Flash, Glitz, Images Off

Well, well, well; this certainly has been a lively thread, hasn't it?! My
orignal question, back when this first began, was about animation on a
website.

>It is estimated that one out of three people who use the web run with
either
>no graphics, with them turned off, or they cannot see them.

This is what baffles me. Where do you get your information?!  I'll bet money
that the *vast majority* of web surfers out there:
a) Do NOT know how to turn their images off
b) Would NOT turn them off if they could.

Could we hear from some tech support people out there who's job it is to
walk people through setting up their software? I'm telling you that most
people out there are scared to death of changing *anything* on their
machines.

Case in point: I just got back from a client's office. They have a brand
spanking new NEC Pentium 200MMX with all the toys. The people who run it are
very familiar with Win 3.x but this is their first Win95 machine. It was set
to 640 x 480, 256 colors - they didn't know they could change it and they
don't want to know. They said "Do what you think is best". These are
intelligent, self made business people.

>Studies by Sun Microsystms Jakob Nielson indicate that gratuitous use of
>technology(Cool?) tends to turn off a large portion of the population.

Again, I beg to differ. Who was Sun's audience? A bunch of engineers? From
what I hear from the average Joe Surfer (and I meet with new ones every
week) they love a little glitz. Not an overwhelming amount of animation,
mind you; but no animation is called "boring" from these people.

This is the reason I started this thread. It seems to me that there are web
developers who feel that animation and "glitz" are the kiss of death. I say
no. I say some animation (or Flash) is something that *helps* our client's
commercial websites, if judiciously applied.

So my web design theory is that animation, in moderation, is a good thing.
May we hear from other website developers who are out there talking to the
general public and finding opinions to the contrary? I'd be real curious
about that.

Regards,
Demitrius >I<
------------------------------------------------A. Demitrius Lopez
       W  E  B  S  I  T  E     D  E  V  E  L  O  P  E  R
             http://members.aol.com/mrdemitri/
------------------------------------>I<------------------------------------

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