🚀 go-pugleaf

"no spam" <nosignin@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:B8CC867A.39B21%nosignin@hotmail.com...
> Jim Davis wrote:
>
> >> Starting with the number of visitors who have their browsers at less
than,
> >> say, 700 px.
> >>
> >> On the Superstats site, that's around 35%.  On the client site I
mentioned,
> >> it's 38%.  Check your client's site info, then ask the client if
they're
> >> willing to at the very least annoy that many visitors.
> >
> > Again, is this the available space in the browser or the application
window?
> > I wouldn'y make any decisions based on that data AT ALL until that
question
> > is answered.
>
> You should, and it doesn't matter whether the stats are the browser window
> or available space.

Of course it does!  If it's the browser window then you must take into
account that a certain percentage of that space (a huge percentage at lower
sizes) is unvailable.  You can't make width decisions on that.  However if
it's available client width then you can - but you still can infer whether
the browser is maximized or not.  You need both pieces of data correlated
with screen res to see the whole picture.

And, you also need to know that the data being presented is from the same
community: the Superstats reports have such a huge difference in the number
of collected data-pionts that they become next-useless when trying to
correlate the data manually.

> The data is a clear indication that there isn't a 1:1 correlation between
> monitor resolution and browser width, and that many surfers set their
> windows based on their wants rather than on available space.  Sites like
> yours that list only monitor resolutions implicitly communicate that
> resolution is the more important issue in design, and it's not if you're
> concerned about site usability.

I'm not sure how you can make you first statement.  The stats displayed DO
NOT say that since the stats don't correlate anything (I wish they did).

Well, I've said it before:  There are many reasons why monitor resolution
data is valid and that's why I show it.  I make no claims about it's
usefulness or applicability.  If I had more detailed data (and, in fact, I'm
working on collecting it) I would display it.  But I don't.

Worrying that somebody will misuse data is NO reason not to publish it.

However my presentation also correlates what data I do have: color depth
information (which my data IS a predicter for for this audience) is easily
correlatable for example.  It also gives a visual representation of the
display being used (something unique to it, I think).

> A reasonable workaround (if you feel you can't live with flexible pages
and
> simply _must_ serve different content to different-sized browsers) is to
> load a blank page with code in the head that kicks in onLoad:

Well, I hope that "you" was general since I've always said that adaptable
pages are the best solution.  ;^)

> > But why pick "700" anyway
>
> Because there is a huge number of surfers with their browsers set that
way,
> so it serves as a good example of why it's not a good idea to design
> fixed-width pages based on monitor resolutions.
>
> [ ... snipped a whole bunch of stuff about how we can eventually force
> surfers to maximize their browsers by creating larger fixed-width sites,
> snipped because it ignores that fact that clients will quit hiring us if
we
> keep driving away a third or more of their visitors ...]

Now that's simply childish.  I made a valid counter-point about your
assumptions and you respond like this?

1) I never claimed that anybody was being "forced".  What said was that
currently (and AGAIN I make no judgements on this: whether this is good or
bad is up to YOU) designers seemed to be leading the users.  Ask for hands
in a user-group or designer meeting and most will claim to design for
800x600.

Again, whether that's good or bad is irrelevant when considering the social
response to the situation.  In this case users, as a community, WILL (and
are) resizing their browsers.  I never claimed that as a group we should try
to "force" them to - and in fact we don't have to force them to - they're
doing it on their own.

2) Clients, in general expect you to know this.  It's unfortunate (in this I
WILL pass judgement) that most designers don't care about this as much as we
do, but it's the truth.  That's exactly why there are so many poor websites
out there.  The "big boys" have learned, but not at the client level -
rather they have attracted better designers.  Many haven't and most don't
know that they haven't - which is exactly why you DON'T see more job
listings for human factors consultants (damn!).

I'm actually a little shocked at this myself.  We've done the "dynamic
revolution" where clients tried to save money by moving to dynamic
application platforms and we've done the "integration revolution" where
clients tried to save money by making their web site integrate better with
back end systems.  But we've yet to see the "Usability revolution" despite
the obvious (to us) and HUGE ROI involved.

I kept/keep hoping that the marketplace will finally see this but it has yet
to happen.

3) You miss the point.  At THIS TIME the designers are leading the users.
However that's not a situation that will last.  I said, quite clearly I
think, that although this may be the case for 800x600 it's very unlikely to
continue for 1024x768.  Also, once the wireless revolution hobbles on in
here (what has it been?  "Next year" for the past 5 years?) surfers will
begin demanding that content is usable on their small-screen devices.

This will being with multiple versions of sites (it already has) but I think
the cost of that will push desginers to more flexible designs quickly.  In
the past arrogant designers could always rationalize that "our audience is
more *whatever* (wealthy, technical, hip, young, etc) and will being using
larger screen, we can ignore smaller screens".  With the handheld market
defining the cutting edge that's really impossible.

Of course right now the handheld market is too small to worry greeatly
about, but it's growing...

> >> From which you can infer that hardly anybody is ever going to change
their
> >> window size for any Web site.
> >
> > For any single site, yes - but they will change the size to ensure the
best
> > experience across MOST sites.
>
> In truth, most sites are flexible rather than ego-feeding or novice-built
> fixed sizes, so surfers will continue to set their browser sizes for their
> own convenience, and avoid sites that expect them to change their behavior
> for the designer's convenience.

Well, I won't agree with "most sites" but I will agree with "most visited"
sites - most sites ARE ego-feeding AND novice built.  ;^)

Thank you for proving my point again.  One huge part of "surfers convience"
is the lack of a horizontal scroll bar.  Don't take my word for it.  I
assume that your either a designer or a usabilty professional: WATCH the
people you're testing.  I do.  This is how they react.

Consider the viewable metrics of the most visited sites.  I still feel that
the minimum width of those will be your greatest predicter right now since
we're in a designer-led phase.

So far you've made claims about "convience-driven" window sizing (and
defended them well), but you've only pointed to the SuperStats pages (which
are not AT ALL able to answer these questions).  What other data supports
your position?

It's sad because the SuperStats COULD answer this.  They first have to
define what "browser width is" but after that a report showing monitor
resolution with BOTH inner- and outer- width in correlation with it.  In
fact tt should be possible to take the "inner", the "outer", "available",
and screen res in fact to come up with a simple "maximized" boolean.

I think that I'm going to work on this.

Of course as good as this would be to see it would still not tell the whole
story as a significant percentage of folks would not be represented.

Jim Davis
--
President, Depressed Press of Boston:  http://www.DepressedPress.com/
Webmaster, Virtually Boston:  http://www.vboston.com/
Webmaster, First Night Boston:  http://www.firstnight.org/
Senior Consultant, Metlife eCommerce IT:  http://www.metlife.com/