(or - Randyte having a rant!)
Welcome. First, let me say that if you came here via the link on my thesis you should be warned that this is not part of that document so don’t go expecting the same standards of academic discourse. That said, I would hope that you will still take the time to consider what I have to say in these few short paragraphs.
In many respects this whole page was inspired by Robert Atkins, who maintains a 'diatribes page' from which subjects his audience to his opinions predominantly about Netscape and Microsoft. T his page is not so far ranging. It simply attempts to explain my thoughts on web design and how, time permitting, I try to construct my web pages.
Let me start off by saying that unlike Robert, I do not have a huge blanket objection to the explosion of graphics and sound on the net. But I qualify that by adding "where appropriate". If the purpose of a www site is to entertain or requires graphics and sound to more effectively present information then so be it. What I am opposed to is graphics for the sake of graphics. If the primary focus of a site is on providing information then no amount of graphics will substitute for quantity and quality of information, at worst it can prove an annoying distraction to have to wait for a page full of graphics to download in order to view a page in a presentable fashion… which leads me to a pet hate.
Pages which become totally unusable once graphics are switched off or when viewed from a non-graphical browser. I don't expect the page to look as nice, but I do expect that it will still be functional. Unfortunately there are many sites which fit this criteria. The usual response I get from web-master's when I email them with my criticism is that they expect everyone to use graphics. My reply is that 1) some people like to switch graphics off to speed things up, especially if on a slow link or slow mo dem. And 2) some people pay according to traffic and hence graphical pages cost a lot more, perhaps enough to discourage a user from regularly visiting a site. I mean, think how many predominantly-text pages worth of information you could get with 1 MB v ersus how many pages full of graphics you would get.
As I said at the start, sometimes, such as on sites designed for pure entertainment, or a brief promo of a business, a multimedia frenzy might be excusable, but other times it is not. As such I endeavor to try and keep my web pages clean and simple, only using minimal graphics. For sure you will find pictures on my web pages but generally only where the main point of the page is to present the image (e.g. pictures of my friends etc, diagrams in assignments etc etc).
One last point. Whilst ever .html remains simple, or there exists tools to make it simple, everyone can make a positive contribution to the WWW and everyone can express their opinions in an effective manner which everyone will notice. The big media com panies have shown their preference for increasingly more complex , hyped up, multimedia bonanza's as the way of the future for the web. This is undesirable as it would mean only large media companies would be able to effectively construct and present info rmation on the web. IMNSHO this is a bad thing. One of the greatest things about the web is that so far anyone can have their say and be heard, unlike in the mainstream mass media. It would be a shame if we were to loose that I think.
But enough of that.. we now return you to your regular viewing.
This page last edited by Randyte on 22-Apr-97. To visit my personal web site click here.