from version 7 and prior.
Adobe has made major changes in the text rendering engine, and video
capabilities. Flash is increasingly used for video presentation, and
regardless what people think about the skateboarder anime types, the way
Flash compresses and delivers video is superior to any other method in
use now. Now I don't need to produce Quick Time for MacHeads and
Media Player for Windoze -- I use one Flash video.
I think it's testament to the fact that Google uses Flash for their
video delivery.
I realize that most here are Luddites, but surely even the most die hard
Luddite occasionally wishes to watch video online. 8-)
For a comprehensive list of changes, might I suggest you visit Adobe's
site ?
>And don't ever forget that there are whole armies of potential readers
who don't get a choice: their brower is installed for them by the
corporate I.T department, or by the student cluster controller -
whatever, and they must use it as they find it: attempting to install
extra software could get them thrown out, and rightly so. Flaming
them because they haven't installed the author's favourite extra is
not only rude, but pointless and silly, and shows just how little the
author comprehends of the web "in the wide".
Of course, those folks exist,(not whole armies of course) and I guess
they'll just have to wait until they get home from work -- They
shouldn't
be stealing company time anyway. ;)
BTW The poster who was saying "I don't have Flash installed" presumably is a
multi-media developer, being that this is an HTML newsgroup -- I don't
know many such companies that restrict such access to their developers.
<shrugIf they didn't know that in a Flash discussion on RIAs, they may
be visiting a Flash example, shows a lack of foresight on their part, not
mine. I surely wasn't the first to post such an example. I guess I
could have mentioned that this was a prototype done requiring Flash
Player 9, but I seem to recall it was mentioned on the same web page. (I
could be wrong about that though)
In terms of understanding the web, I probably understand it as well as
anyone in this group. Z<shrug>
Have a good day.
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:38:20 +0200, Rik in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:38:49 +0200, Rik in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>Eric Lindsay wrote:
In article <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>,
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
>>No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...
>>And the fact that only after that loadperiod it states I should use
Flash Player 9, would you like to install? Nope....
Well, that's your choice, but of course to view Flash content you need
the Flash plugin. If you don't ever upgrade your browser than I can
understand your reluctance to upgrade Flash, but if you often do
update your browser, updating your Flash plugin isn't any different.
>I do update my browser. Security issues you know.
I do have Flash 8 installed, but it seems the rule 'everything will have to
degrade with keeping as much functionality as possible' doesn't apply to
(this particular) Flash design?
No. With Flash 8, Adobe made major changes under the hood, for upcoming
technologies to be leveraged, completely rewrote the text engine, and
improved the video capabilities. So if one is using the new features
such as text filters in Flash 8, then that's not possible. But it's a
worthwhile upgrade. Flash 8 professional is becoming an IDE, and there
is far more to Flash now, than it being just an animation application.
>If we're talking user-friendly, if Flash is installed, but has a to low
version, give as much functionality as possible & inform them they can get
more if they upgrade.
Nod.
>Now, I know when I see a message I should upgrade Flash, I can more or less
trust it, but will go their page itself to download & install it. Lesson 101
of less experienced users is that when a webpage sais: "would you like to
install?" the answer is "no" almost every time. They are afraid of
virusses/spyware and the like (and should be :-), so will navigate away if
they don't trust the maker of that website enough. This is good practice.
Actually this is a problem with all plug-ins, <ieQuickTime etc. That's
were usability enters the picture. Depending on the audience, it
generally accepted that before a plugin reaches critical adoption, a
blurb from the developer on the site, about requiring * version is
appropriate under the circumstances. I don't have a problem with that.
>It seems many of you dislike Flash because of philosophical
reasons.
>Philosophical? It's a highly undependable. For instance, if I used MSIE 4,
I'm sure a lot of added functionality on websites doesn't really work. On a
good page, I can get the bluk of the information though. Without requiring
an upgrade to display anything. I don't mind Flash persé, just think it
generally doesn't really add to the content and is a lot bulkier then a page
with the same information in HTML/CSS. A nice degrade for versions and an
alternative are requirements though, not optional.
Right, seriously, developing a website with Flash in it, is no
different than HTML development. You design for your audience. If
they're using IE 4, then develop with that in mind. I'm not denying this, nor
have I ever in this discussion. I know that not many people are using
that browser, but I understand where you're coming from.
In terms of Flash not adding value to the content -- That's a
design/designer problem, not a Flash one.
>That's fine, but cutting off your nose to spite your face
is a choice. I definitely wouldn't hire a developer that had such
a view on life.
>Huh? Why would I want to spite my face? Plugging up my nose when eating
something really filthy on the other hand. Why do that when I just as well
avoid eating it at all?
In this case it won't hurt you at all.
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Stephen wrote:
[of Flashblock:]
Well doesn't it allow you to disable it on a per site basis ?
Sure: it can be turned off on a per-instance basis, and sites can be
added to a whitelist if one wishes to.
However, at this point in the proceedings, I'm at a new, unknown and
as-yet untrusted web site. Seeing that they couldn't even get the
first bit right, would I *really* want to go to the trouble of
unblocking them? I'm more likely to return to the search engine, and
try one of their competitors.
And apropos search engines: the sites are right there on the record
which were stupid enough to flame the indexing bot for not having the
right version of Flash installed.
Not many people are willing to accept the WWW as it was
originally intended
Have you any *idea* how the WWW was originally intended?
One of the early browsers (Viola) had a kind of client-side scripting,
and used a kind of stylesheet for presentation, and had interactive
objects which could be incorporated into web pages. This repeated
myth that the web was purely a textual medium is really that, a myth.
-- As simply a medium to exchange scientific papers/research.
No-no, not only. Meetings, engineering designs, clubs, canteen menus,
all kinds of activities, many of them *associated* with the science,
and many of them just part of real life ;-)
That was why HyperTextMarkupLanguage was developed, as you probably
know.
Sure - I was at CERN, off and on, around that time, and following
developments with close interest.
So sorry, I don't' accept the premise that such technologies should
remain stagnant.
Who ever suggested that they should? An appropriate degree of version
compatibility and graceful fallback is *still* beneficial.
What we're talking about here is welcoming the new visitor with the
content that they need, for deciding whether this is a site they would
like to use, and offering them the various other media which are on
offer, *whatever* those may be.
What we're arguing against is an entry screen which has nothing of
value on it, except for those who consented to the author's favourite
media beforehand.
enough.
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
I realize that most here are Luddites, but surely even the most die hard
Luddite occasionally wishes to watch video online. 8-)
Sure, and Flash is great for that.
But when I go to a restaurant chain's site to find a location close to my
home, I don't want to be entertained with a creative Flash-based interface.
I want to click on a couple normal links, enter my city or ZIP code, and
get a list of addresses. If I can't do that without the latest version of
Flash, or if I can't do that when Flash is disabled/unavailable, then the
web designer has screwed up.
IMHO, and all that.
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/
"Cheaters never win; they just finish first." - Johhny Hart
Stephen wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:09:17 +0100, Alan J. Flavell in
>What's so wonderful about the latest version, anyway, as compared with
one a year or so old? After all, MSIE is (in most material respects)
scarcely improved in the last 5 years or so, but it's still possible
(with minor restrictions) to use it to browse a properly-made
specification-conforming web page. The whole web is built on the
concept of version compatibility and graceful fallback. If I'm to
deduce anything from this insistence on always using the latest
version, then Flash is not.
The same can be said for JAVA, for some applications one needs to update
to the latest JRE, same with the plethora of other uses for plugins,
<ieQuickTime, Windows Media Player. Flash is hardly an exception in
this regard.
Indeed. It *isn't* a good idea, for mass-market applications, to
incorporate new technologies the moment they're ready. (Applications for
controlled environments where the upgraded client platforms will be
available are another matter, as are applications that simply couldn't
be built, or couldn't be made adequately usable or effective, until the
new technologies became available.)
Imagine it's the US in 1955, and some department store decides in the
name of simplification to accept payment for merchandise only in the
form of major credit cards. Never mind that almost nobody HAD major
credit cards back then; BankAmeriCard (now Visa) and MasterCharge (now
MasterCard) didn't even exist yet, and Diner's Club and American Express
were new.
Now imagine it's 1994, and United Airlines decides to sell tickets only
through its web site. Never mind that hardly anyone had Internet access
at that point.
Good business sense? Good ideas?
Now, think back to the late 1980s when Federal Express announced that it
would no longer accept cash for postage, and the late 1990s when Amazon
became one of the first major stores to sell merchandise only on-line.
In 1995 Amazon.com opened as a store that did business only on-line. An
importance difference between that and my airline scenario is that it
didn't choke off a large portion of an existing line of business; it was
a brand new venture, and in addition *they fully expected to lose money
for several years*.
These latter two scenarios are examples of more prudent introduction of
newer technologies. Of course, many argued that Amazon.com wasn't being
prudent! But at least they weren't haughtily telling everybody to
upgrade. They took the approach of making themselves available, and
waited till people were ready to come to them.
In article <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>,
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:47:56 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
Rik wrote:
Eric Lindsay wrote:
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...
Turn off JavaScript, and it is a blank page. Double Trouble.
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days. You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?
I don't turn Javascript on when surfing unknown sites. Leaving it off
reduces annoying advertising. Like graphics, it is only a keystroke away
if I do need it. I have seen some wonderful Flash pages (and QuickTime
movies, etc.) however most Flash pages are pretty average, and not worth
the download time.
>
Come one man, give your head a shake. Accessiblity isn't the end all be
all. Usability trumps it. And don't argue that Flash isn't usable --
That's entirely up to the designer and the designer's expertise.
Accessibility of web pages isn't just a good idea, it is a legal
requirement for all web pages (not just government pages) where I live
and work. Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.
I have no idea whether Flash can work on say a aural browser, but I know
it doesn't work on my PDA nor my phone. The pages that I write fall back
gracefully on every device I can test. I can't think of any other way to
keep them legal.
-- http://www.ericlindsay.com
Stephen wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:32:57 +0100, Jack in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>>You have no idea how scientific this business is.
>You don't seem to know what "science" is.
>>Add to that a healthy dose of actuarial science. Lets call it
what it is, propaganda, and some types of it are very effective.
>Propaganda, hype, whatever. Everyone knows that suckers exist;
there are plenty of them, so it's said ("one born every minute").
The question isn't whether marketer's hype works (FSVO "works");
obviously it does. The question is whether some particular kind of
hype works as well as its proponents claim.
>I'm saying that Macromedia Flush probably doesn't work as well as
you believe.
>And I cite *your* reference:
http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/
>Try it on a browser without Flush support.
Bzzt We are disucssing Flash in the RIA context in this thread. So of
course you need Flash. Please stop behaving like a twit, you've lost
all credibility with moi -- Goodbye !
If you don't care to use Flash fine, but don't critique what you have
no clue of.
I believe we are discussing the authoring of HTML on thw worldwide web.
We must be, because to be discussing proprietary movie formats would be
a tad off-topic!
As it happens, I do have Flush installed; it's installed on IE, which I
use only for testing. For production browsing, it provides me with no
benefits, and the constant upgrade nags are just a nuisance, so it's not
installed. But the point is (as so many have pointed out): whatever
happened to graceful fallback? The URL I cited was the one *you* cited
as an example of excellence.
BTW: you have no idea what clues I do and don't posess. You know very
little about me at all. You aren't in a position to patronise me.
--
Jack.
Michael Vilain wrote:
Here's a great example of what could have been a simple informational
site turned into a "new age experience" by some stupid designer:
http://www.michaelsheateaching.com/
I've sent email after email to the guy telling him his site is hard to
use, takes forever to load on slow links, and is being totally ignored
by Google. He doesn't seem to care.
So he probably also doesn't care that his site does not come up at all
when I Google the phrase "Shea Educational Group"[1] (200 results) or
"Shea Education Group"[2] (4 results).
This is good: It means that fewer people will be annoyed by the site.
[1] the name claimed on the site (inside the Flash) as the site owner.
[2] the name mentioned in the meta data.
--
John
Stephen wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:47:56 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
Rik wrote:
Eric Lindsay wrote:
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
example?
No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...
Turn off JavaScript, and it is a blank page. Double Trouble.
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days. You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?
Come one man, give your head a shake. Accessiblity isn't the end all be
all. Usability trumps it. And don't argue that Flash isn't usable --
That's entirely up to the designer and the designer's expertise.
You haft to be jokeing!.
Flash is one of the werst technologies that one could use for any form
of user interface.
Though it is fine for items such as video.
But, HTML + CSS works fine for the most part.
Regarding web accessibility, it is a legal requirement, groups have
been taken to court and lost over such issues.
Generally, I find that if a site is accessible, then it's useable by
default, if a site fails to be accessible, then you can place money on
the fact that a lot of people (pertencial customers) in some cases,
won't be able to access and or use the site, that also goes for people
without disabilities.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc
Eric Lindsay wrote:
Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.
If you ever find linkable resources to actual case law on this, I for
one would appreciate the links.
Here in the UK there seems to be a vast gulf betweeen legal
requirements (almost entirely ignored) and real hard evidence of cases
enforcing them. As a result there's not much you can say to a project
manager with a "Stuff acccessibility, do it in Flash" attitude.
Andy Dingley wrote:
Eric Lindsay wrote:
Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.
If you ever find linkable resources to actual case law on this, I for
one would appreciate the links.
Here in the UK there seems to be a vast gulf betweeen legal
requirements (almost entirely ignored) and real hard evidence of cases
enforcing them. As a result there's not much you can say to a project
manager with a "Stuff acccessibility, do it in Flash" attitude.
I just found a good link which talks at great length about The Sydney
2000 case, (regarding the Olimpic Website. http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/bat2001f.html
You will need to scrool down to the right heading.
It's an old article, but it's good.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:40:58 +0100, Alan J. Flavell in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Stephen wrote:
>[of Flashblock:]
>Well doesn't it allow you to disable it on a per site basis ?
>Sure: it can be turned off on a per-instance basis, and sites can be
added to a whitelist if one wishes to.
>However, at this point in the proceedings, I'm at a new, unknown and
as-yet untrusted web site. Seeing that they couldn't even get the
first bit right, would I *really* want to go to the trouble of
unblocking them? I'm more likely to return to the search engine, and
try one of their competitors.
Incidentally what exactly are you protecting yourself against ? I'm really
curious. Seems to be a little extreme, Alan. Do you surf with Javascript
turned off to ?
You don't have to answer those -- just being rhetorical.
I can see folks not wanting to see some of the annoying animation in
Flash Ads, but I don't understand why one wants to block Flash entirely,
without seeing if there is anything there to annoy them first. It's
asine, in my opinion.
In terms of security, there are no known exploits for Flash 8 &>, in fact
the security model is quite strict. One can either run a .swf from
the Internet, or the file system -- But not both. Prior to Flash 8, one
could do both.
>And apropos search engines: the sites are right there on the record
which were stupid enough to flame the indexing bot for not having the
right version of Flash installed.
<snip>
>Have you any *idea* how the WWW was originally intended?
Yes most of us older farts have a clue and have watched the process.
>One of the early browsers (Viola) had a kind of client-side scripting,
and used a kind of stylesheet for presentation, and had interactive
objects which could be incorporated into web pages. This repeated
myth that the web was purely a textual medium is really that, a myth.
Uh no it's not, I was around then to. Sure, there were examples of this,
but this was definitely NOT the majority.
>-- As simply a medium to exchange scientific papers/research.
>No-no, not only. Meetings, engineering designs, clubs, canteen menus,
all kinds of activities, many of them *associated* with the science,
and many of them just part of real life ;-)
The point I'm attempting to propagate, perhaps too subtly, is the
following;
Primarily in the inception it was used by Academics for academic
purposes. HTML was never designed with Marketing in mind, and whether
one agrees with the trend or not, it's irrefutable that the majority of
paying jobs in this genre are from/for companies wishing to market their
services/branding via the Internet. So, the Designer/Developer today is
concerned with the marketing aspect of using the WWW -- And everything
this might entail, including providing a rich user experience as
demanded by the focus/scope of the project and/or the client.
>That was why HyperTextMarkupLanguage was developed, as you probably
know.
>Sure - I was at CERN, off and on, around that time, and following
developments with close interest.
Nod.
>So sorry, I don't' accept the premise that such technologies should
remain stagnant.
>Who ever suggested that they should? An appropriate degree of version
compatibility and graceful fallback is *still* beneficial.
Alan are you reading the same thread as me ? Re read the responses. The
tone is definitely anti-flash, and not just because of splash pages.
If most respondents in this thread would take a deep breath and step
back, they would probably realize that most of their counter arguments
are about poor design, not the use of Flash. In the end, it's how a
designer/developer knows his/her tools and how to maximize the use of
those tools for a successful user experience. Marketing research is
part and parcel of this.
This dogma about using only HTML/CSS/Jscript and everything else is shite is
loony and unrealistic. I've been here long enough to realize this is
the prevailing wisdom by a few of the regulars.
>What we're talking about here is welcoming the new visitor with the
content that they need, for deciding whether this is a site they would
like to use, and offering them the various other media which are on
offer, *whatever* those may be.
For sure, and I didn't say anything to the contrary. :)
>What we're arguing against is an entry screen which has nothing of
value on it, except for those who consented to the author's favourite
media beforehand.
And I would agree with that, however I'm not so sure the majority here
agree with _just_ this premise. It appears that most dislike Flash
simply because it isn't HTML. Hell, just look at the subject ...
I suggested this at least once, but the loons kept arguing.
BTW I'm not suggesting that all involved in this thread are loons, just
some of the arguments against, were clearly not well researched, prior
to posting and more than one didn't have their facts straight.
<shrug>I'm done, fini.
Adios.
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:47:06 +0000 (UTC), Darin McGrew in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
>I realize that most here are Luddites, but surely even the most die hard
Luddite occasionally wishes to watch video online. 8-)
>Sure, and Flash is great for that.
>But when I go to a restaurant chain's site to find a location close to my
home, I don't want to be entertained with a creative Flash-based interface.
I want to click on a couple normal links, enter my city or ZIP code, and
get a list of addresses. If I can't do that without the latest version of
Flash, or if I can't do that when Flash is disabled/unavailable, then the
web designer has screwed up.
Perhaps it depends on the situation. Flash is no different than any
other part of the user interface. The same thing that annoys one with
with Flash can easily be accomplished with Javascript, JAVA, and the
wrong use of colour. So, it's not Flash at fault.
I quite willing to admit that their are bad interface designers.
>Accessibility of web pages isn't just a good idea, it is a legal
requirement for all web pages (not just government pages) where I live
and work. Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.
Well it's not, here. Don't forget that only 1 billion people are on the
Internet and the earth has what 5+ billion ? Accessiblity is putting the
cart before the horse in my opinion.
I don't beleive that accessibility mandated is going to be widespread in
the near to medium future in Europe or in North America. Even government
work here doesn't have this requirement -- And I'm happy about that.
There is a telephone for people that have accessibility issues.
>I have no idea whether Flash can work on say a aural browser, but I know
it doesn't work on my PDA nor my phone. The pages that I write fall back
gracefully on every device I can test. I can't think of any other way to
keep them legal.
PDAs are another story. Flash has to be written a little differently for
PDAs, and of course the PDA has to have a browser that supports
multi-media plugins. Browser support in PDAs at this point in time isn't
mature, and that holds true for plugin support.
But Flash is going to be big way to present data to PDAs going forward.
Stephen wrote:
I don't beleive that accessibility mandated is going to be widespread in
the near to medium future in Europe or in North America.
Yes, stuff the disabled. They all live on benefits and don't have any
money to spend anyway (you wouldn't believe how many large retailers
still believe this)
There is a telephone for people that have accessibility issues.
In that case, why not save all the website costs and go to
telephone-only sales?
Tell you what - you preserve yourr Dezyner Ethics, Stylistic Purity and
no doubt your Hoxton Fin too. In the meantime we'll take the money of
the people who can use our site but not yours.
On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:21:26 +0100, Jack wrote:
>On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:32:57 +0100, Jack wrote:
>>I'm saying that Macromedia Flush probably doesn't work as well as you
believe.
And I cite *your* reference:
http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/
Try it on a browser without Flush support.
<snip>
As it happens, I do have Flush installed; it's installed on IE, which I
use only for testing. For production browsing, it provides me with no
benefits, and the constant upgrade nags are just a nuisance, so it's not
installed. But the point is (as so many have pointed out): whatever
happened to graceful fallback? The URL I cited was the one *you* cited
as an example of excellence.
My mum was trying to find a shop selling a specific item this morning. I
suggested Fenwick's, since they're local and I thought they'd have it. My
mum said their web site didn't work: http://www.fenwick.co.uk/
and, on her laptop, it didn't -- just a blank page. Why? Flash wasn't
installed, since her laptop was reinstalled recently and she knows not to
install random programs from within a web browser.
Having looked at the site on a computer with Flash installed, she didn't
miss anything anyway. The main competitors all have their catalogues
online ( http://www.johnlewis.com/, http://www.debenhams.com/) so she
probably won't bother looking in Fenwick's.
Even with Flash enabled, the Fenwick's site is useless. Here's some
problems which I find immediately obvious:
* I'm made to watch a stupid slideshow for 10 seconds
* then I have an irritating animated woman on the page (I find the
movement extremely distracting).
* The fonts are small and blurry
* the 'links' aren't obvious (no underline and black) and require two
clicks to activate
* some blue text is a link, some identically styled blue text isn't a
link,
* a tooltip appears everywhere ("Click to activate this control" --
what?)
* I can't use many features of my browser: mostly wherever I'd like to
select some text and right click -- I can't 'copy text to a note', or to
an email, I can't hover over a link and see where it takes me.
Additionally, the site provides little useful information, there's not
even a map to each of the stores, and as I mentioned there is no catalogue.
This appears typical of a Flash-based website: all looks and sparkle
(which isn't even wanted) and little useful content.
£0.02,
--
Matt
Re: Flashblock, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
>Sure: it can be turned off on a per-instance basis, and sites can be
added to a whitelist if one wishes to.
However, at this point in the proceedings, I'm at a new, unknown and
as-yet untrusted web site. Seeing that they couldn't even get the
first bit right, would I *really* want to go to the trouble of
unblocking them? I'm more likely to return to the search engine, and
try one of their competitors.
Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
Incidentally what exactly are you protecting yourself against ? I'm really
curious. Seems to be a little extreme, Alan. Do you surf with Javascript
turned off to ?
I'm not Alan, but here's my answer.
Flash is big and bulky and (on a well-designed site) optional. Some of us
still use modems.
Flash is often used for annoying gimmicks. So are animated GIFs. So is
JavaScript. And Flash and JavaScript are often used to "enhance" the user
interface in nonstandard ways, which breaks the user interface for those of
us who are familiar with the standard user interface.
I can see folks not wanting to see some of the annoying animation in
Flash Ads, but I don't understand why one wants to block Flash entirely,
without seeing if there is anything there to annoy them first. It's
asine, in my opinion.
It's easier to disable these technologies and to whitelist the few sites
that use them responsibly, than it is to enable them and to blacklist the
many sites that use them irresponsibly.
If most respondents in this thread would take a deep breath and step
back, they would probably realize that most of their counter arguments
are about poor design, not the use of Flash.
Sure. But disabling Flash, JavaScript, etc. and whitelisting them only for
certain sites is an effective way to combat poor design. Modern browsers
are making this easy to do.
And not all browsers support Flash, JavaScript, etc. And most non-browser
user agents (e.g., Google) don't support them either.
Sites that needlessly require these technologies are broken.
IMHO, and all that.
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/
"Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped." - African Proverb
Stephen wrote:
>
I can see folks not wanting to see some of the annoying animation in
Flash Ads, but I don't understand why one wants to block Flash
entirely, without seeing if there is anything there to annoy them
first. It's asine, in my opinion.
You're entitled to your opinion. But plenty of people *do* surf without
Flash enabled (or installed). The way I use the web, Flash adds nothing
to it (I use it mainly to find information); therefore I've never
bothered to install the plugin, and the resulting "You need a plugin"
message is an excellent warning that I need to look for another site.
I get pretty nnoyed when someone puts up a manufacturer's website for a
product that I own, and the site relies on Flash. That means I have to
deploy my secondary browser.
The Shuttle website used to be like this; finally they seem to have
fixed it.
--
Jack.
"Stephen" <St*************@gmail.comkirjoitti
viestissä:sl****************************@sweetpig. dyndns.org...
<snip>
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days. You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?
In these times anyone with a clue won't surf to "unknown" sites with
JavaScript on. You have heard about Cross Site Scripting (XSS)surely?
In message <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>, Stephen
<St*************@gmail.comwrites
>I think it's testament to the fact that Google uses Flash for their
video delivery.
They seem to manage without it, for everything else...
--
Andy Mabbett
Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>
Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>
In message <sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndns.or g>, Stephen
<St*************@gmail.comwrites
>There is a telephone for people that have accessibility issues.
Are you being deliberately offensive, or are you just stupid by default?
--
Andy Mabbett
Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>
Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>
Stephen wrote:
>On 17 Jul 2006 15:03:37 GMT, Ben Bacarisse in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>Stephen <St*************@gmail.comwrote:
>>>
Here's a nice example of an RIA;
<http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/>
>>Is that a joke? I see a blank screen and nothing else. I would be
less antagonistic to so called "rich" interfaces if they worked more
often.
It only shows anything other than a blank greenish screen, if you have
Javascript enabled.
Bad form.
>Do you actually keep your flashplayer up-to-date ? If you don't have
current plugins update them !
Well, it tells me it requires Flash 9, I declined, and since then it
keeps hanging (several minutes already) trying to load something off
Macromedia's website.
If there's anything I hate more than useless Flash, it's the rush to
newer and newer versions. I can't count the times I've upgraded Flash
already, it must be once every few months, and it doesn't seem to want
to slow down.
I'm sick of upgrading Flash.
--
Bart.
In article <11**********************@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups .com>,
"Andy Dingley" <di*****@codesmiths.comwrote:
Eric Lindsay wrote:
Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.
If you ever find linkable resources to actual case law on this, I for
one would appreciate the links.
The best known case law in Australia was Maguire vs. SOCOG, in which a
blind activist asked for access to the Olympic Games site. After he won,
SOCOG ignored a court ruling, and was subsequently fined A$20,000.
There is a very nice summary at http://www.contenu.nu/socog.html however
the Attorney General department seem to be busily removing all case law
judgements from their site at the moment. The summary judgement is
probably available at an alternative site like http://www.austlii.edu.au//cgi-bin/d...eral_ct/2000/1
112.html?query=Maguire%20vs.%20SOCOG via http://www.auslii.edu.au
however Auslii are doing all their support on a shoestring and IANAL so
I don't do a great job on searches there.
Here in the UK there seems to be a vast gulf betweeen legal
requirements (almost entirely ignored) and real hard evidence of cases
enforcing them. As a result there's not much you can say to a project
manager with a "Stuff acccessibility, do it in Flash" attitude.
One reason I know about that case law is I used it to help persuade a
small business wanting a web site to allow me to make it accessible to
the disabled. I didn't emphasise the matter, but disabled access is very
similar to SEO. I did point out I would get them much better search
engine positioning if they let me do it my way. After they got enquiries
from people they didn't think they were targeting, they let me have my
way.
-- http://www.ericlindsay.com
"Wÿrm" <no*************@north.invalidwrites:
"Stephen" <St*************@gmail.comkirjoitti
viestissä:sl****************************@sweetpig. dyndns.org...
<snip>
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days.
What a bizarre definition of 'importance'.
You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?
In these times anyone with a clue won't surf to "unknown" sites with
JavaScript on. You have heard about Cross Site Scripting (XSS)surely?
The XSS risk is more about whether an arbitrary person can insert
their own JS or HTML [1] code into a page, so becoming able to steal
information from you, rather than whether the site author did so. So
there it's a question of trust in the site author to have coded their
pages securely, which surely applies equally well to "known" sites.
My reasons for turning off Javascript unless a particular site needs
it are (in order):
- blocks a large proportion of adverts.
- security (XSS and browser bugs)
- improves privacy vs web stats pixels
- speed (some JS does nothing especially useful but all the
additional image loads can hurt)
- none of the sites I use regularly, which vary from the largest
sites on the web to some very minor ones use JS for anything other
than optional enhancements or minor features. My browser
unfortunately doesn't have a feature to selectively enable JS for
particular sites only, so it stays off by default.
[1] XSS attacks, despite the name, need not always use scripting.
Inserting HTML at the correct point to redirect a form or a link can
be sufficient to steal some sensitive information. Most of the common
ones use scripting simply because it's easier and potentially more
powerful, of course.
--
Chris
Stephen wrote:
PDAs are another story. Flash has to be written a little differently for
PDAs,
_That's_ why Flash is bad. You have to author in a
reader-context-sensitive manner.
That breaks the whole underlying notion of the web as being
reader-independent.
On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>In that case, why not save all the website costs and go to
telephone-only sales?
Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We
cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
>Tell you what - you preserve yourr Dezyner Ethics, Stylistic Purity and
no doubt your Hoxton Fin too. In the meantime we'll take the money of
the people who can use our site but not yours.
LOL such an old argument -- I guarantee you, that when developing such
sites come out of the micro-niche category, my firm will be doing it quite
successfully.
Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.
On 20 Jul 2006 02:59:47 -0700, Andy Dingley in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>PDAs are another story. Flash has to be written a little differently for
PDAs,
>_That's_ why Flash is bad. You have to author in a
reader-context-sensitive manner.
That breaks the whole underlying notion of the web as being
reader-independent.
Nope. It's a problem with PDAs not Flash.
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:08:43 +0200, Stephen wrote:
On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>Stephen wrote:
>>In that case, why not save all the website costs and go to telephone-only
sales?
Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We cater
to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
The vast majority of people have two legs and can walk. I don't think I'll
bother putting lifts/elevators in my new building, it needn't be
accessible to them. Everyone will have to take the stairs.
Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.
The majority of them don't have computers, so maybe you /should/ stick
with phone sales?
--
Matt
Stephen wrote:
On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
Stephen wrote:
In that case, why not save all the website costs and go to
telephone-only sales?
Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps.
BULL SHIT!
There are probly more people with vision problems in the world then you
would have time to count. I know that 10% of the Australian population
has some form of print disability (this includes Vision impaired
people) among others.
cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
You must design sites for 5 year olds. They are about the only people
who would be amused by the majority of eye candy designs.
Though I think even children would get board and just find something
else.
>
Tell you what - you preserve yourr Dezyner Ethics, Stylistic Purity and
no doubt your Hoxton Fin too. In the meantime we'll take the money of
the people who can use our site but not yours.
LOL such an old argument -- I guarantee you, that when developing such
sites come out of the micro-niche category, my firm will be doing it quite
successfully.
Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.
WTF!?
Who said anything about people with a Vision impairment.
By the way, there are a lot of other reasons for accessibility, think
about (people who have poor movement with their hands) as an example.
Arthritice (however you spell it) comes to mind as well.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc
Stephen wrote:
On 20 Jul 2006 02:59:47 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>>PDAs are another story. Flash has to be written a little
differently for PDAs,
>_That's_ why Flash is bad. You have to author in a
reader-context-sensitive manner. That breaks the whole underlying
notion of the web as being reader-independent.
Nope. It's a problem with PDAs not Flash.
Really? It sounds as if you regard everyone as being out of step except
you and your Flash.
I don't really care much; I don't see Macromedia Flash taking over from
standards-based web technologies. As far as I'm concerned it's just
another browser plugin, primarily of interest to pushy advertisers.
Since I'm extremely (abnormally) resistant to pushy marketing, not
having Flash installed serves me rather well.
People who want to push moving ads at me therefore have to resort to
old-fashioned TV ad-slots. However my TV is also computerised, and my
viewing is largely pre-recorded; it takes me a couple of clicks and a
few seconds to skip an ad-break.
Why you think anyone wants to view flashy advertising beats me; my
belief is that if everyone knew how to get rid of it, that's just what
they'd do. So while I wish you no ill personally, I hope your career
becomes redundant.
Anyway, I'm now butting out of this off-topic thread.
--
Jack.
Stephen wrote:
On 20 Jul 2006 02:59:47 -0700, Andy Dingley in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
Stephen wrote:
PDAs are another story. Flash has to be written a little differently for
PDAs,
_That's_ why Flash is bad. You have to author in a
reader-context-sensitive manner.
That breaks the whole underlying notion of the web as being
reader-independent.
Nope. It's a problem with PDAs not Flash.
So this http://groups.google.co.uk/group/com...15ab681cac0d0b
is really a problem with Macs ?
On 2006-07-20, Stephen wrote:
On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>Stephen wrote:
>>In that case, why not save all the website costs and go to
telephone-only sales?
Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We
cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
Why exclude those who do (which is probably a much larger
percentage than you think) when it is no more work to make it
accessible?
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:41:48 +0100, Matt in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:08:43 +0200, Stephen wrote:
>On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We cater
to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
>The vast majority of people have two legs and can walk. I don't think I'll
bother putting lifts/elevators in my new building, it needn't be
accessible to them. Everyone will have to take the stairs.
Silly example.
That's totally different, as there is no other readily available
mechanism to arrive at the upper/lower floors, that wouldn't be
potentially dangerous to ones health. Accessibility on the Internet isn't
a life/death or safety issue.
Since this is a visual medium, people with sight disabilities should use
another method, which is readily available to them <ietelephone etc.,
or get by with the existing Web, with what's available to them. I'm not
going to advise my clients to worry about a market that isn't relevant,
until we know that a critical mass of their clients are sight disabled,
and are using the Internet to access given clients website. Again, that's
were good accurate marketing research comes in. But to do it
carte-blanche, no.
I don't believe it's the place to be Political Correct about every
disability known to man. Business caters to their market, whatever that
may be. If one is producing a website that is known to cater to people
of disabilities primarily, then by all means, but otherwise it's a
non-starter for me and many other developers.
In terms of 3rd world countries -- It's not an issue, since most of
their citizens aren't on the 'Net' yet.
>Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.
>The majority of them don't have computers, so maybe you /should/ stick
with phone sales?
See above. I'll stick to serious discussion, and not what is
essentially an exercise which isn't relevant to 99% of Internet surfers.
Bye.
On 20 Jul 2006 06:08:54 -0700, Chaddy2222 in comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps.
>BULL SHIT!
There are probly more people with vision problems in the world then you
would have time to count. I know that 10% of the Australian population
has some form of print disability (this includes Vision impaired
people) among others.
Cite ?
>cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
You must design sites for 5 year olds. They are about the only people
who would be amused by the majority of eye candy designs.
Though I think even children would get board and just find something
else.
BTW that's "bored" not "board".
My firm is quite successful, and we don't work with Mom/Pop franchises.
<snip>
>Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.
WTF!?
Who said anything about people with a Vision impairment.
By the way, there are a lot of other reasons for accessibility, think
about (people who have poor movement with their hands) as an example.
Arthritice (however you spell it) comes to mind as well.
They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
an issue. We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:43:34 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson in
comp.infosystems. www.authoring.html wrote:
>On 2006-07-20, Stephen wrote:
>On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>>Stephen wrote:
<snip>
>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We
cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
Why exclude those who do (which is probably a much larger
percentage than you think) when it is no more work to make it
accessible?
The % of people using the internet that are totally blind is probably
much smaller than you believe. :)
Tell me what that percentage is, say for people wanting to look at
automobiles on the GM Website that are totally blind ?
It's like anything Chris, if the market the website is created for,
demands it, then do it. What I'm saying is that the majority of
websites, and over 99% of the ones that my firm is involved in, don't
require anything for the visually handicapped. They're not in our target
market. The majority of visually handicapped are also not totally blind,
most can see in front of them, just not well farther away -- Some have
issues with colour contrast etc.
I'm one of these, in fact I'm legally blind, and I can view the web like
anyone else. Sure I up-size my fonts, but that's done easily enough.
P.S.
Are you the same C. Johnson from TLUG ? ;)
Stephen wrote:
They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
an issue.
So far, I've never been able to jump from on link to another on a
Flash page. How do I do that if I can't operate a mouse?
We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.
Voice recognition as in "up, up, left, left, no, you went too far now,
back to the right..." ? (Sorry, no idea how that works with Flash)
--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/
Stephen wrote:
>No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days.
You're underestimating the impact of very popular Firefox extensions
like NoScript.
<https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/>
--
Bart.
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Bart Lateur wrote:
Stephen wrote:
No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days.
You're underestimating the impact of very popular Firefox extensions
like NoScript.
Stephen is just repeatedly showing us his comfort blanket, on which it
presumably says something along the lines of "anyone who won't do it
my way isn't worth considering". Made-up statistics are just part of
that comfort blanket. I lost interest in discussing the issue /with/
him, some time back on this thread, but I did want to post the
occasional hint, for any other readers around who might not yet have
asked themselves why browser developers went to the trouble of
supplying "off" switches for these kinds of functionality, and other
developers go to the trouble of developing more-sophisticated
extensions, whereby the features can be whitelisted etc. for sites
that have gained the reader's confidence.
(In fact, there had existed free-standing JS-blocking proxies for many
years already. I recall using one when Win'95 was still a current OS,
to take just one example.)
Regarding your cited extension, you may have noticed:
||Total Downloads: 8584861 . Downloads this Week: 133056
I'm sure those are all "no-one of importance" to Stephen, but somebody
could run a profitable business with a customer base of 8.5M, and 133K
purchasers per week.
As a reader has commented there:
||The idea of having any potentially insecure technology turned off by
||default gives you the chance to "interview" a web site and then
||"lower your shields" to it if the site looks trustworthy. That is
||truely the best way to browse.
If I might add my own comment to that - while the security issue is
one very good reason for this approach, particularly with JS - the
plain annoyance factor of many of the things which web sites do with
JS and Flash would by itself be enough reason to consider a "default
deny" policy, where a web site had to "earn" the right to get
unblocked by the reader.
Anyhow, this is not just about the browsing habits of me and you -
we're going to be untypical anyway. This is a *web authoring* group,
and it behoves us to author for all of our readers, or at least to aim
to.
--
On 2006-07-21, Stephen wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:43:34 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>On 2006-07-20, Stephen wrote:
>>On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
Stephen wrote:
<snip>
>>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We
cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
> Why exclude those who do (which is probably a much larger
percentage than you think) when it is no more work to make it
accessible?
The % of people using the internet that are totally blind is probably
much smaller than you believe. :)
Who said anything about "totally blind"?
Tell me what that percentage is, say for people wanting to look at
automobiles on the GM Website that are totally blind ?
Why would you turn away the grandfather wanting to buy a car for
his grandchild?
It's like anything Chris, if the market the website is created for,
demands it, then do it.
Why limit your market?
What I'm saying is that the majority of websites, and over 99% of
the ones that my firm is involved in, don't require anything for the
visually handicapped.
Do you mean you don't make it hard for them or that you drive them
away?
They're not in our target market.
A myopic attitude.
The majority of visually handicapped are also not totally blind,
most can see in front of them, just not well farther away -- Some
have issues with colour contrast etc.
I'm one of these, in fact I'm legally blind, and I can view the web like
anyone else. Sure I up-size my fonts, but that's done easily enough.
How do you do that with a flash page? As far as I can see the only
way is to zoom, but the window stays the same size, and it is not
possible to pan (which would be irritating in any case).
P.S.
Are you the same C. Johnson from TLUG ? ;)
One and the same (unless there's another C. Johnson in TLUG).
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Stephen <St*************@gmail.com>
writing in news:sl****************************@sweetpig.dyndn s.org:
Accessibility on the Internet isn't
a life/death or safety issue.
You don't know that. Someone might have a question about medication they
are taking, and might want to know if there are any drug interactions.
What if the pharmacy is closed, and the ER won't tell them anything because
they're afraid of a lawsuit? They might be able to find that information
on line, but if the site is not accessible to them for whatever reason,
then they will not get that information, and they could have a drug
interation, and they _could_ die.
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
Stephen wrote:
On 20 Jul 2006 06:08:54 -0700, Chaddy2222 in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:
Stephen wrote:
Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps.
BULL SHIT!
There are probly more people with vision problems in the world then you
would have time to count. I know that 10% of the Australian population
has some form of print disability (this includes Vision impaired
people) among others.
Cite ?
http://www.visionaustralia.org.au
>
cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.
You must design sites for 5 year olds. They are about the only people
who would be amused by the majority of eye candy designs.
Though I think even children would get board and just find something
else.
BTW that's "bored" not "board".
Ok, you've got me there.
>
My firm is quite successful, and we don't work with Mom/Pop franchises.
That was not the point.
>
<snip>
Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.
WTF!?
Who said anything about people with a Vision impairment.
By the way, there are a lot of other reasons for accessibility, think
about (people who have poor movement with their hands) as an example.
Arthritice (however you spell it) comes to mind as well.
They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
an issue. We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.
I doubt the software could read it.
Besides, your arguments about not provideing accessible websites are
floored.
Their are very strict guidelines around that baysicly state, that all
information needs to be made accessible to people with a disability (or
anyone who wants it), this includes web content.
Did you even read the links regarding the Olimpic site? anyone
(includeing) corperet groups makeing web content needs to make it
accessible to all, even if that includes having to make two sites, with
in the same domain name.
What's so critical that you need to use Flash for anyway?, I want
examples that you have createed.
I can only think of a few sercomstances where this would be the case,
BTW, your Car buying example is not a good example, (many sited people
have totally blind friends / partners).
Also, I know that most vision impaired people can see a bit, I am one
such person.
I still find Flash inaccessible though.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc
Alan J. Flavell wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Bart Lateur wrote:
Stephen wrote:
>No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
>days.
You're underestimating the impact of very popular Firefox extensions
like NoScript.
Stephen is just repeatedly showing us his comfort blanket, on which it
presumably says something along the lines of "anyone who won't do it
my way isn't worth considering". Made-up statistics are just part of
that comfort blanket. I lost interest in discussing the issue /with/
him, some time back on this thread, but I did want to post the
occasional hint, for any other readers around who might not yet have
asked themselves why browser developers went to the trouble of
supplying "off" switches for these kinds of functionality, and other
developers go to the trouble of developing more-sophisticated
extensions, whereby the features can be whitelisted etc. for sites
that have gained the reader's confidence.
(In fact, there had existed free-standing JS-blocking proxies for many
years already. I recall using one when Win'95 was still a current OS,
to take just one example.)
Regarding your cited extension, you may have noticed:
||Total Downloads: 8584861 . Downloads this Week: 133056
I'm sure those are all "no-one of importance" to Stephen, but somebody
could run a profitable business with a customer base of 8.5M, and 133K
They could, and a lot would.
purchasers per week.
As a reader has commented there:
||The idea of having any potentially insecure technology turned off by
||default gives you the chance to "interview" a web site and then
||"lower your shields" to it if the site looks trustworthy. That is
||truely the best way to browse.
If I might add my own comment to that - while the security issue is
one very good reason for this approach, particularly with JS - the
plain annoyance factor of many of the things which web sites do with
JS and Flash would by itself be enough reason to consider a "default
deny" policy, where a web site had to "earn" the right to get
unblocked by the reader.
Anyhow, this is not just about the browsing habits of me and you -
we're going to be untypical anyway. This is a *web authoring* group,
and it behoves us to author for all of our readers, or at least to aim
to.
I agree, I can hardly think of any compeling reason as to how Flash can
add to a good user interface, it's good for video and other items
though.
I must also mention, if the Olimpic site case is not convincing enough,
then you could always take a look at http://www.dralegal.org/cases/privat...b_v_target.php
They (from what I read of that article) being Target, had a similar
attitude to what some (or one particular) person in this thread has
been showing regarding accessibility.
They are being sued as an end result.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion. |
