Samizdata - 5:54 am on Jan 24, 2008 (gmt 0)

I think it is very hard to get the right balance!

Correct - designing for the web is often about compromise, and things can change very fast.

I rarely make commercial sites but I would be less concerned about how long visitors spent on the site than how many actually spent some money - and I would want to make doing that as quick and easy as possible for everyone.

The point I would stress is that it is very common for clients to assume that everyone uses the same hardware, operating system, screen resolution, browser and software that they do - but as webmasters we know that this is not the case (far from it).

To look at it another way, I am sure there are many here who have developed an excellent website for a client that worked well on the vast majority of computers, only to find that the client's wife used some ancient version of Netscape at 800 x 600 resolution and had disabled JavaScript because she once heard it was a security threat.

It is great fun to work on a high-spec computer making bleeding edge websites that require a fast processor, the most recent operating system and some cool new third-party software, but it may not be the best way to sell stuff to the general public.

Old webmasters never die - they just degrade gracefully...