Date:         Wed, 13 Jun 2001 11:12:37 +0200
Reply-To:     Dr Olaf Kruse <olaf.kruse@VST-GMBH.DE>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Dr Olaf Kruse <olaf.kruse@VST-GMBH.DE>
Subject:      OT: Re: Excessive use of PDF files
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

My two cents:

I don't second the warnings about excessive use of pdf-files, even
if the usability-argument ist right. In my experience, pdf-files are mainly
used to replace other file-types like *.dvi, *.ps or even worse
MS-Word/Excel/Powerpoint and _not_ html/Hypertext-files. An I rather
(down)-load a 200 KB pdf-file than a 1.000 KB MS-Word-file (or even
have this particular file not posted at all) and get the viewer for free!

And I really appreciate the same-look-on-every-device- and
no-manipulating-by-a-third-party-features of pdf-files !!

BTW: I was just wondering, how much is 300% less usability (-200% ?) ;-)


Cheers, Olaf


Karsten wrote:

>> The person writing the article stated that it makes the websites
>> usability about 300% worse.  This is not defined in the article and so
>> I do not know what this means.  Further, it appears the 300% (whatever
>> it means) is a complete guess.  There is no quantifiable data to back
>> it up, nor a framework of standards and definitions to give such a
>> statistic real meaning.
>
>Actually, the terms are described in the second paragraph of the
>article:
>
>    This is my rough estimate, based on watching users perform
>    similar tasks on a variety of sites that used either PDF or
>    regular Web pages....the number is big and reflects significant user
>    suffering in terms of increased task time and more frequent
>    failures.
>
>...that is, the metric is based on time to completion and success of
>tasks, carried out on PDF vs. HTML pages, in an admittedly informal
>environment.  A bounds for error is suggested:  280%-320% , if Neilsen
>has suffcient grounds to believe this is a reasonably solid number, it
>should bear up under independent verification.