Requesting criticisim: www.helpforce.com & www.wc3.co.uk

#11

Well, I'm using AWStats to keep track of both sites, this is what it looks
like:

www.helpforce.com
MSIE/Netscape/Mozilla: 96.8% (MSIE was: 90.2%)
Unknown: 1% (chances are they'll be MSIE/Netscape/Mozilla but just
won't tell me)
All others: <1%

It's clear to me there. It's simply not worth me designing for other
browsers, text or otherwise. I design for MSIE, I check for looks on
Netscape/Mozilla.

www.wc3.co.uk
MSIE: 97.9%
Mozilla/Opera: 1.8%
(LoL, Netscape has 0% for this month)
All others: 4 hits (reads as 0%)

Again, very clear message, I design for MSIE, I'll check for looks on
Netscape/Mozilla and possably Opera here. Again, it's not worth my time to
design an accessable/compatible site that's compattable with <1% of my
visitors.

It could take... I dunno, 2/4 hours to go through the site putting ALT= text
in and changing the wording for other browsers, I could spend the same 2/4
hours going through the other points in this thread and making the site
better for the top 95%+ of users.

I appreciate the point you, jake, and others are presenting to me, that the
site isn't accessible for other browsers, it just seems to not be worth my
time making it better when there are bigger points I can address that will
affect 95%+
As for Eric's search engine point, I addressed that elsewhere. Non-starter.

I *might* consider a text-only helpforce.com for PDA/WAP/Small Screen/Text
only users in the future, but that'll be for a really bored day and after
it's done, it would probably become an advertising point for Helpforce,
access our site on your mobile device.

Thanks!

-Lawrence

"jake" <jake (AT) gododdin (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote

Quote:

In message <c1nfbq$p9v$1 (AT) sparta (DOT) btinternet.com>, Lawrence Stromski
a@b.com> writes
Tks for your feedback jake.
[snip]

Point 4: There is no sequence for information on that site. Imagine you
are
coming to helpforce.com to get help with a problem, it's just layed out
hopefully so that people can find the best way of getting help with their
problem, maybe they'd go to the FAQ if they think it's a popular problem,
they might go to the forum if they want to have a discussion, the
majority
of people just robot-like fill out the ehelp form.

OK. This is what a user of assistive technology
(screen-reader/voice-browser) is going to hear when they visit your
(homeforce) site.

As it's a tables-based layout, the reader is going to linearize and read
the text in the following sequence:

http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/helpforce.txt

Now. Does it all make sense in that sequence?

Hopefully, if you start putting in the correct alternative text on the
images and (very importantly) start putting in headers the visitor will
have a more rewarding experience.

On a site like this, headers are going to be invaluable if the user is
going to find their way around.

Also, consider whether things like "Visit by clicking on eTalk on the
left. " are do-able if I can't see what you're talking about ;-)

[snip]

Regards.
--
Jake

#12

Hi Toby,

My reasoning behind that is that occasionally I include pop-up windows for
important announcements, messages, etc (not advertising, the day advertising
appears on my site is the day I switch ISP's)
I got annoyed with putting in a pop-up, only to find I hadn't included the
script for it, so I put it in as a standard part of each page's package.

Also, the web site will shortly become split up using SSI (Apache). I'll
have a common header.shtml which will include the same meta tags, title,
html header and selection of script calls for each page. Same with
footer.shtml. The main body will be the only unique bit.
This won't have any effect on the end output, but it will save on disk
space, code, make it easier to manage and so on.

So, if I include popup code on one page, I will include them on all in the
future automaticlly.

I'll sort out the --> thing though and I'll look at sticking it in <head>.
(I know I call other scripts so I'll look at where I placed those too.)

Thanks!

-Lawrence.

"Toby A Inkster" <UseTheAddressInMySig (AT) deadspam (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

Lawrence Stromski wrote:

Wc3.co.uk

On many of the pages you include:

script type="text/javascript"
!--
function openWindow(url, name, w, h) // Pop-up window function
{
popupWin = window.open(url, name, 'scrollbars,width=' + w + ',height='
+ h);
}
/script

Apart from the fact that pop-up windows are irritating, you forgot to
include the "-->" at the end of your comment, so some browsers assume
that the entire rest of the page is a comment, to be ignored.

Besides which, if you move the script so that it's within the
head>...</head> you won't need to use the commenting out trick at all.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me - http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/?page=132

#13

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 14:02:23 +0000 (UTC), Lawrence Stromski <a@b.com>
wrote:

Quote:

Again, very clear message, I design for MSIE, I'll check for looks on
Netscape/Mozilla and possably Opera here. Again, it's not worth my time
to
design an accessable/compatible site that's compattable with <1% of my
visitors.

I'll take the money you lose from that 1%. Maybe they're rich and want to
fly you to Rio for a shoot. But YOU are the guest, and bottom line will be
that those customers (and their friends and colleagues) will find YOU are
the one not worth THEIR time - and your competitor might get the trip to
Rio.

Dude, it's a little like making your door extra narrow to fit the fat
folks in. "I'm only pissing off 1% of my customer base." (How do people
stay in business pissing off ANY customer??)

It's not like there are no tools. There is just a lazyass deeziner who
can't be bothered to use the tools at his disposal. Good luck with your
IE-using customers.

#14

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 13:48:59 +0000 (UTC), Lawrence Stromski <a@b.com>
wrote:

Quote:

Search engine listings are fine Eric, the "good" search engines all get
text
from my meta tags, from the first line of the web site (look carefully,
there is an obscured first line with a description of both sites).

(Now you're top posting grrrr)

Google is among the biggest and most powerful search engines available. So
it's not "good"?

Google doesn't give a shit about meta tags. Google catches you tricking
the spider with secret text and they drop you like a lead balloon. You are
operating under so many incorrect assumptions it's making me ache.

#15

I checked it, it's doing what I want it to do, giving me the listing I want.

"Neal" <neal413 (AT) spamrcn (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 13:48:59 +0000 (UTC), Lawrence Stromski <a@b.com
wrote:

Search engine listings are fine Eric, the "good" search engines all get
text
from my meta tags, from the first line of the web site (look carefully,
there is an obscured first line with a description of both sites).

(Now you're top posting grrrr)

Google is among the biggest and most powerful search engines available. So
it's not "good"?

Google doesn't give a shit about meta tags. Google catches you tricking
the spider with secret text and they drop you like a lead balloon. You are
operating under so many incorrect assumptions it's making me ache.

#16

Well, we could go round and round with this issue, I think I see your
points, but it still remains that the 1% doesn't factor for me. Maybe in the
future, time permitting and/or if I get any intrest from the 1%, they will
factor, but for now, they don't.

I'm happier dealing with Toby's issue and Jake's other two points as well as
any other points on the sites.

It's the Internet, hell, it's the world. No matter how much work you put
into things, there will ALWAYS be a majority and a minority. I choose to
give my time to making things better for the majority in this case.
(Ok, if it was world poverty, I might address the minority, but I'll leave
that one for Tony Blair)

Thanks though :-)

-Lawrence.

"Neal" <neal413 (AT) spamrcn (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 14:02:23 +0000 (UTC), Lawrence Stromski <a@b.com
wrote:

Again, very clear message, I design for MSIE, I'll check for looks on
Netscape/Mozilla and possably Opera here. Again, it's not worth my time
to
design an accessable/compatible site that's compattable with <1% of my
visitors.

I'll take the money you lose from that 1%. Maybe they're rich and want to
fly you to Rio for a shoot. But YOU are the guest, and bottom line will be
that those customers (and their friends and colleagues) will find YOU are
the one not worth THEIR time - and your competitor might get the trip to
Rio.

Dude, it's a little like making your door extra narrow to fit the fat
folks in. "I'm only pissing off 1% of my customer base." (How do people
stay in business pissing off ANY customer??)

It's not like there are no tools. There is just a lazyass deeziner who
can't be bothered to use the tools at his disposal. Good luck with your
IE-using customers.

#17

"Lawrence Stromski" <a@b.com> wrote

Quote:

"Neal" <neal413 (AT) spamrcn (DOT) com> wrote in message
news

pr329g5smdvhyks (AT) news (DOT) rcn.com...
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 13:48:59 +0000 (UTC), Lawrence Stromski <a@b.com
wrote:

Search engine listings are fine Eric, the "good" search engines all
get
text
from my meta tags, from the first line of the web site (look
carefully,
there is an obscured first line with a description of both sites).

(Now you're top posting grrrr)

Google is among the biggest and most powerful search engines available.
So
it's not "good"?

Google doesn't give a shit about meta tags. Google catches you tricking
the spider with secret text and they drop you like a lead balloon. You
are
operating under so many incorrect assumptions it's making me ache.

I checked it, it's doing what I want it to do, giving me the listing I
want.

First, stop top-posting.

Second - just because Google is giving you the listing you want doesnt mean
that your meta tags have anything to do with it.
Its a well documented fact that Google doesn't care about them, and no
argument on your part is going to change that.

--

Karl Groves
http://www.karlcore.com

#18

I don't care whats doing it, as long as it's happening :-)

I don't want to read the same old message at the begining of every post,
otherwise I have to scroll for years to get to what the person is saying.
Just read the stuff without >> and everythings cool.
(MS Outlook Newsreader puts the cursor at the top of a post, exactly the
same way email works.)
----whole different debate----

"Karl Core" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

"Lawrence Stromski" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:c1qjf0$qib$1 (AT) hercules (DOT) btinternet.com...
"Neal" <neal413 (AT) spamrcn (DOT) com> wrote in message
news

pr329g5smdvhyks (AT) news (DOT) rcn.com...
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 13:48:59 +0000 (UTC), Lawrence Stromski <a@b.com
wrote:

Search engine listings are fine Eric, the "good" search engines all
get
text
from my meta tags, from the first line of the web site (look
carefully,
there is an obscured first line with a description of both sites).

(Now you're top posting grrrr)

Google is among the biggest and most powerful search engines
available.
So
it's not "good"?

Google doesn't give a shit about meta tags. Google catches you
tricking
the spider with secret text and they drop you like a lead balloon. You
are
operating under so many incorrect assumptions it's making me ache.

I checked it, it's doing what I want it to do, giving me the listing I
want.

First, stop top-posting.

Second - just because Google is giving you the listing you want doesnt
mean
that your meta tags have anything to do with it.
Its a well documented fact that Google doesn't care about them, and no
argument on your part is going to change that.

--

Karl Groves
http://www.karlcore.com

#19

Quoth the raven named Lawrence Stromski:

Quote:

(MS Outlook Newsreader puts the cursor at the top of a post, exactly the
same way email works.)

Lawrence, is your PageDown key broken?

You could be referring to your personal email program. Mine puts the
cursor at the bottom of the email.

Quote:

----whole different debate----

This part is true. :-)

--

the back cover and end up at the front?
chapter one or do you start somewhere near
When reading a book, do you start at

#20

/me throws his hands up in the air
"I give up!" he exclaims and throws his optical cordless mouse through the
window.

Actually, I always read the last chapter of a book, then start at the
begining ocasionally skipping some chapters.

-Lawrence.

"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote

Quote:

Quoth the raven named Lawrence Stromski:

(MS Outlook Newsreader puts the cursor at the top of a post, exactly the
same way email works.)

Lawrence, is your PageDown key broken?

You could be referring to your personal email program. Mine puts the
cursor at the bottom of the email.

----whole different debate----

This part is true. :-)

--

the back cover and end up at the front?
chapter one or do you start somewhere near
When reading a book, do you start at

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Requesting criticisim: www.helpforce.com & www.wc3.co.uk

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