Notes

Does it Really Matter to have Everything?



Media

I've already talked about how images can occupy a lot of space. However, when they are used for a reason and don't eat too many data points, they can be excused. However, what isn't always acceptable on web pages that are based on text are videos. I find it a bit annoying when I click on an intriguing headline on a news website and am redirected to a brief article that is accompanied by a clip from their morning show. It consumes too much bandwidth so I don't mind it. This is a valid point, but it's not the same as pages with no video.



I'm sure we've been on websites that had spinning globes or other high-definition picture at the top. We might have looked at it for a moment and thought, "Hey, that looks cool." But then we scrolled down to find what we were looking for. We didn't go there to view the background, but to consume the content on the site. Why should the background of a website take up exponentially more data that the content we are actually looking at? If the website wasn't well-designed it could be that your browser is continuously downloading the same six second clip. Ceglowski suggested that if a web page looks nice with images of President William Howard Taft rather than the other images or videos the designers would like to include, then they should include images of Taft instead.





Tablet Accsessability

I don’t believe in tablets. https://thewatr.net/ I don't use them in the same way as others. So I won’t spend a lot of time with them. However, they are great for a few people. When iPads were introduced to the market, websites began to evolve from simple and insignificant buttons were enlarged and styleized and of course, the most elegant buttons are the ones you use the least often. It's an unfortunate that I don't have a degree in web design, as creating websites that function on all kinds of hardware is difficult work.





Ads

Up until this point I've only mentioned things which lie wihin the developer's controll but once a webpage has ads on it, then there is no way for developers to know if the page they've spent hours creating and optimizing looks good and perform well. A rather standard 3 MB page could be loaded with an insipid 50 MB advertizement.



In his presentation, Ceglowski pulled up this graph that shows (based on the 2015 US average cost per byte of internet bandwith) an analysis of how much it costs for the user to access the ads in various sites vs. the actual content of those sites. It is evident that advertisements not only cause us to lose time and protect ourselves from computer viruses, but they also cost us money in internet bandwidth. Another reason to install an ad blocking program is YouTube.



I could complain for days about advertisements but I'm sure that we all do, so I won't bore you more.





Two paths

Ceglowski presented two screenshots of video games towards the end of his presentation.



Minecraft is a fairly basic game, and it's not a very pretty game, but it's an endlessly creative platform.



Call of Duty is continuously being developed to provide most stunning graphics and a thrilling gameplay. However they require more resources to run, and don't really stand out from other games in the genre.



We want the internet to look more like Minecraft. We want to see interesting and original things done with less, rather than the same kind of thing we're used to seeing done with more.





What should I do?

While I'm sure this won't make a big difference on the future internet however, it won't affect anyone else. We'll continue to be compelled to use bloated websites, but we should also be looking at ways to lessen the clutter in other areas of our lives. Does a built-in backup camera worth an extra $500 for a new car? It's not, but you're safer turning around to reverse. Is it worth paying $1.25 more to make a guacamole slurp in your burrito? You can buy an entire avacado in less. Is TV worth your time? You could be doing more productive activities with your life.


Homepage: https://thewatr.net/