Re: Calm down on disabling right click

At 10:30 AM 22/03/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Mon cher St=E9phane,
>
>thank you for your suggestion, but I think you are slightly over the top in
>your reaction to Sophia's kind post

I don't think so.  If your client cares about keeping his customers happy=20
then he should stay away from such dubious techniques.  Again, disabling=20
right click is completely inefficient in stopping image theft and brings a=
=20
lot of grief to the vast majority of users who are not thieves.

>- My client liked the javascript idea and is not willing right now to pay
>for CopySafe - client is king and I am not going to loose time and money
>giving him a lecture on what to do and what not....

It's your job as a Web expert to give him all the facts so he can make an=20
informed choice.  Did you tell him of all the disadvantages of disabling=20
the right mouse button?  Does he know that this can and probably will=20
alienate many of his customers?  Image theft is a fact of life on the=20
Web.  It comes with the territory. There are more elegant ways than others=
=20
to deal with the issue and disabling right clicking is probably at the=20
bottom of the list.

>- the HTML slideshow my client is pointing his clients to is a specific=
 area
>of his website, only accessible to a select group of clients and all they
>are asked to do is sit back, relax, and watch the slideshow. None of them
>are very websavvy and disabling the right click works for them.

Many people use the right mouse button to navigate Web sites.  I know many=
=20
people who do, Web savvy or not.  It always amazes me how far some=20
designers will go to cripple their users' experience.  Disabling right=20
clicking is really not worth it.  Did I mention that it doesn't work?  I=20
can think of at least three ways to work around it right off the top of my=
=20
head.  Not all users are as dumb as some Web professionals think they are.

>- usability mantras are all very nice and I have even paid a lot of money=
 to
>go to a Jakob Nielsen seminar, but every website is different and what may
>not be appropriate for you may very well work for someone else.

Forget the word usability and Nielsen.  It's a matter of accessibility and=
=20
being able to move around the site.  It's also a matter of the kind of=20
image your client's company projects.  Disabling right click tells them he=
=20
doesn't trust them.  Is that the image he wants to projest?

>I mostly develop corporate sites that have restricted access, need Flash 5
>plugins, special applets and so on... every time we decide what is
>appropriate and what is not, based on user survey, not on some
>"dontdoit.html" . Sometimes disabling some functions of the browser will do
>it, sometimes not.

To each his own... but to me, professional Web design is about easing the=20
user's experience... not crippling it.  There is a world of difference=20
between requiring a plugin or restricting access to registered users and=20
disabling part of their computer.  I maintain that I believe the latter is=
=20
extremely amateurish and in this case it doesn't even work.  YMMV.  On the=
=20
other hand I apologize for using the example of that page.  I think the=20
tone of the author is tongue in cheek but it can come across as offensive=20
and I apologize to Sophia for it.   It was not my intention to offend=20
anyone, just point out the disadvantages of treating the majority of users=
=20
like thieves when they are not.

St=E9phane

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