"If you have any comments about our WEB page, you can either write us at the address shown above or e-mail us at berkshire@berkshirehathaway.com. However, due to the limited number of personnel in our corporate office, we are unable to provide a direct response."
I like the focus that the site implies, and that "limited number of personnel" implies.
Purple text for unvisited links (which are normally for visited links), and brighter red text for visited links (which should be less noticeable than unvisited links)?
No clear distinction between recent news, and more static, long-term content?
15 links which are completely undifferentiated, uncategorized, and have no visual cues as to how they are related, or their relative importance?
No links to the rest of the site from any content pages, so you're forced to use your back button to go to the home page, in order to go anywhere else?
Miniscule 10-px link descriptions? Badly designed small caps in the title? I could go on.
I share an appreciation for minimalist sites, but this site is horrendously designed. It is not designed well for its purpose at all -- in fact, an initial glance at it gives no indication whatsoever as to its purpose.
What you call "decoration" can go overboard, or simply be bad, but much of what non-designers naively assume is mere "decoration" is actually quite functional.
Only a company as financially successful as Berkshire Hathaway could get away with this non-existant branding. I doubt people would appreciate this spare design from a consumer level bank.
What do you mean non-existent branding? That simple plain style IS berkshire hathaway's brand. Read some of their annual reports. The website is a further extension of that focus. As are their offices and business style.
My dad lives far enough out that even the cable companies fear to go there - there just plain isn't enough money to run all those miles of wire. (If it weren't for rural electrification and good ol' socialism, I would have grown up by candlelight.)
He's got Verizon GPRS broad(ish)band now. Pushing for broadband penetration is missing the point; it might have made sense fifteen years ago, but now, wireless has leapfrogged it - just as it did for voice throughout the Third World, and for the same reasons.
If you're not from a rural area, I think it's difficult to comprehend just how many miles there are out there, and how few paying customers to foot the bill.
A more realistic goal for rural communications would be to have Congress re-subsidize daily postal delivery, to be honest.
Would that work? It's still copper... If by "high tension" you mean normal pole voltage, then yes, each house has its own transformer. At the road. Which itself is a non-trivial distance from my dad's house.
I've never heard of broadband over powerline. I'll bet there'd be some interest.
Broadband over powerline is like cold fusion, except without the exciting real-world prospects for success. It has been bandied about for decades now, tried on small scales a few times, and is always a few decades away from real use unless it is finally dead at this point.
I think I agree with you. Ubiquitous broadband-speed capable technologies like 4G will be the way to go. It's too expensive for most rural parts (most parts, period) of America to be laying down lines.
I recently visited a farm in rural Saskatchewan, a province of vast areas of farmland and only one million people residing within. Broadband was readily available even way out on the farm. For comparison, the only US state with a lower population density is Alaska.
I hale from rural Ontario and while our density is greater, we are still a long way away from urban centres. Here, they are working on rolling out fibre right to the farms. High speed DSL has been available for over a decade.
It really is difficult to comprehend that people are still using dialup.
There is no regulation that I am aware of, though the government did provide some assistance dollars a few years back. What is regulated is the price of access, which does make rural access challenging – being forced to sell your services at the same rate as those in the city.
In Ontario we had DSL access on the farms before the government programs were created, so there is room for a business to make it work. What is different in my area is that the customers own the telephone company, so that provides a good motivator to provide the services that customers want, even if it means lower profits at the end of the year.
Saskatchewan is not only flat enough for you to watch your dog run away for three days, but also to have long-range wireless broadband. My high school in Florida had that around 2000, but it's not practical around hills (like much of the rural US) and it's lower bandwidth than 4G iirc.
We live inside Ottawa's city limits (the capital for non-Canadians!) so could scarely be considered the middle of nowhere and yet don't have a hardwired broadband connection option.
Dad just got fiber connection in the middle of nowhere. (Thanks gov't).
But then he dropped it later and used his 3g connectiong on his cellphone. That tower is 4 miles away and he gets decent reception. At least it's good enough for him.
Very frustrating going home. They had great internet for awhile now. However, with the introduction of bandwidth limited plans, he may be back on the fiber connection soon.
BTW webpagetest.org can show you REAL 56k dialup waterfalls.
Another option might be to show users a link to the mobile version of your website. Many people who don't use cellphones wouldn't realize there is http://amazon.mobi for example.
I would think the biggest problem for dialup users is just large graphics/flash.
So just make sure the html and stylesheet shows up first by using deferred image loading and deferred external javascript by using a small javascript embedded right into the parent html.
Unfortunately with the reliance on jquery these days, many people have forgotten how to hand code small scripts like deferred image loading without large libraries.
Although this page isn't a very good example, the problem with the lack of any sort of broadband in large swaths of rural American is a real issue. You don't need to get far out of town before your options drop all the way down to dialup or expensive high-latency two-way satellite.
Cellular wireless is what most folks I know out in the boonies use, and that is a pretty frustrating experience with speeds and latency all over the place.
I recommended an iPad with 3G to a friend in Missouri and she loved it until a tornado came along and blew the local 3G tower away. She's still waiting for it to get rebuilt and has gone back to WebTV. Yes, it still exists.
23 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 42.6 ms ] threadLikewise, I think more designers should pay attention to this outline. We would be better served by less decoration and more content.
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
I like the focus that the site implies, and that "limited number of personnel" implies.
No clear distinction between recent news, and more static, long-term content?
15 links which are completely undifferentiated, uncategorized, and have no visual cues as to how they are related, or their relative importance?
No links to the rest of the site from any content pages, so you're forced to use your back button to go to the home page, in order to go anywhere else?
Miniscule 10-px link descriptions? Badly designed small caps in the title? I could go on.
I share an appreciation for minimalist sites, but this site is horrendously designed. It is not designed well for its purpose at all -- in fact, an initial glance at it gives no indication whatsoever as to its purpose.
What you call "decoration" can go overboard, or simply be bad, but much of what non-designers naively assume is mere "decoration" is actually quite functional.
He's got Verizon GPRS broad(ish)band now. Pushing for broadband penetration is missing the point; it might have made sense fifteen years ago, but now, wireless has leapfrogged it - just as it did for voice throughout the Third World, and for the same reasons.
If you're not from a rural area, I think it's difficult to comprehend just how many miles there are out there, and how few paying customers to foot the bill.
A more realistic goal for rural communications would be to have Congress re-subsidize daily postal delivery, to be honest.
I've never heard of broadband over powerline. I'll bet there'd be some interest.
I hale from rural Ontario and while our density is greater, we are still a long way away from urban centres. Here, they are working on rolling out fibre right to the farms. High speed DSL has been available for over a decade.
It really is difficult to comprehend that people are still using dialup.
In Ontario we had DSL access on the farms before the government programs were created, so there is room for a business to make it work. What is different in my area is that the customers own the telephone company, so that provides a good motivator to provide the services that customers want, even if it means lower profits at the end of the year.
We live inside Ottawa's city limits (the capital for non-Canadians!) so could scarely be considered the middle of nowhere and yet don't have a hardwired broadband connection option.
Dad just got fiber connection in the middle of nowhere. (Thanks gov't).
But then he dropped it later and used his 3g connectiong on his cellphone. That tower is 4 miles away and he gets decent reception. At least it's good enough for him.
Very frustrating going home. They had great internet for awhile now. However, with the introduction of bandwidth limited plans, he may be back on the fiber connection soon.
1. Use simple words of no more that seven letters.
2. Try to frame your points in terms of livestock and planting seasons.
3. A photo of an attractive sheep will help retain the user's interest.
4. Ask visitors to wipe their feet before entering your website.
Another option might be to show users a link to the mobile version of your website. Many people who don't use cellphones wouldn't realize there is http://amazon.mobi for example.
I would think the biggest problem for dialup users is just large graphics/flash.
So just make sure the html and stylesheet shows up first by using deferred image loading and deferred external javascript by using a small javascript embedded right into the parent html.
Unfortunately with the reliance on jquery these days, many people have forgotten how to hand code small scripts like deferred image loading without large libraries.
Cellular wireless is what most folks I know out in the boonies use, and that is a pretty frustrating experience with speeds and latency all over the place.
I recommended an iPad with 3G to a friend in Missouri and she loved it until a tornado came along and blew the local 3G tower away. She's still waiting for it to get rebuilt and has gone back to WebTV. Yes, it still exists.