Why would you want to contact Hazard Design? How nuts are you? Let's discuss that.


Hazard Website Mangling

FUTURE

Why we look good

The Hazard team is hugely inept at two things: complex Web-design theory, and graphical subtlety. That's the way we set it up to be, and that's the way we'll stay. We don't look great… but we look good.

And that's why you want us to work our dark magic for you.

We are brute-force hackers, and we are impatient Internet surfers. When we are out cruising the Net for interesting stuff, we get bored in less than 30 seconds. Unless there's some specific reason for us to load a certain site (in which case we'll wait for up to 8 minutes), we are likely to hit the 20-second mark, bookmark it for later… and probably never return. We're busy people.

That is also exactly what your customers (prospective and actual) are thinking.

And there you are, messing around, patronizing and stalling your customers. What do you think they're likely to do?


The Myth

Current Web-design wisdom holds the bizarre notion that everybody in the world is running at least a 1 mHz PC on dedicated DSL, and has access to an optimized T1 setup at work. They have either a 22-inch superflat monitor, or a 17-inch flatscreen. Therefore, every conceivable inch of Web space should be larded with Java animations, Flash movies, audio files, ultra-high-resolution illustrations, and so on, all in up-to-the-moment authoring language standards because those users have the newest versions of their OS and browser successfully loaded within days of release. "Thirty bitmap photographs per page? No problem!"


The Reality

The majority of Internet-active computer users gain access from a noisy dialup line, which commonly keeps their transfer rate below a 26,000 threshold, further reduced by bandwidth restrictions of their ISP to an effective per-hour rate barely scraping along at 10,000.

They are likely to be running a two-year-old version of their browser on a three-year-old computer loaded with the OS it had in the store, and won't upgrade their 13-inch monitor until it burns out.

A large minority are using variant systems: Macintosh, pine, Linux, Netscape, und also weiter, and many have disabled what graphics capabilities they have, because they don't particularly need most of the e-confetti that only further slows the effective transfer rate of what information they actually want to receive.

You've got one chance to impress. It's 15 seconds long.


Why you believe the Myth

You've bought that line of nonsense because your Web-design people—whether hired guns or in-house staff or your slacker nephew Bobby—know that HTML programming has gone in a decade from an arcane science to simple button-push technology. Those people need to dazzle you with the cutting edge in order to remind you that they're much smarter than you, and therefore you should support them in their playtime. Would you pay them thousands of dollars if you knew that their actual work could be measured in minutes?

And if anything in the previous paragraphs baffles you, then you likely have already been taken advantage of.


What about complicated stuff?

Oh, yeah: Hazard does detailed work, too—if that's what you really need. Or if you're willing to pay for it. (Fact is, you probably don't need CSS, XML, Flash, &c.… or even frame-pages.) But we're talking useful, not merely flashy.

The Hazard-created customer-response forms reflect the same high degree of ergonomic consideration that we bring to the rest of our work. Our "button boxes" vastly improve your connection with the customer. The "shopping carts" we create encourage purchases from one-shot customers & regular visitors, individuals & bulk buyers, because we know how they think.

The raft of Hazard associates includes incredible photographers, painters, & graphic artists, as well as a published novelist or two for your body copy. We will mention whatever opportunities we believe will help your project.


Smart people should hire Hazard

We promise: Hazard will not win you any awards. All we can offer is solid, simple, fast-loading sites that don't insult your customers. Oh, yes: and we won't cost you tons of cash or otherwise expect to be adopted.

Want a piece of us? Click here… if you dare.

Pleased to be a go to XYMASE Home pageAssociate venture.

Some graphical elements © 1998 SoftQuad Inc., used by permission. Design & content © 2003 by Hazard. Updated 01 Aug 2003.