Oh, this is magnificent! A rallying call for everyone designing and developing on the web to avoid making any assumptions about the people we’re building for:
People will use your site how they want, and according to their means. That is wonderful, and why the Web was built.
I would even say that the % of people viewing your site the way you do rapidly approaches zilch.
Following on from Charlie’s experiment last year, Chris Ashton has been assessing which sites rely on JavaScript, and which sites use it in a more defensive, resilient way. Some interesting results in here.
A good core experience is indicative of a well-structured web page, which, in turn, is usually a good sign for SEO and for accessibility. It’s usually a well designed web page, as the designer and developer have spent time and effort thinking about what’s truly core to the experience. Progressive enhancement means more robust experiences, with fewer bugs in production and fewer individual browser quirks, because we’re letting the platform do the job rather than trying to write it all from scratch.
Little interventions for designers in the form of questions designed to challenge assumptions. Kind of like Brian Eno’s oblique strategies.
Harry cautions against making assumptions about the network when it comes to front-end development:
Yet time and time again I see developers falling into the same old traps—making assumptions or overly-optimistic predictions about the conditions in which their apps will run.
Planning for the worst-case scenario is never a wasted effort:
If you build and structure applications such that they survive adverse conditions, then they will thrive in favourable ones.
We all make assumptions, it’s natural and normal. But we also need to be jolted out of those assumptions on a regular basis to help us see that not everyone uses the web the way we do. I’ve talked about loving doing support for that reason, but I also love it when I’m on a slow network, it shows me how some people experience the web all the time; that’s good for me.
I’m privileged to have fast devices and fast, broadband internet, along with a lot of other privileges. Not remembering that privilege while I work and assuming that everyone is like me is, quite possibly, one of the biggest mistakes I can make.
A collection of assumptions programmers often make.
“Dates and Times” is tied with “Human Identity” for the most links.
Progressive enhancement is not about “what if users turn JavaScript off” but “what happens when the page is loaded in sub-optimal circumstances”.
This is the way to approach building for the web:
I want to make as few of those assumptions as possible. Because every assumption I make introduces fragility. Every assumption introduces another way that my site can break.
It’s progressive enhancement, but like Stuart, Tim is no longer planning to use that term.
Susan pushes back on the notion of the mythical mobile user.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Mark nails it: just because someone visits a site with a certain kind of device doesn’t mean you can make assumptions about their intentions.