Re: FLASH: Not all clients care about all platforms (and not all clients [or designers] are very smart, either)

[Frederico]

On 11/17/99 3:29 PM, John Brzys via

jbrzysperceptron [dot] com

, said:


>When I asked a client about being able to view specific areas

>of his website on a Mac OS. His reply was "I don't care if it works on the

>Macintosh Platform". I didn't argue with him. apparently his targetmarket is

>windows users only.


Yes, it is entirely possible a client would make such a request, and no, 

it is not your place to "argue", but if part of your responsiblity to the 

client is marketing the site, not just designing it (really hard to 

separate the two), you have a duty to the client to politely validate the 

decision.


It's one thing to build a LAN or WAN site in which you can safely control 

the only allowed browser/platform, it is quite another to publish to the 

general public on the WWW, and not make some sound decisions regarding 

the value of your potential patronage.


"Mr. Client, by excluding the [name] platform/browser, are you aware you 

are deeming to exclude purported [value] percent of Internet users, or, 

more importantly, exclude and alienate [value] million potential patrons?"


We encounter the "percentile bias" towards lots of platforms, from Mac to 

Opera to Lynx to WebTV, because someone has shown them the bogus (read: 

badly gathered) numbers published by BrowserStat.com, or StatMarket.com, 

or some other such baloney, and their limited perception is to translate 

those seemingly tiny percents into trivial values (the goal of the 

companies that are paid to generate those stats).


But when we counter with a real number, such as " two million actual 

WebTV users and climbing", or "two million-plus iMac units, plus family 

members, not counting desktop Macs and portables", or, better, the 

real-world percentages and hard numbers generated by our previous 

real-world ecommerce sites, we find a radical shift in attitude, and when 

we divide the cost of the "extra" development costs over potential income 

or client base, the value is down to pennies to place value on a 

particular patron, or not.


This arguement is especially true with Flash-centric sites; my God, if 

you can't figure out how to make one of *the* most platform-independent 

formats work with minimal (and non-distinguished) costs on all platforms 

and browsers possible, then, respectfully, you need a refresher course in 

simple JavaScript, and, regardless of artistic talent, you have no right 

representing yourself as a Web Design and Marketing firm. When it comes 

to building a Flash-centric site, you shouldn't even be asking questions 

like, "Do you want it to work on Mac IE4.x?", a professional would know 

how to do it simply and easily, and that template should just be factored 

into the price of the design bid from the beginning.


Get used to it, folks, and on another note, if you're not already 

designing for the physically handicapped, you'll really be caught with 

your pants down when the Feds step in and require adeqaute access to all 

humans; is it really such a stretch to make that same consideration for 

users of "lesser" platforms? <w>


Cheers


Frederico


~If we all did the things we are capable of doing, 

    we would literally astound ourselves.~


             --Thomas A. Edison


What have you accomplished in this century? You've still got a year to 

go. . . regardless of the people who can't count the days in a calender.


Think Mystic




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