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Content Tagged with Editorial + usability
Require Javascript for Contributions?
On the Stack Overflow blog, Jeff Attwood asks Is it OK to require JavaScript to participate?
Note that by “participate” I mean “edit, answer or ask a question”. Of course passively reading a question and the associated answers will work fine without JavaScript enabled.
...
While we do believe in progressive enhancement, it’s possible that some of the features we’re building for asking and editing may be so dynamic that they do not degrade well, if at all.What say you? Is it OK for a website in 2008 to require JavaScript for active (not passive) participation?
On a forum site like StackOverflow, is it an "enhancement" when you add a comment? Not really, which would make me lean towards keeping the site simple and not requiring Javascript for making basic contributions. There is also accessibility to consider (although "accessible" is not the same thing as "Javascript not required").
It could be argued that as a developer-focused website, Javascript can be assumed. But developers are also the most likely folks to go out of their way and turn Javascript off. And developers are also among the most critical of sites that require Javascript (or Flash) when it could have worked without it.
Predictions: Ajax in 2007
It's the time of year to be posting random predictions for 2007. Here are 2007 Ajax predictions from Dion and myself, please post your own in the comments.
Dion predicts:
- Ajax beats AJAX in all but bad newspapers.
- Someone tries to coin Ajax 2.0.
- A large amount of apps have flash AND ajax, and users don't know or care.
- Many frameworks consilidate or die.
- A widget api means componts can run on many frameworks using one api.
- Ajax wpf/e interop.
- Dashboards become front boards.
- More desktop apps get written with javascript.
Michael predicts:
- 2005 was the year that developers learned all about Ajax and by 2006 everyone else in the industry had caught up. In 2007, is is mainstream users who become acutely aware of the trend towards rich applications inside the browser, and discover that even word-processors and spreadsheets - along with a wide array of workplace applications - can be webified. At the same time, users remain oblivious - and rightly so - to the underlying technologies that power them.
- The boundaries of Ajax harden, with most developers gaining a clear understanding of what it can and can't do with modern browsers and managers in a better position to decide on application architecture (whether to use Ajax, Flash, desktop, etc.).
- More attention on Ajax accessibility due to some government report or court case.
- Google Office. Finally!
- Backlash against Google Office as managers learn that their data must be hosted externally in order to use it. Pressure from bloggers and some analysts to make an Office appliance that can live behind the firewall, but it's not happening in 2007.
- The advertising and media communities finally become aware that page view metrics are no longer the only way, but generally treat it as a problem and fail to see that the situation is actually better than before.
- Several fringe technologies heat up as developers notice they are already being used in some applications and learn how to apply them: HTTP Streaming (Comet), Virtual Workspace (Live Scrolling - never-ending scrollbars), Cross-Domain JSON (along with JSONP, JSON APIs, JSONRequest, and a general lack of awareness about the JSON security issues), Unique URLs (bookmarkability/back button), Lazy Registration (personalized functionality before formal signup). Comet in particular ... it may be 8 or 9 years old, but it's big news in 2007.
- Other fringe technologies grow, but remain, well, fringe. Such as Host-Proof Hosting and applications involving offline storage.
- With its excellent documentation and pattern language integration, the Yahoo UI library becomes the standard weapon of choice among mainstream developers seeking a pure Javascript framework. In the Java world, GWT makes great strides as the platform becomes richer and design patterns emerge.
- Mobile web development continues to suck.
- Javascript increasingly recognised as the world's most popular "second language" and becomes popular as a lingua franca to describe generic programming concepts. Several attempts at server-side Javascript frameworks.
- IE7 causes more than a few headaches.
- Firebug is installed by pretty much any developer using Firefox.
- CSS is back, baby! Echoing the recent mass adoption of Javascript, developers who previously had a fleeting familiarity with CSS now become fluent practitioners.
Best wishes for 2007, however you play your Ajax!
Is Converging Towards the Desktop Good?
Aza Raskin spoke at The Ajax Experience about the desktop being dead. The talk was entertaining, and he kindly posted his slides.
He has followed up the talk with a question: Is Converging Towards the Desktop Good? in which he takes the side of "No.".
He comes out against recreating windowing toolkits in JavaScript, and instead embracing the web-way, and thinking outside of the desktop box to come up with a more humane interface:
In 2004, Google chose to use one nascent technology, Ajax, to create an e-mail service: since there didn't exist any Ajax toolkits that allowed them to reduplicate the desktop on the web, they were constrained to think simply, "how can we work with Ajax and the web to make email humane?"
Their answer was something that was actually more humane than any desktop e-mail client already in existence. What's even more interesting is that traditional desktop developers had long been able to create an email client as humane as Gmail--but they never did, because UI toolkits made it so easy to create something that was familiar, that was the same, that was inhumane.
You cannot be better without being different.
The desktop-like web toolkits being developed today endanger innovation by entrenching us in familiarity of the past. We need to remember that there is something better than the desktop in many of today's web applications, and we need to carry this innovation with us as we move forward to create new tools and new interfaces.
Do you agree or disagree?
Web Design is 95% Typography
This is a touch off-topic, but important for those that want to build killer web applications :)
The iA folks have written a post on Web Design is 95% Typography (including a follow up part two).
95% of the information on the web is written language. It is only logical to say that a web designer should get good training in the main discipline of shaping written information, in other words: Typography.
95% may be a touch inflammatory of course, but I think there is an important point here.
I think that one of the reasons that Wordpress did so well is that they cared about the UI, and one of the major pieces of care was in the typography. As soon as WP came out, the default theme made Movable Type (of the time) look immature. It also had the now popular BIG FONTS.
Where usability gurus usually fail
- The text lines (measure) are too long.
- 100% scalable is not a reader friendly solution: Don’t make me think, ok, but don’t make me resize my window either.
- Lack of whitespace.
- Lack of active whitespace.
- Linespacing is too narrow.
- The text blocks are not well alined.
- Too many font sizes.
- Pictures are badly placed and disrupt the ease reading.
Before you go to bed tonight.... remember.... is your line-height set correctly!
(In a somewhat related note, if you are anal about fonts, there is a new Dina Programming Font)
“Don’t Waste Time” with Graphical Ajax Solutions
ZDNet's Ryan Stewart argues against performing interactive graphics with Ajax (i.e. standard web technologies). The article relates to my post on different techniques for graphics with Ajax (covered on Ajaxian).
Michael responds that the main argument against Flash is the user base, then goes on to list the plusses and minuses of "richer plugins".
You simply should not be trying to create a rich, graphical experience in Ajax. The options (SVG, Canvas, VML, ect) are buggy, supported in different ways depending on the browser, and, for the most part, are a poor experience for both users and developers.
The kind of rich interactivity that Flash and Windows Presentation Foundation provide are going to be leaps and bounds ahead of what any browser technology can do, and that's why they will succeed. The web becomes richer every day. Video and Music are taking the web by storm, and with the surge in broadband adoption, people are making these things part of their every day web experience. Ajax applications can't take advantage of them in the way the Flash or WPF can.
Flash (more generally, Richer Plugins) was actualy one of the graphics techniques mentioned in the original article. It's all about trade-offs. I've actually argued myself that Ajax developers ought to take Flash more seriously, as it's an excellent complement to Ajax. Flash sometimes makes a nice sweet spot - with graphics and multimedia closer to that of the desktop than standard DHTML/Ajax, but still living in a web platform that's often more convenient than the desktop. The two monster apps of the past 12-18 months, YouTube and MySpace, demonstrate the power of Flash and multimedia on the web.
The benefits of Flash over Ajax are self-evident and undeniable, but Flash comes with its own set of problems too - not every user has Flash installed, not every user has the latest version, not every network allows Flash applications to run, not every developer and company wants to commit to proprietary technology when viable alternatives are available. Ajax apps tend to be easier to degrade gracefully as well; Flash is more all-or-none.
What if I want to introduce a histogram to an Ajax enterprise app? I'll happily use a DOM/CSS library like CSS Graphs. Or if I'm writing a Firefox extension, I might use a data: resource to create a whimpy graphic since I no longer care about portability or even extravagant display. Maybe I want a 16x16 heatmap next to each search result - I'll draw it with a Canvas and keep all the search results in standard HTML. And so on. See? Competent developers don't engage in dogmatic battles, because they know software is all about trade-offs. Many times, Flash wins. Many times, it loses.
Last word goes to Ryan:
Don't waste time trying to build the next generation of the web with graphical Ajax solutions ... you already have a solution, and it's getting more robust by the day. As your web applications start to require a more rich environment, embrace Rich Internet Applications - you'll be better off.
Ask.com’s Binoculars - Help or Hinderance?
With search engines pushing more and more to find that next great feature, you never know what they'll come up with. When Ask.com decided to shake things up and rework their site, they included "handy binocular functionality" to show a preview of the site. Unfortunately, as is talked about in this new article on SpectorBrain.com, this might not be exactly what web developers had in mind.
One such feature, named “Binoculars“, allows the user to see a site preview by rolling over a, you guessed it, binocular icon. With the help of AJAX technology, this thumbnail image appears without refreshing the page. While it’s obviously a cool feature that’s intended set Ask.com apart from the competition, there are some usability and design issues that should be addressed.
I’m sorry to have to break it to all of my fellow web designers out there, but this pixilated 246×260 screenshot is now part of the user’s decision-making process. This also means that it should be part of our design process.
He continues on in the article talking about a few ways to help work with this feature and make a site all that it can be (or at least look that way). The four suggestions are:
- Visual Emphasis of Site
- Inaccurate Previews
- Product Treatment
- Behavioral Interruption
Since it's not pulled in real-time from the page itself, there's a little less a developer can do to control the thumbnail that's posted, but by having a well-designed site some of those concerns can be alleviated.
But what I really want to know is how are they taking the screen shots of the sites? Can anyone tell what browser/rendering engine it might be using? Does it show Ajax content in the shot or does it just leave that section blank?
Ask.com’s Binoculars - Help or Hinderace?
With search engines pushing more and more to find that next great feature, you never know what they’ll come up with. When Ask.com decided to shake things up and rework their site, they included “handy binocular functionality” to show a preview of the site. Unfortunately, as is talked about in this new article on SpectorBrain.com, this might not be exactly what web developers had in mind.
One such feature, named “Binoculars“, allows the user to see a site preview by rolling over a, you guessed it, binocular icon. With the help of AJAX technology, this thumbnail image appears without refreshing the page. While it’s obviously a cool feature that’s intended set Ask.com apart from the competition, there are some usability and design issues that should be addressed.
I’m sorry to have to break it to all of my fellow web designers out there, but this pixilated 246×260 screenshot is now part of the user’s decision-making process. This also means that it should be part of our design process.
He continues on in the article talking about a few ways to help work with this feature and make a site all that it can be (or at least look that way). The four suggestions are:
- Visual Emphasis of Site
- Inaccurate Previews
- Product Treatment
- Behavioral Interruption
Since it’s not pulled in real-time from the page itself, there’s a little less a developer can do to control the thumbnail that’s posted, but by having a well-designed site some of those concerns can be alleviated.
But what I really want to know is how are they taking the screen shots of the sites? Can anyone tell what browser/rendering engine it might be using? Does it show Ajax content in the shot or does it just leave that section blank?