James Bennett wrote:
On 11/17/05, Patrick H. Lauke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Linking back to my philosophical question at the beginning: is web
development a subset of software development, or is it - for lack of a
better term - the development of an "experience". A related point from
that: should web applications (functional, intranet-type apps) still
have their own "feel" or integrate seamlessly (from a visual standpoint)
with the OS?
I think part of the problem here is that, despite any wishes we might
have to the contrary, web browsers don't consistently "integrate" with
the look and feel of the OS. Internet Explorer uses Windows' form
controls, yes, and Safari uses the Mac OS' controls, but (for example)
Gecko-based browsers have their own set which, while reminiscent of
older versions of Windows, really isn't native to anything. And
despite much progress on the OS-integration front, Firefox still
doesn't really feel like a "native" application on any platform. Opera
occasionally has the same problem; here on Linux, even though it uses
the Qt toolkit (or did last time I checked), it doesn't use the
default Qt widgets for form controls.
That's an absolutely spot on observation, and it does impact the user
experience. Some applications style the look and feel of various system
resources by compiling their own resource design into their own
application, rather than purely passing it to the OS.
And even if there were perfect consistency of browser form widgets
with OS widgets, we would still be stuck with a fundamental problem:
web applications, by definition, run in web pages, and no OS in
widespread use has an application paradigm which matches that of web
pages. So despite consistency of the widgets used for certain parts of
web applications with widgets used in certain parts of "traditional"
applications, we would still be working in a fundamentally different
medium. And I think that web users, on the whole, have come to
understand and expect that things on the web "work differently" from
the other applications they use, so striving to be "as much like the
OS as possible" would be a futile and counterproductive task.
But the web developer still has to keep in mind that their application
is being rendered on multiple devices for which they do not know how
each are configured. Also, there are units of measure and design
implementations that these device will be able to translate directly to
suit the display of these devices, and there are others that will
clash. If nothing else, WCAG is a very good basic check list to help
the designer avoid many pitfalls. It can only help to be mindful of
these things while designing.
Which, I guess, leads us to the latter of your two options; as I see
it, a web application ought to have a simple, intuitable interface (or
"experience") which is consistent within that application, because
ultimately that is all the "control" the web application's designer
will ever have. This does not mean that conflicts with widespread OS
interface conventions should not be avoided when possible, but it does
mean that consistency with the OS interface should not be valued more
highly than consistency, simplicity or intuitability within the web
application.
Yes. This is probably so important it is an issue the both UAAG and
WaSP should drive home to user agent developers.
-----------------
Geoff Deering
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