[CLUE-Talk] PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption

[Jeffery Cann]

On Tuesday 15 July 2003 08:36 am, Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> The web is primarily about information, not image. 

Tim - take off your linux guru hat and put on the hat of CEO of Coke or 
Proctor and Gamble or some other huge (non technology) company before you 
read the rest of this reply.... :)

Probably, I wasn't clear enough with my point, so here it is:

	Early web technology failed some needs of business users.  So they
	turned to hybrid technology like PDF and Flash to solve those needs.
	
	Unlike technologists who love the information aspect of the web, they
	business users see it as a tool - nothing more than a hammer.  So, 
	imagine their surprise then their shiny new hammer (e.g., a website)
	acts and looks differently depending on who's using it.

Here's an example:

marketing guy:  Bob, I just upgraded to the new IE.  Our website looks bad.  
What's the deal?
(Bob) tech guy:  well, IE does some funny things with HTML tables and it 
*still* doesn't support all of the CSS 2 features and if you just use Mozilla 
like I suggested ...
marketing guy (cutting in):  I don't care!  Our customers use IE, not Mozilla.  
Do you understand how important consistency of our image is to our business?  
We need to figure this out now!

Adobe listened to these problems 8 years ago and provided *one solution*.

Now, from a usability perspective, PDF (we all can agree) is not as good as 
HTML - this is why it's not HTML.  But, from a business person's 
(specifically advertising, marketing) it solves a number of problems.

> However, if one is using the web, and one thinks that the exact
> placement of one's company logo on the screen, and the exact font, and
> the exact ... are required to protect your company image, then I would
> say that one does not grok the web. 

You're beeing too technophilic.  Business people don't care about grok'ing the 
web.  They don't even know what grok means.  All they know is the sales guy 
can sell more of their crap if they have a consistent image -- regardless of 
the medium.

You should talk with some graphics or marketing folks to see just how much 
they do care about image.  The careers of a slew of people are spent shifting 
things around pixel by pixel.  They care utterly and completely about where 
their logo displays on all of their company's literature.

The fact that digital technology (especially web technology) does not *easily* 
enable them to reach this goal is not their problem.  It's the problem of 
technologists.

> Even *with* CSS, such ideas are an illusion.

In a nutshell, this is the problem from the business users point of view.   
Why can't they be consistent across platforms?  They can, but certain 
contingencies (and failures of standards) prevent this *business* goal.

Later,
Jeff

-- 
"Keep yourselves far from every form of exaggerated nationalism, racism and 
intolerance."
-- Pope John Paul II