So why do so many sites STILL have useless animations, bloated graphics, and annoying Flash intros? Are the surviving e-retailers still so eager to drive away customers that they just refuse to sacrifice their pretty little gewgaws for the sake of allowing people to actually USE the frickin' site?

Seriously... is the problem that usability issues are not being communicated to the top levels of decision-making, or is it that the developers are still mistakenly assuming "everyone has a high-speed connection like I do"? Or maybe a little of both?

Posted by: Calybos on July 25, 2003 08:06 AM

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I think many of these sites are developed with the fast connections and developers thinking with the "users are just like us" mentality.

Developers forget or are not instructed up front as to who the actual users are and how to develop with them in mind.

I also think it often depends on the experience and maturity of the people on the development team. Younger developers or fresh graduates tend to like playing with all the cool gizmos and toys and are less impressed when you bring all of this back to the basics i.e. centred around the user tasks or aiming for simplicity.

Posted by: Daniel Szuc on July 25, 2003 08:52 AM

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A lot of it is just the level of understanding of current technology and its limitations by the client. I'm working on a redesign of our corporate site and focusing on speed and usability to the user/customer.

Many managers I've shown it to think it's "bland", because they're used to seeing all of this crap out there on their T1 at work. The current site was done a while back when some ad agency sold them on what I call the "baby mobile effect", where you show a baby a mobile with things moving and bloated graphics and they go "Oooohh!". But when I show them that most of our customers who use the web to do any transactions or look up information are on 56k or less, they change their thinking some. Some you can never convince no matter how hard you try. It's a utility site, so the user isn't there to play a Flash game or watch some pretentious splash screen, they just want their info or complete a transaction and get out of there.

In its current build, the text and links load in 4 seconds and the entire page loads in 12 seconds on a 22k/sec connection. It does have color and graphic content, but it's optimized or uses stylesheets.

Sure, if it's a site for a movie or a rock band or something of the like I can see where the use of rich media/Flash is appropriate. But for most sites the text-based content still rules the day.

Posted by: Darin on July 25, 2003 09:16 AM

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Message to Comcast, Verizon, etc.:

It's the Price, Stupid!

Posted by: Ralph on July 29, 2003 12:14 PM

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