I just read my latest issue of American Libraries Online Direct and found out that the ALA MidWinter Meeting Itinerary Planner and Messaging System is now up and ready for use. Only one problem … apparently this site is best viewed in Internet Explorer.
No librarians that I know use Internet Explorer … not unless they’re forced to by their IT staff … so why the heck isn’t this page optimized for Firefox?? Come on people!! Did we learn nothing from the huge security warning we got last week about Internet Explorer? It’s time to make the switch!!
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Since this particular service is outsourced, I can’t completely hate on ALA, or accuse them of FAIL. But still… a web site should be designed for fully functional use with a web browser, not with an extension of a platform.
Julian, I’m not really “hating on” ALA – just complaining that there are still sites like this out there – and that this one happens to be outsourced by librarians – there are other options out there
You must not know many librarians.
I belong to a local law librarian group of approximately 30 members. Almost all of us use IE, mainly because we work in corporate environments that require us to use IE. Plus most of our IT managers will not let us download anything without permission due for security purposes.
“No librarians that I know use Internet Explorer ”
OK, Karol already said it: You must not know many librarians.
Have you looked at your own usage numbers?
I’m delighted that, for the site I care most about, 28% of sessions are from Firefox–but 64% are from IE. And, just offhand, I’m guessing that 99% of those sessions are from librarians.
(Given that, I agree that it’s dumb to optimize a site for IE. Or for Firefox, for that matter, even though that’s what I use 90% of the time.)
The exact quote was “No librarians that I know use Internet Explorer … not unless they’re forced to by their IT staff.” Everyone I talk to who is using IE says they’d love to try Firefox, but they’re not allowed to.
[...] service, clearly this tool still isn’t what it should be. We got some valuable feedback from Nicole Engard and Jessamyn West that noted other concerns, such as a notice that the site recommends Internet [...]
Thanks for blogging about this, Nicole. We’ll be working on this (see trackback above).
You must not know many librarians!
[...] has been opened… and widely panned on the ALA Council email list and several library blogs (What I Learned Today… and librarian.net, as two [...]