browser-specific sites

[Mr Downtown]

This morning I wrote a webmaster for Pennsylvania Dept of Transportation that a particular page (map downloads) on their website "seems to be very browser-specific. I'm unable to get it to work in Firefox for Windows, nor in any browser on the Macintosh."

He just responded "You are correct sir. Our website is geared toward the vast majority of users."

What should I say to convince him of the wisdom of standards-compliant websites?

[Article Accelerator]

[quote Mr Downtown]
He just responded "You are correct sir. Our website is geared toward the vast majority of users."
Isn't that sweet! So the PDT is willing to spurn roughly 22% of visitors to its web site.

The webmaster's political masters need to know that. I think they'd be very interested.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

If their site won't work with any browser but IE, of course they will not see much traffic from any other browser. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.

I was considering writing Sitemeter a nastygram because their browser share image does not have a Safari 3 slice yet. This is a live graphic for a site that gets almost 200,000 hits a day and Firefox 1&2 sometimes account for more than 50% and are almost always over 20%.

[incognegro]

Here are some current stats for one of my sites:





62%, to me, does not qualify as a "vast" majority.

(People still use Netscape 2 and 4?!)

[karsen]

I can't access my Medical Insurance site unless I use IE for the PC. I guess they figure the majority of sick people in this world use IE.

[karsen]

[quote Article Accelerator][quote Mr Downtown]
He just responded "You are correct sir. Our website is geared toward the vast majority of users." The webmaster's political masters need to know that. I think they'd be very interested.
That is the route to take. You need to contact your local Congress person and make a stink. A Government site is made FOR the people and should be accessible by ALL web browsers using standards compliant code.

His response sounds very condescending. I would find out who his superiors are and CC them all copies af the letter you mail to your Congress person.



Not that it matters one bit since all sites should be standards compliant, but the latest browser usage reports I have show Firefox owning 33% of the market share. It's simply idiotic to cut over 1/3 of your visitors out of the equation from the get go.

[Mr Downtown]

Well, I'm neither a taxpayer nor voter in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania state government department heads are not renowned as squeaky-clean selfless public servants.

[Article Accelerator]

No--write to the politicians, not the bureaucrats.