This is all my personal opinion. User experience is inextricably linked to the technology choice.
By making a technology choice (XHTML 1.0/HTML 4.01/DRM/No DRM/WMP/Real/Ogg) you are enevitably going to piss off some people. There is no solution to which there is no potential criticism (dreadful double negative). Pretty much every choice is a compromise. Do you think that the hundreds of people working on iPlayer don't want their product to be used by the maximum amount of people? We really are going around in circles now! Yes we (me, and it seems most of the list) know DRM is evil. However - in this case DRM is enabling people to view the content and making it MORE accessible. Perhaps the industry will change and we'll see everything released more freely. Until such time we're stuck with it. Thousands (millions?) of people will download and enjoy iPlayer. All complaints are valid - which is why they are solicited. J -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland Sent: 13 February 2007 13:23 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? >Click and Torrents) On 09/02/07, Jason Cartwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > its deemed 'good enough' for the general public (the vast, vast > > > majority of which just want to watch Eastenders/Dragons > > > Den/whatever the next day). > > > > The vast, vast majority of the general public have no problems using > > the regular BBC website. But there is an "accessible" version. > > Why? > > It's a good argument - however using your logic then we shouldn't be > providing bbc.co.uk if we can't cater for 100% of the audience. No, I don't think what I said extends like that. The BBC provides an accessible version because doing what is deemed 'good enough' for the vast vast majority is not enough. Maybe the vast vast majority won't want to keep the files around more than a few days. Maybe not. But it is inherently evil to make that decision for us, and restrict us from keeping copies of files for ourselves, if we want to. It is also evil to restrict us from redistributing those files. It seems that Windows Media DRM is deemed unsuitable for iPlayer by the board of trustees because it can only be used by 75% of the audience, and therefore they will fund a homebrew cross platform DRM system that will work with OS X and GNU/Linux users. This has totally missed the point that DRM is evil, by conflating evil with inaccessible. > Truth is, bbc.co.uk doesn't cater for 100% of the audience - > compromises are made to make the user experience better for the > majority. We're talking about something more fundemental than UX design, I think :-) > For example, the XHTML homepage launch the other day - I wasn't > involved (someone around here will have been and will chime in), but I > bet when it changed some users got a page without CSS, or some other > problem. I also bet these users complained as bitterly as you are > about DRM. However, we all recognise the benefits of XHTML move right? Crummy migrations happen, but that they and DRM might be subject to criticism is all they have in common. > So, back to DRM and the "all or nothing" problem - compromises have to > be made ... and some people will complain. But are those complaints valid? Or will they just be ignored? > /accessiblity - looks like someone made a mistake. It happens. > To equate this to "Auntie doesn't care for minorities" is a little silly. Yes, it was a facetious comment for which I apologies; I guess I forgot for a moment I was dealing with the BBC, and what I was seeing was a temporary glitch and not that the accessible version had just been forgotten about and fallen apart, as is often the case... -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
