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Lessons for uncultured web developers

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Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#91

Post by shrub »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #7

Good list, and interesting how at least half of the points are about localisation/internationalization. The date point was good I find that one very annoying. The easiest way to work it out on forums is usually to look at the previous post and see what number goes down (day). I didn't realise the mm/dd format was only officially used in two countries. I've never understood why it's use at all, it makes much more sens…

I think there should be a distinction made in this discussion between the technical use of dates for the purpose of storage, and display of dates for the end user.

Why don't we display dates as seconds since epoch? Because people don't recognize that format.

For technical purposes, use a date format with technical advantages (YYYYMMDD). For displaying the date for the user, format it so people can understand it (ex. January 10th, 2013) - and localize it if you have that information, or allow customization, or it all else fails, provide and explanation.

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#92

Post by RobAley »

robin_reala wrote: post #54
RobAley wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perhaps an odd case, because I work in academia in the area of government policy on health, but on a day-in day-out basis I see .nhs.uk, .gov.uk, .ac.uk, .org.uk and the occasional .mod.uk. As the parent of two toddlers, I'm starting to look at more and more .sch.uk and in my IT work I quite often see .net.uk and .nic.uk addresses.

The new UK Government site can be found at simply http://gov.uk

And its a big pile of pants. (N.b. I note from your CV that you work on "Development of large e-government" sites, so if it's one of yours, please don't take it personally!).

The search is fairly useless, it misses large chunks of Government services such as health and the military, and for those that it does cover it doesn't either a) go into much detail beyond generic overviews or b) provide easy to find links to more specific websites. E.g. I wanted to find out what local policing initiatives were happening in my area, so I went to the crime and justice -> police section, but there was no local information or links to my local police force. At the end of the day Google and the existing array of .uk sites I cited previously did the job marvellously.

Its also something of a red herring, as even if the enormous task of delivering what it promises is somehow achieved, the vast array of government agencies (all the way down to local government) are so disparate (particularly in relation to online presence and marketing) that they will not support it and will continue to promote their own websites directly, leaving it to fade into obscurity. Even Google and other automatic algorithms won't like it, because the more pertinent, local, definitive information won't be there.

The web works best as a decentralised, federated information store. Monolithic sites like these miss the point, miss the opportunity the web brings, and almost invariably fail to live up to the goals they set themselves. The fact they are usually over budget and over time is another side of the same coin...

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#93

Post by iandanforth »

While I agree that it's important to know about these considerations, I think it's equally valid to ignore them.

If I know my target audience I can properly support them. I can give them the best possible experience because I understand their needs and their assumptions. However, if I don't, then when I try and I will fail in embarrassing and sometimes infuriating ways.

I like to develop and design purposefully. I want to make something that may be available to all, but is tailored to perfection for a small group. This gives me a set of constraints and frees me from others. When I choose a locality I can ignore others and focus on the assumptions and ideal experience for that locality.

Obviously this doesn't work if you're more of a 'fishing' based company. You need to be just good enough for everyone that some group or another will bite and then you can focus on them while maintaining 'good enough' for everyone else.

The thing I'd hate to see is developers reading this article and wasting time on i18n and RTL support when they should be focusing on an exceptional experience for a user group they understand.

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#94

Post by gwillen »

grecy wrote: post #88
losvedir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's a silly ordering. What dialect of English do you speak? > September the Tenth Even this sounds a little funny to my ears. In American English people say almost exclusively "September Tenth" in that order without any prepositions.

> In American English people say almost exclusively As an Australian living in North America for seven years, my ears still daily pickup when the American dialect leaves out words. Examples that come to mind: "Two hundred three", "Write me", "September tenth"

> "Two hundred three"

I'd be curious to hear you elaborate on this one. In American school, I learned that 'two hundred three' is the only acceptable version, but in casual speech people invariably say 'two hundred and three', which sounds more natural.

Which one do you say?

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#95

Post by Macha »

mathieuh wrote: post #85
Tichy wrote: post #2

Why is nobody using the ISO format for dates? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 yyyy-mm-dd? Another benefit is that it sorts correctly in the file explorers (I used to name my photo folders like that...). Coming from a country where we typically do dd/mm I can never remember what the English standard is. I've taken to always writing the name of the month to be sure. Also, can the huge lead of the iPhone still be…

The iPhone were I currently live (Northern Ireland) seems to still have a massive grip on the market. I'm still in grammar school (high-school), and I can safely say that aside from a few Android phones and a lone Windows phone, out of ~150 people every single person in my year (17-18 y.o.) has an iPhone.

Yes, but how much of that is because a large amount of people in your age group (if they're anything like mine were) own second hand phones (whether purchased second hand or handed down from their parents). The iPhone was dominant overall around the time of the 3G/3GS, so there are a lot of second hand versions of these in the market, unlike early android ones like the G1 or HTC Hero. In fact, if NI is anything like the ROI, those early Android phones weren't even sold by the carriers. Also, they sucked. Android didn't function well until Froyo/Gingerbread (2.2/2.3) and didn't look good until ICS (4.0).

I'm only 1-2 years older than you, but I've noticed in my age group a huge swing from iPhones (or iPod Touch + dumbphone if you can't afford an iPhone or find a second hand one) to mid-range Android phones like the Galaxy Ace (which is probably the second most commonly owned phone among people I know, behind the iPhone 4) by people replacing iPhone 3Gs and 3GSes. The iPhone is still on top, but it's no longer dominant.

Also, for some reason I cannot fathom, a small group of blackberry users. Including one who traded in an iPhone 4 for one. I really don't see the appeal, but I guess some people just really like bbm + physical keyboards.

(Rough guess of the proportions among people I know is 50-55% iPhone (of which it's mostly 3GSes and 4's - the 4S is non-existent among my friends, which pretty much reinforces my theory that they're not buying new), 35-40% Android, 5% Blackberry, 5% dumbphones. I'm not aware of any WP users)

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#96

Post by Macha »

mediascreen wrote: post #37

Another problem is the address format. US sites that ship internationally almost always require a state field - something that's not a part of the address here in Sweden. For sites with lots of international customers it might be better to let them format the address since there are a lot of different formats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_(geography)

Also mandatory zip codes. I keep getting sites that won't let me submit a form without a zip code, even after I've deliberately chosen Ireland in the list and the page refreshed and replaced the state field with a county field. The latest case where this happened to me was creating an account on Sony's website for the Planetside 2 beta. I usually enter in na or n/a for that, but I've even had sites that attempt to validate the zip code according to US rules even after I've selected Ireland in the country box.

(For anyone wondering, post codes in Ireland don't exist outside Dublin, and even then they're a number from 1-24, which doesn't validate either)

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#99

Post by dbaupp »

gwillen wrote: post #94
grecy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In American English people say almost exclusively As an Australian living in North America for seven years, my ears still daily pickup when the American dialect leaves out words. Examples that come to mind: "Two hundred three", "Write me", "September tenth"

> "Two hundred three" I'd be curious to hear you elaborate on this one. In American school, I learned that 'two hundred three' is the only acceptable version, but in casual speech people invariably say 'two hundred and three', which sounds more natural. Which one do you say?

At least Australia and the UK correctly ( ;P ) use "two hundred and three".

There's a wealth of differences between British and American english: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_Bri... (Of particular relevance here is the numbers section.)

Re: Lessons for uncultured web developers

#100

Post by billswift »

eckyptang wrote: post #13
fredley wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with most internationalization problems, blame the British. We used this middle-endian format around the time we colonised North America (I guess it does kind of make sense when you're reading aloud). The USA standardised on it, whereas most of the rest of the world (including Britain) moved on to a more logical format. See also: power plugs. The British came up with a new British Standard plug seemingly every few…

Indeed. Even going 50 years back, we had different plugs for different parts of the UK. I remember my grandmother plugging stuff into her light fitting as well with an adapter. I'm sure stuff caught fire a lot then. Regarding dates, I think yyyy-mm-dd makes sense (big endian dates) as you can sort naturally.

I switched to yyyy-mm-dd for almost all my own records shortly after I learned about it when I started using Linux in 1996. Having any consistent format helps in searching, and as you pointed out this is the simplest to sort.
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