Re: FN-FORUM Association of New Media Freelancers

date posted 1st April 2002 02:35

Ian Turner [EMAIL REMOVED] wrote:
> 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.

Sure, no customers matter at all(!)

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

I was not arguing for cross-browser compatibility. I was arguing for
standards compliance on all sites. It's a different thing that should
ultimately become the same.

[...]
> 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.

Bah, there is no such thing as a "de facto standard". You have clearly been
drinking deeply from the marketing spin of some vendor or other. Standards
are created by independent bodies of real users and experts. If only it
were them that got the large salaries instead of the people who flout the
standards while their PR machines claim they are "de facto standards"
because of their questionable business practices.

> 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.

And my point is that if you are slamming the door in the face of n% of your
audience (for some value of n, unmeasurable), then you are making this more
difficult for yourself. Assuming your 1% conversion on 1000 visits, your
achievement is now 10-(n/10). If you take the low estimate of 10%
non-IE/Windows, then you have just cost yourself a sale. Because it is
easier to produce standards-compliant sites that follow the guidelines, one
would be guilty of spending extra to achieve a worse result. Clearly some
mistake?

So, you see, standards-compliance does affect the conversion rate.

Your argument about customers returning to the good designers is sadly
misleading, as we probably all know from bitter experience. It is not
feasible to do controlled independent trials on one site, so you never know
what would have happened if you had a real "web designer" instead of that
"site designer". All that needs to happen is the customer needs to be
convinced by the current "site designer" that they are doing well enough.
--
MJR ,----------------------------------------------------
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