Web evolution, was: RE: Talking about Bandwidth

[Philip Rink Jr]

At 5:53 AM 5/25/98, Jim Beck wrote:

>Unfortunately large, complex (or even small, efficient) art/eye-candy

>sites  will probably always be relegated to the position they are now -

>interesting only for that small group of us who seek them out - but this is

>not what drives technology. Like it or not, money drives technology; bland

>mass-market = $$$.



I think that is too much of a short term view. Just three years ago, many

people were perfectly happy to use a UNIX shell account surfing with Lynx

(me included). I didn't invent multimedia plug-ins and authoring tools, and

I didn't specifically ask for them as a web user. But I'm glad that

somebody pushed the technology, and I'm glad somebody else started building

sites with it. It adds a lot to the Web experience. Compare the

"base-level" web experience today to that of two years ago.


Consider this evolution:

Text links

Graphics as links

Server side image map

Buttons with Javascript rollovers

Each step has required, in fact been enabled by advances in browsers, and

also required more work from the designer, with seemingly only an "eye

candy" justification. Do the buttons do anything different from the text

link? Not really. However, buttons can be made using corporate fonts and

colors, strengthening the corporate identity of the site, and the rollover

action positively identifies the button as a link, adding interactivity

with the user. The obvious extra effort adds professionalism to the site,

and reflects well on the client. These are actual _real benefits_ of

buttons which a year ago may have still been considered "eye candy," and

too much trouble to use. And that's just one small example of "eye candy"

becoming almost a required element of websites.


Web sites are not an all-or-nothing thing -- you don't have to make it

plain text, and you don't have to make it an extravaganza. One of the

reasons that I joined this list was to try to learn how people are using

Flash for practical things, simple ones that aren't "eye candy." But even

so, today's eye candy is tomorrow's basic site. If you think that

bland=money, I think you'll find the money passing you by in a very short

while.


Phil




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