Those of us that are left in advertising that can still remember 14 different TV stations and excessive Playout charges, right reading emulsion side down film separations for press and the fact that every single local press newspaper had a different column width so individual PMT’s ( Photomechanical transfers) or bromides had to be created for every insertion including different leading and kerning must be thinking that the onset of the computer means everything has changed. Yet nothing has changed. The effect on local press of every man following his own fiefdom was that it never became a national medium. It was simply too much effort for big ad agencies to run national campaigns in local press and if you read the local press now you rarely see any national brands between the local pine shop, printer or kitchen fitter. Today we see the same problem emerging in the online arena. Browser technology has become the equivalent of your local press baron. Try building a site that works on a PC and a Mac on Internet Explorer or Firefox or Safari, versions 1 to 7 on OS 10 or snail like Vista or the faster XP. 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 or this ridiculous fascination with widescreen - pictures where not a single image is created to fit. (It drives me mad on my TV and is now doing the same on my PC). Try finding anything that will work across all of it. Nigh on impossible. So what do we do. Well according to good old Wikkipedia, in November 2007, 74% of us use IE and 16% of us use Firefox so 90% coverage will have to do. The rest will have to fall into line. Unfortunately they fall into another minority too, the 4.2 % of Mac users vs. the remainder using PC’s. The trouble is they are also the key influencers when it comes to the creative industry (We can ignore people who buy an ‘i’ something because it is trendy, they’ll not get to 15% of its full capability). So we are left with another paradox that can only slow up the adoption of technology. Innovative people raising expectations that most of us will never understand or more importantly care about. Take ‘flash’ technology. Wasted on the geeks. So your website has moving bits that have no bearing on what the site is trying to sell and as a result, is frowned upon by Google because most people can’t read it because they haven’t, won’t or can’t install Macromedia. Why bother. It’s simply a waste of creative energy that would be better spent understanding the benefits of a business and putting them online. So the answer is….keep it simple. Don’t be drawn into the honey trap of design. Focus on the benefits of your business and make it simple and easy for people to understand them and even ‘buy’ them. Reduce overdesign or optimise it so that helps the user understand what you are trying to communicate by using it to guide the user with clear messaging. You may just find a few customers will thank you with their hard earned cash. Barnaby Wynter January 2008
Content by: comms unit
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