- From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 07:16:22 +0100 (BST)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
I was asked this off list. As it is only a question, I don't think I'm breaching any confidence by answering on list. > How are you defining real content? I don't go to web sites because they are examples of fine art; I go to them either because I want specific information, or because they are the cheapest way to buy a product. Real content to me means useful information. A lack of real content means standard marketing hype, where you can more or less predict what is coming and it is all about repeating back the prospect's wants and not telling you anything substantive about the company or the products. For a site containing information, I find that use of commercial artists (and the term web designer doesn't generally mean design as a branch of engineering, or information science, but rather as a branch of commercial art) correlates fairly strongly with a lack of substantive content. Buying is more of a problem. Certainly the presence of heavy "design" tends to correlate with cheaper prices and a wider range of goods, but that is because they correlate with larger companies who have larger commercial art budgets. I find that it does still correlate with a lack of real information - it is almost never the case that such sites link to the manufacturer's site for in depth information on the product (and they are even less likely to link to independent evaluations) and I find it remarkably difficult to find information on the cost of post and packaging, a significant proportion of the cost of small to medium purchases, without actually dry running an order. Heavy "design" almost always indicates that I am going to get dead links and blank pages without scripting on and have a steep learning curve working out how to navigate the site.
Received on Wednesday, 3 July 2002 02:17:56 UTC