RE: FN-FORUM Association of New Media Freelancers

date posted 1st April 2002 01:24

>Ian Turner [EMAIL REMOVED] wrote:
>> Wrong, stats on initial page views give you an indication of searchers
who
>> are finding your site. This in turn gives a fair reflection of browser
>> usage.

>OK, but this wasn't the tack you started on. Do you really split out stats
>for User-Agent for the pages which are initial page views? That's more
>thorough than most analyses I've seen.
>
>It still isn't "a fair reflection" because of the normal reasons of
>User-Agent forging, referrer header blocking and so on. Those who are
>engaged in these activities are more likely to be the "power users", who
are
>also currently more likely to be using non-IE browsers.

Log analysis is a major part of the work that I do - about 1/3 of my
business is pure SEO work.

I would suggest that "power users" are not going to be a significant
percentage of a customer base of any web site and as such anything they do
should be discounted.

>> I would say that most of my sites are designed for compliance with Bobby
>> at cast.org which is the de facto standard for those who have difficulty
>> viewing pages in browsers normally. I don't believe this has anything to
>> do with browser compliance arguments.

>Erm, no, it's not a "de facto standard" of its own. It's an automated tool
>that checks for meeting the WAI guidelines (or US law) as far as possible.

>This thread started because I'd like *designers* to be as compliant as
>possible, regardless of the browsers, so I don't understand why you mention
>that.

I brought it up because it was relevant to the accessibility argument that
was put forward as reason for cross browser compatibility.

IMHO it is 'de facto' standard because people use it in large numbers. Mass
usage creates standards not committees sitting in their ivory towers earning
large salaries for producing unintelligible waffle.

The point I am really trying to make is that most people want a website to
generate business for their organisation. A good website is one that
satisfies this criteria. Customers will return to a 'Web Designer' for
enhancements, extensions and redesign work if the initial criteria is
satisfied.

Ian

(P.S. I am not totally against standards and cross browser compatibility I
just look at things from a more pragmatic point of view. i.e. Where can I
best spend time and effort for the benfit of my customers.

Consider the following if a website is getting 1000 visitors/per day and
converting 1% of them into sales that is 10 sales per day. If I have 100
hours effort to spend on the site then I have to make a judgement as to
whether to spend it on increasing the visitor numbers or to increase the
conversion rate - the way I look at it standards compliance and browser
compliance are very minor factors is this decision)

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