RE: Solution - A Perfect Web Site!

by Kym Jones <kjones(at)adam.com.au>

 Date:  Wed, 14 Feb 2001 04:47:33 +1030
 To:  "Sathish C. Bramhan" <sathish(at)bramhan.net>,
"HWG Techniques" <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>,
"HWG Basics" <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
 References: 
  todo: View Thread, Original


Satish..my dear...wake up, take a reality pill and wash it down with a
large coffee !!

I have resisted this thread up until now because I'm more than a little
tired of the "validation police"

Now before you all rush off to my site and tell me that it won't
validate...this I *know*...there are some god awful coding errors...*lots*
of them at this point...this I also *know*...and I'm in the process of
fixing them, although I also *know* they are never going to be fixed to the
liking of the w3c, Fuzzy and the rest of the "validation police" that lurk
on this list. So, having said that...let me say this :)

The question is....do I *care*...and occasionally,  and I stress
*occasionally* the answer is a resounding "NO" unless it is going to cause
the site to *really* fall down in a dark black hole somewhere with a
bazillion folks...which yes, right now, some of it might...

Strange as it may seem, I *do* care about how my site is viewed on
different OS and with different browsers, but right now, my main concern is
that the damned thing is up there having spent God knows how long
shifting/recoding/making new graphics and all that usual stuff. 

Why you ask..well.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as the designer of the site,
goddamnit...if I consider it to be beautiful, then so be it.  If I am Joe
Blogs and I want to put up a site with my holiday snaps on it and I choose
to use purple and yellow polka dots for a background..THAT is my choice and
Aunty Minnie and whoever else will probably think it is *beautiful* and
visit often and I don't care if it takes half an hour to download or it I
have taken a halfhearted shot at making a table and it scrolls three miles
to the right.

But...I have the nerve to call myself a professional...I know better.... :)

I also happen to have some 30 odd years experience in
advertising/media/sales. Big deal you say...well yes, it *is* a big deal. I
have seen both sides of the fence...creative and sales and the two are
vastly different. Sales folks just want to sell the damned thing..they
don't care what it looks like, what color it is or whether it's round or
square as long as it does the job and some don't even care about that.
Obviously if it's attractive, it's easier to sell.  Creative folks want to
make it look nice...they are obsessed with making it an attractive color, a
nice shape, making it fit in with surroundings...that's why interior
decorators make so much money!! 

I'm old...I *know* by now what sells and what doesn't. I *know* about
content, telling  the story, getting the customer interested, holding his
interest and making him an offer he can't refuse or at least peaking his
interest sufficiently to make him want to come back and take another look.

There is NO SUCH THING as the "perfect web site". For the love of heaven,
every site serves a purpose all it's own whether it's for the developer or
for the end customer. Now if the customer is not happy, then the developer
is going to get a kick in the pants and so he/she should, for not
researching his/her customer's needs properly....and that's where the
creative folks miss out because they don't know *how* to research the sales
end of the product!!!

I am certainly in no position to point fingers, but go look at the w3c site
that everyone was squawking about a week or so ago about length of text
lines in IE and see it all sitting there nicely, then go look at it in
Netscrape and watch it fall down in a screaming heap...and *these* are the
folks that are calling the shots...pfft!!!  Hell, their own site won't
validate!!  LOL 

This is such a fruitless discussion/argument and there is certainly no need
for insults to be hurled in either direction. 

In days gone by, the creatives mixed with the production folks and hurled
insults at the crass idiocy of the sales folks. What we now have is
creatives thinking they know everything and they don't!

Being able to put a website together is creative...knowing how to sell a
product is a whole 'nother ball game and for it to work, means working
together.

Satish, unless you have done both..you can't possibly hope to understand both.

Kym
Just another idiot in the pond......

At 08:32 AM 13/02/2001 -0800, Sathish C. Bramhan wrote:
>
>I give up!
>
>I'll come back six months later, when IE6 turns up.
>
>Let's see how many of you are still around.
>
>I honestly wanted a good discussion; there are 100's of replies but till now
>only 'one' related answer. "html writers guild" is such a disappointment.
>
>Whoever contributed with useful answers, Thanks.
>
>Rest, I'm sorry. You have no business to be here.
>
>(Go IE - No backward Compatible! Do it Gates!)
>
>... SATHISH
>
>



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