The most important metric in measuring a user interface is money. Page based systems where every action loads a new page costs money.
This is because every new page you require someone to load you loose approximately 50% of your audience. For most people, lots of page loads are painful. Now, you can argue that AJAX fixes that, but the problem is that building AJAX apps for most developers requires an enormous amount of work. And because the tools are not object oriented and, well really just not good, it is very difficult to implement. Now if your argument against flex and components is that you should keep the sharp tools from the children because they will hurt themselves I have to laugh. I have been dealt with several tool design upgrades in my life. And every time, there are people agressively arguing that "the old way is better". When desktop publishing came out, old school designers said it would hurt the industry because it would allow people to make "bad designs". Similarly, when GUI's came out, the command line people said the old way was better. The bottom line is that good design is still critical. But arguing that people cant understand tabs, windows, menus, and so we should stick with basic html designs is, to me, silly. To me, the web has regressed software design over the last 10 years. Our interface taste and skills have attrophied. The current state of app based web design is laughable. I guess my bottom line is that more powerful tools for the designer is never a bad thing. At the end of the day bad designers will be punished, and good designers will be rewarded. You cant blame the hammer, you must blame the carpenter. Regards Hank On 10/19/05, Andreas Rønning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You gotta understand my point of view here: I'm doing "customer support" > for my parents almost every week to get them around interface issues. I > know we're all very hip and young people here, but i sympathize very > much with the inexperienced end user. JS here and whatnot there, what > we're doing by leaping ahead instead of ambling ahead is leaving people > behind. I know for my sister, who is accustomed to a user interface not > necessarily breaking her computer if it isn't super obvious and has lots > more functionality, slight deviations from what she's used to is no big > deal, but my mom is deathly afraid of screwing up her computer. > > We have components that mimic desktop applications and that's fine and > all, but you're forgetting that a large percentage of end users don't > regularly use an extensive range of desktop applications. For my > parents, that's email, word and firefox for my mom and the same + > photoshop and form*Z for my dad. They are also mac users. Flash UI > components mimic a kind of general idea of what a typical UI looks like, > but deploying a UI on windows, mac and linux platforms with a general > similarity is not a step towards unification or whatever, it's more like > defining a new design paradigm for users to learn. > The perfect UI component should completely mimic the OS it runs on, and > if "Flex 5" generates interfaces based on OS UI components that not only > mimic but actually duplicates the native functionality of the OS the > application is executed on, it'd be a huge step in the right direction. > > I'm not a fan of designers that think they can do better than what has > been ingrained in culture through time. I'm not saying designs that stem > from Mosaiq are still the way to go with web browsers, but i'm saying > the end user has an understanding for that design that i don't think a > prospective UI designer should take lightly. > > A ton of mac users haven't touched Office. A ton of Windows users never > touched a tabbed interface. > I know we can't always go for the lowest common denominator, but taking > a firm stance in web browser UI design methodology is not a bad idea, > and this crazy fear of page reloads strikes me as somewhat illogical > from a usability point of view. > > You keep saying Flex delivers easy to comprehend content, but do you > base that in Macromedia's research or on your own? In my experience as a > designer, developer and end user, i haven't seen a single example of a > flash driven RIA that improved anything, not in usability, and not > visually (unless you count animation an improvement). > > When public trust in Flash grows and perhaps we see web browsers that > attempt new methods of navigation (if ever), and the general movement of > the web is moving in a "richer" direction, i'll be first in line. Until > then, i don't understand why such staples as web shop solutions (add to > shopping basket. Keep shopping / Proceed to checkout. What's not to > understand) need to be somehow rethought because someone thought a page > reload was scary, and wind up alienating more than it helps. > > Then again maybe (probably) i'm just tootin my horn for no reason. I'm > just worried we might forget the end user that didn't get it. > > - Andreas > > Stan Vassilev wrote: > > > Ajax mimics better web pages since it uses same technology (HTML) > > indeed, it's just about the only way it can go (unless you go to > > certain lengths to reinvent the GUI with CSS tricks and images). > > Flash doesn't need to mimic web pages since it can simply do better. > > > > It mimics full-blown desktop application interface, which is also > > something people are used to. We have buttons, checkboxes, scrollbars, > > progress bars. Can you say with a straight face this is incredibly > > hard for a casual user to grasp :)? > > > > And the accordion - it's something you can see in Office and plenty of > > other places, it's far from being new weird kind of component noone > > ever used. And further, we have tabs, windows, panels and what not, > > accordion is not forced on anyone. > > > > One of the reasons Macromedia got on the "components" bandwagon in > > first place was more consistent desktop-like experience. This was > > early in the V.1 framework when they were still experimenting but > > trying to bring some consistency to Flash interfaces instead of > > forcing Flash developers to reinvent the basic stuff as simple buttons > > with every SWF they make. > > > > Flex 2 Framework is advanced, consistent, performant framework which > > delivers easy to comprehend GUI targeted at business applications and > > widely deployed consumer applications. > > As such, it makes total sense to me. > > > > Not long time ago, the widely spread opinion by "experts" and alike > > was that JS is a terrible terrible way to use for any serious widely > > deployed app. > > It took Google and its JS gadgets to convince web application > > developers world-wide that *actually*, JS doesn't suck and maybe > > there's some value it can add to web apps. Now virtually any web > > e-mail provider one could care for rewrites their web mail app to use > > JS and "AJAX". > > > > Now Flash meets the same skepticism by some folks as JS before. When > > Flex 2 final is out and big companies start using it and show there's > > nothing bad in rich internet apps, this "fear" of Flash will go away > > just like it happened with JS in web apps. > > > > Regards, Stan Vassilev > > > >> I'm extremely jaded. I'm one of those guys that think Flash should > >> stay the hell away from what already works on the web and rather add > >> to it instead of restructure it. I think flash sites beyond the > >> conceptual (ie. the Donnie Darko site for instance) are so deeply and > >> profoundly annoying they're actually upsetting. In particular the > >> sites that simply emulate what's already doable online but with some > >> extra bells and whistles; ie the sites that don't even try to be > >> special. I'm sure there's an enormous market out there for Flex, but > >> i'm tempted to say ... > > > > ... > > _______________________________________________ > > Flashcoders mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders > > > _______________________________________________ > Flashcoders mailing list > [email protected] > http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders > _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list [email protected] http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
