In article <slrng24pqr.g1r.g.kreme@cerebus.local>, Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <uce-473833.15244107052008@newsclstr03.news.prodigy.net> > Gregory <uce@splook.com> wrote:
> > Depending on who "your" visitors actually are. About 1/6 of US users are > > still at 56k or less. (Silly me. I think there's a substantial > > difference between 17% and "nearly none." > > Based on my webserver logs (across a varied collection of sites, most > not written by me but hosted by me) it is well under 5%. > > The 16-17% that have dialup are not cruising around the web. They are > getting their email and going to a small handful of sites that they > know, and that is all they are doing.
You need to be careful basing any world wide or even all America wide trends on your own server logs.
> Even the very large sites like Amazon > and Ebay are obviously not catering to the dialup user as those site have > more and more images. >
What these sites do and what is good practice are not the same thing.
> > Would you give me $100 every time I rolled a one on a die if I gave > > you $10 every time I rolled 2-6? > > That does that have to do with anything? Are you saying a dialup user is > just as likely to make a purchase online as a broadband user? Because > if so, that is demonstrably false. >
Why would you jump to a demonstrably false interpretation? There is a simpler one staring us all in the face. That the dial up user is just as worthy a person as a broadband user and only the ignorant or the obsessively money minded website author would ignore the dial up user. I say ignorant because there is a way to design so that it is win win for all, you provide for bigger pics by linking to them. It is not an either/or situation.
> Designing sites for the lowest common denominator merely impedes > progress.
Designing for a win win for all is not designing for the lowest common denominator. This is simply distorting the picture.
> I don't design for 640x480 screens, nor do I worry about 'web > safe' colors because my assumption is that the vast majority of people > have at least 1024x768 or better and are running with 16bit color. > Likewise, the vast majority are not on dialup lines.
You should not be designing for any screen size. It is as simple as that.
