Hi,

Does anybody know what the ratio is for people 'being able' to view/use things done with Javascript versus things done in Flash.

I have come across a really neat javascript based system that provides the same functionality as what I was doing in Flash and wondered whether stats backed up one technology rather than the other ??

I'd be glad to hear any opinions on the matter over and above stats since I personally prefer things done in html / dhtml...

Cheers,

John
Significant Media

Perhaps this will give you some idea of my thoughts - design - I didn't write it, but I agree wholly.

Hi,

That’s interesting even if it is 5 years old. I think one of the ideas I like is when the guy talks about the importance of form versus content. I tend to disagree with his position on that though after having looked at several MySpace pages recently. There is so little design or awareness to the basics of design that some pages are just unreadable. I also think design used properly can help get the message across and make it a more pleasant experience for the user. Some pages are, well, boring and a pain to read in the way they are presented. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they disrespect the reader in most case but sometimes I feel like that.

Where I do agree and this was the reason for my question is when technology and/or design get in the way of content. There are too many sites that are not Web sites, they're Flash sites. I also have this issue with the script I refer to in the above post since it doesn't seem to work in IE 5.0 and creates an error.

To part from the guy you referred to above I do not think that it is a valid argument to from now and forever make sure that all pages work in Netscape 4 and IE 5 ! Although the guy doesn't say this I'm not really sure how or when he thinks it's OK to say "I'm sorry there are only 0.005 percent of the people in the world using the same browser as you and making it compliant with your browser would have taken us two weeks". There obviously is a point when you need to move on.

With XHTML and CSS it is easier to accommodate for this type of situation. However the issue of having a nice design that works in 95 percent of browsers but that creates errors in older ones is my present issue !

John
Significant Media

I read that not as a disagreement, but as an agreement.




That should help emphasize the content or make it more usable, not replace [parts of?] it.




So perhaps they should be designed better? If the content is hard to read, chances are that no design is better than their (the page maker's) design.




While no one may use Netscape 4 any longer, there will still always be bad design. According to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), that self-appointed ruler of web-related standards, all pages should degrade gracefully. What this means is that no matter what browser someone is using -- be it Internet Explorer 7 or lynx -- the content should be usable.




Not true. Older browsers do not support CSS or XML. As XHTML (XML) drifts slowly away from HTML (SGML-derived), support in unsupported applications degrades horribly. If you do like W3C says and stop using older layout (tables) and font markup, the older browsers -- maybe it's the only one that will run on my Apple Performa 635CD -- will stop supporting what's "new". I.e., the technology will degrade poorly (sounds hypocritical of W3C, doesn't it?).

If, on the other hand, people paid attention to W3C long ago when they said it was all about semantic markup, pages would remain accessible and be only enhanced by CSS (or if you don't call it "enhancement", turn off CSS support for that page). But W3C created the "class" and "style" attributes which are [mis]used to the point of defeating that purpose.




As they say, "content is king". It's a very easy thing to say. But, while deluding themselves into believing they believe it, most web designers don't realize that it's actually as important as they claim it is. The problem is that they aren't really web designers, they are designers. The difference there is that the web was created for the purpose of sharing data, and design is all about appearance. So needless to say, they tuck their content away safely after coming up with a "mostly applicable" (to 95%) design.

The trick is to make a page that actually does exactly what W3C and web designers in general claim they want: design a page that is actually accessible, actually degrades gracefully, actually is easily parsable, etc.. And if you accomplish that, you will find that your page works 100% well on all browsers, on all platforms.

If you want to know more about W3C and web designers (my opinions about them), go through some of my "blogs". In particular, I recommend "Complexity vs. Simplicity", "Another rant... this one's about websites and the people (ahem, idiots) who make them", (perhaps "Microsoft patent good for software developers"), and "ISO, IEC, SI, and a little bit of W3C".

Hi,

You seem to take a very strong position in what you say and brush away other people's opinions in your remarks as well as insulting entire groups of people, in this case web designers. Calling web designers deluded in there attempts to display content in a pleasing way is completely unnecessary.

When you position yourself as some kind of authority on how to display content on web pages, one would expect an example to uphold this. Yet on your own blog it is extremely difficult to read the text because of the background you have chosen and small font size.

I think design is far more important than you do, I think we may agree to disagree on that point.

You say that CSS and XHTML are not supported in older browser and that good design degrades nicely in different situations. That is exactly what CSS applied to XHTML does in older browsers and my point for using it so that people get to read the content if they have an older browser (with no design)!?? Your response is 'not true' to my comment that say just that !

I did ask for some feedback on Javascript versus Flash BTW

John
Significant Media

Give me an opinion about web design I haven't heard before and I'll listen interested-ly.

The "ehem morons" thing was part of the title of the blog entry, designed primarily to catch peoples' attentions.

When someone says something enough, s/he has usually convinced him/herself of it. However, when claims are made and people refuse to follow those claims themselves, they are hypocrites. When they believe that they are following their rules, but they clearly are not, they are deluding themselves -- whether intentionally or because they believe what others tell them.


Specifically, the claim that CSS and XHTML make websites more accessible. CSS is not supported in older browsers. XML is not supported in older browsers. SGML is not even supported in older browsers. In XHTML, you can make an image tag like this (and it is completely valid):

An old browser will display the closing tag because it does not expect it. Most modern browsers will do that too (at least unless the browser realizes it's XML and not HTML).

I dare you to compare a website designed "well" in XML and CSS in a new browser (let's say IE7b or Fx1.5) with it in an old browser (Netscape 3, perhaps) and a textual user agent (like lynx). Most people making the claims that XHTML is better because it's more accessible and can apply to a wider audience have never looked at an XML document in a browser older than 1 year old.


I never claimed to be an expert. But I do have experience making websites, dealing with complaints from other web designers, and dealing with other web designers. (As a result, I don't classify myself as a "web designer" if I can help it.)

On a 15" (viewable) IBM monitor from like 1990, at 1280x1024, I can read my own blog perfectly well. If you don't like it, then your tastes are different from mine (surprise!, we're humans). If you can't rea the text then you are a perfect target for accessibility purposes. (The point of accessibility is to try to help as many people as possible to understand the content.) Heavy reliance on stylesheets undermine the browser's accessibility methods.

Compare Fx1.5 w/styles vs. Fx1.5 w/o styles vs. lynx

(Without styles, the text overflowed the 600x200 select target, but not the screen; it did not cause horizontal scrolling.)
Despite the bad design of sitespaces, that degrades pretty nicely. The reason is that it is HTML, using tables for layout (not divs with absolute positioning) and CSS for styling (but no heavy reliance on it). Not my personal choice, but it works.

I think you think that you think that design is more important than I think it is (take a few seconds to figure out what that meant -- it's the only way I can write it). But design is very important. If you read a couple of my blog entries, you would realize that. Design is extremely important... but a bad design always outweighs a positive one.

You can wow your visitors with cool effects or you can draw them in with content. Based on the nature of the web, most people should choose the latter. But most choose the former. (Where they are deluding themselves is where they choose the former and claim they choose the latter.)

Because you didn't realize what the purpose of this discussion was, I will put it this way: if you design it properly, browser internals (JavaScript) are always better than third party plugin support (Flash). When I say "design it properly", I mean making sure that it works on all target user agents and degrades properly in all others. That means that people with scripting disabled should be able to use your website at least as well as someone with scripting enabled.

The same goes for layout and styling.

I myself prefer things be done in dhtml over flash if they can.

Things I don't like about flash on linux:
- flash causes memory leaks in firefox on linux
- dhtml menus/etc cannot display over a flash object
- you can't search or find-as-you-type on flash
- you can't bookmark flash pages (if it's one of those complete flash pages)

Adrian

That's a pretty crappy example. So it may be valid, but no one is going to write something like that. And even Netscape 4.8 displays that correctly.

Yes, the later XHTML specs are starting to make changes which can cause breakage on older browsers (1.1 requires tags which some browsers can mis-interpret), but XHTML 1.0 should work correctly with older browsers. XHTML can degrade just fine if it is written properly.

Adrian

Hi Brewt those are interesting examples. I came across an article the other day from a guy who's been doing Internet Marketing for ages and he touches on the issues that Flash entail with regards to search engines.

I have also come across an issue you describe with the javscript like this, specifically that it came over the top of a menu. It was a google ad and the menu was just above and when you clicked on the menu to choose from the list part of the list was covered by the ad !

I also prefer dhtml and only go for Flash when it brings something to the site like a video presentation that enables the user to interact with it.

Cheers,

John

Oops forgot the link :
http://www.wilsonweb.com/...sign/flash-sites.htm

Update : I just checked the link to make sure it worked :) and what is great is that the ad to the top right actually does what I describe above in that the drop menu is covered by the ad !! Nice coincidence there
Significant Media

Yeah, it really was. I guess I was rather distracted and tired when I wrote my posts in this thread; I tend to make lots of mistakes and really stupid comments when I am (ditto!). Oh well...