FLASH: Semi-OT: Re: General Scalable Consensus

[P. Scot McIntosh]

Here's my conclusion up front so that others don't have to wade thru my

explication below to find it: These days, I generally design for 800x600,

16-bit color, and feel fairly comfortable that most visitors can handle it.

I'll occasionally design a specific page for the 640x480 8-bit color format

if I want to make sure that even a visitor with a worst-case equipment suite

can easily use it.


Explication, for those who want it:

The stats I cited are from the site of a local construction association, so

I think the visitors are representative of the higher echelons in the member

companies. In my experience, these people tend to have among the worst

machines in their organizations, since they usually don't need anything

better and they're generally older and less technologically adept. Which is

not a criticism - they're very bottom-line oriented and recognize that

having the latest and greatest is frequently an unnecessary expense. We're

working on a site for a fairly large company whose president was running

Navigator 3 in 640x480 mode at 256 colors when we visited. It can make a

demo of your work a challenge. This experience is the norm for us, so we've

learned to ask what's being used and to bring along a laptop.


The visitors to the company sites that we've done have similar stats and

seem to be weighted toward people interested in either becoming

subcontractors, subcontracting out, or having something built. As such,

these visitors are typically executive level. The power-user types don't

come by too often, since these sites are essentially marketing tools. As

these sites become more sophisticated, with features like online Bid and

Proposal, and sections for collaboration between customers, contractors, and

subs on specific projects, we'll be seeing changes in the browser/display/OS

demographics, I'm sure.


An interesting phenomenon I've noticed is that people with recent-vintage

machines and decent-size monitors frequently have them set to 640x480 and

8-bit color. Sometimes it's because they just prefer the huge size of

things, but mostly it's because they're unaware that the other settings

exist. If I ever have to do community service, I'd like it to be to seek

these people out and teach them how to set their displays.



----- Original Message -----

From: John Croteau <

croteauerols [dot] com

>

> We do work for construction companies, too. And many have a mix of low

> end and very high end computers as your statistics bear out. The design

> engineers and/or draftmen are always a segment that will have high end

> computers, even if the rest of the company has 14" monitors including

> the CEOs. Hits over the internet would normally be driven in these

> companies by the engineering staff (often just one or two people), so it

> is not uncommon that they would make up a large portion of a

> construction audience.




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