Re: Animation on a website

>I think people like him really hold back technology. I'm the type of
>person who doesn't like to use ALT tags in IMG for people who have
>non-graphical browsers, because if they are shut off completely from
>this aspect of the web, they will eventually feel compelled to upgrade
>their browsing technology.

I'm sorry, but I think this is very arrogant. Ladies and gentlemen, let us
please remember that we are mere designers and authors. It is not for us to
tell others what to think or use. The only thing we may do is design the
very best in HTML we know how and possibly set ability to handle modern
technology as a prerequisite for getting the most out of the work we have
offered. But we should not be trying to deliberately influence others.
Remember the blue-ribbon campaign? Right to free speech on the Internet,
freedom of opinion? Let us not forget, please, that that works both ways;
freedom of opinion and implied freedom of being conservative do not go away
if we don't like them, just as freedom of speech does not go away if the
government doesn't like it.

>I think people like my friend are missing 99%
>of the idea of the WWW. After all, it was created to make information
>more accessible AND better looking.


In fact, the Web was created as a medium to facilitate access to large
amount of data which may be scattered around the world. Data that was mostly
scientific and making it better-looking was never an initial goal. Just for
it to be there. And that is actually the argument that you will get from the
tech-conservatives when you try to convince them to move with the times and
they are quite right.
The point they are missing (and you too, I think), is that the Web was
intended as a medium to facilitate data-transfer. And data-transfer is
facilitated most by use of many audiovisual media (there have been several
studies on this). THEREFORE, the "lights and bells" your friend objects to
are very logical and perhaps even necessary extensions to the original
text-only medium. And the argument that the Web was intended only for the
transfer of data is moot, since the "bells and whistles" serve to do exactly
that.

>So I say, go with the animation! Those few out there who don't like
>animations can just be web hermits like my friend. : )


Aye, on with the animation. Not to force people to upgrade, or to force tem
to be hermits. But certainly to pressure the owners of the lines to
(drastically) improve transferates of those lines.

Ben Z. Tels
optimusb(at)stack.nl
http://www.stack.nl/~optimusb/
UIN:2474460

"The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle
forever."
                                                      --Tsiolkovsky

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