Similar Interests and spreading the message

The big concern I have about this group, which tends to be reinforced by 
the lack of traffic, is that it is a group for preaching to the 
converted, and will not have any real impact on resources used by the 
"web" because no-one with the power to make real changes will actually 
read it.

What if anything, can the group do to try and spread interest in 
sustainability to people whose only concern is to maximise the profits 
of their business by using every advertising tactic available to them 
(which has always meant the richest and most bandwidth intensive media 
supported by the infrastructure that consumers are prepared to pay for)?

I generally find that most aspects of the original web philosophy get 
sidelined because they are unpalatable to mainstream businesses.  For 
example, although there is a Web Accessibility Group its terms of 
reference are being forced into a narrow definition of accessibility 
defined by what Western governments impose as legal requirements, and 
the www-html list has all but died, because WHATWG didn't like its focus 
on the semantic web, but rather wanted to define tools to meet business 
wants.

I wonder to what extent people on this group are people who support:

- the semantic web;
- the best viewed in any browser campaign;
- wide definition accessibility (i.e. the old and the economically 
disabled not just those with legally recognized disabilities (with a 
bias to the commercially acceptable ones, like blindness)).

The semantic web concentrates on the ability to communicate information, 
and uses cross site links (the real definition of the "web") rather than 
repeating data.  Most bloat is the result of cosmetic features, and if 
you have ever looked for product information, you will find that the 
same, manufacturer provided, wording is duplicated on nearly every site, 
rather than simply linking to the manufacturer.

Designing for any browser, by using simple, semantically correct, HTML 
should allow people to fetch just the HTML text even if not using tools 
like Lynx.  (Note, one of the latest idioms is to include the whole site 
map on every page.  That is expensive on bandwidth and, although the 
page may render on any browser, it makes the page of limited usability 
on some, so I would include that as an element of bloat that designing 
for any browser should eliminate, although it is not within the core 
goals of that movement.)

The other advantage of designing for any browser, is that there is less 
of a need to consume resources in the manufacturer of new PCs, just to 
keep up.  This can be a particular problem with browsers built into 
things like set top boxes, which would otherwise have a long life time. 
Although these may be flashable, the vendor will often cease supporting 
the firmware soon after they cease actively selling the product, or if 
they go out of business or get taken over.

The most obvious impact, in terms of broad definition accessibility is 
for the economically disadvantaged, as heavy resource usage translates 
into significant monetary costs for bandwidth and for replacing 
equipment, to be able to run the latest browser.

However, the elderly, as well as not being in the habit of replacing 
equipment regularly, tend to find the features that cause the bloat make 
it difficult to work out how to use the site to do the job they actually 
want it for.

One note is that, although "sustainable web design" seems to be the 
current buzz phrase, it is very much a buzz phrase, using euphemisms, 
like "sustainable", and using the "web" to describe something that is 
more to do with creating page descriptions than about the network of 
links between sites, which are the web that was referred to in the 
original world wide web term.
-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.

Received on Friday, 21 June 2013 11:29:15 UTC