I get the snark, but "page has to load in x time on expensive device in expensive city"... where is the human?
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I get the snark, but "page has to load in x time on expensive device in expensive city"... where is the human? Your audience isn't a phone.
I know I've said this a lot, but I think about the NHS digital design standards all the time, about that presentation where their lead designer talked about finding agent strings for devices like the Playstation Vita and Opera for the Nintendo DS in their logs. About how the NHS site had to work for those people too, no matter what.
@mhoye I read into the OP an unspoken emphasis on how low the bar is. If a website loads like molasses in San Francisco, it will be completely useless in the backcountry.
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye heavy...but so meaningful.
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye "But why is she keeping something mission critical to her health in her unpublished tiktok reels" fuck you is why. We don't actually get to decide how users choose to use the system, we get to provide it, provide soft incentives to use it the way we intended, and keep it running when they get creative.
Now, is she going to be able to show the doctor what she needs to show them or is it going to be on you that she can't?
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye
I'd never thought I would get teary eyed over NHS IT, but this is beautiful. -
@BigHeadMode @mhoye Yeah, we have a similar story in GOV.UK-land as well.
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/
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@mhoye How great that we've re-implemented early 2000s web browsing.
"What do you mean, you're not on this OS with these things installed using this browser with these extensions on this monitor at this resolution? It works fine for me."
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@mhoye that gets a fair amount of attention in the govtech scene but it's hard to do well when so much of the industry has gone in the other direction. If you hire someone who knows React/Next.js, they likely have never in their career made something which performs well for a non-flagship phone or on a slow network and that means you have to train them on a lot of fundamentals.
Accessibility is even harder but guess which group of users often depends on government services more than average?
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye even simple bullshit like how my bank started inserting an "interstitial page" between logging in and actually accessing the account, ie the only reason anyone has ever logged in to it. I don't even know what it says, incidentally, because my adblockers have always blocked it, and anything that actually mattered they would have to contact me about separately anyway. There are multiple ways they already do, even without whatever this page is.
But it adds a significant delay and pointless waste of data, energy, and time, that if they'd started it a few years earlier would have been enough that my laptop's battery died before I could book the tickets I needed at 2am, leaving me stranded hundreds of miles from home and probably costing me the job keeping me in that home
all to deliver what is obviously an advert for some bullshit or other I don't want and can't afford anyway
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@mhoye Do you happen to remember any bits of information about the presentation itself? Tried to search on YT with parts of the quote or with "nhs design presentation", no luck
@multisn8 @mhoye I saw the story retold in a talk from @TheRealNooshu at PerfNow a couple years back (also excellent, on this subject, and from Gov.UK details) - https://youtu.be/VdBxrZB9V_c?t=1259
Looks like Terence Eden is who he cites it from, which I think makes this the corresponding post: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/
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@mhoye "But why is she keeping something mission critical to her health in her unpublished tiktok reels" fuck you is why. We don't actually get to decide how users choose to use the system, we get to provide it, provide soft incentives to use it the way we intended, and keep it running when they get creative.
Now, is she going to be able to show the doctor what she needs to show them or is it going to be on you that she can't?
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye THIS is the kind of thing that matters for the web. If you consider yourself an “open web advocate" & this isn't foundational to your advocacy, reconsider what you're actually advocating for.
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@multisn8 @mhoye I saw the story retold in a talk from @TheRealNooshu at PerfNow a couple years back (also excellent, on this subject, and from Gov.UK details) - https://youtu.be/VdBxrZB9V_c?t=1259
Looks like Terence Eden is who he cites it from, which I think makes this the corresponding post: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/
@DRoss @multisn8 @mhoye yes I reference @Edent blog post a lot when talking about this subject. And there are still GOV.UK browser stats up on the terrible bird site related to game console usage for browsing the internet, i found it very common month to month, so very likely the same users I’d guess
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@mhoye How great that we've re-implemented early 2000s web browsing.
"What do you mean, you're not on this OS with these things installed using this browser with these extensions on this monitor at this resolution? It works fine for me."
@steevmi1 I think the funniest part in a sad way is that the exact same thing repeats.
Back then IE won in the end and all the feedback was basically responded with "sorry, we don't care about your stupid Linux box with some browser no one has ever heard of".
At some point people woke up from the IE spell only to repeat the same problem, with the same exact mentality. Everyone has Chrome, we don't care about your non-standard setup that would happily eat valid HTML5.
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@beandreams @mhoye Or even if you have something like Starlink which is not metered for surcharges you still have to worry about traffic-shaping penalizing you for transferring too much during peak periods.
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@DRoss @multisn8 @mhoye yes I reference @Edent blog post a lot when talking about this subject. And there are still GOV.UK browser stats up on the terrible bird site related to game console usage for browsing the internet, i found it very common month to month, so very likely the same users I’d guess
️@DRoss @multisn8 @mhoye @Edent
Not that I want to link to the platform, but an example can be found here: https://x.com/TheRealNooshu/status/1577219757342064640
Search "#browserstats" and "@TheRealNooshu" for others if you are interested.
Now off for a shower, I feel dirty visiting that site!
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye I had a forum user who was a Buddhist in a monastery using a PS Vita. I still think about them.
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
@mhoye I'm reminded of a StackExchange question where someone was asking why USB 1.0 caught on so popularly when it was slower than a lot of cables at the time?
My comment in a thread back then was essentially "It reduced the amount of time someone was looking for the right cable to start the process, which meant they could take longer waiting on the end result, because they knew the cable and cable port would work.".
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"Your use case is, there's a fourteen year old in an emergency room at 3 AM. English is their second or maybe fourth language. They have a battered school Chromebook or a hand-me-down Android device that was the cheapest thing on the market six years ago or a PS Vita their parents don't even realize has a web browser, and they're trying to educate themselves in the middle of the single most terrifying night they've ever experienced. Your site needs to work for that person at that moment."
