On Nov 8, 11:03 pm, "Richard Quadling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 08/11/2007, RobG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Nov 8, 8:43 am, Kelvin Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi everyone, > > > > Just a quick post to let you know of a new prototype add-on that I've > > > created called LOAJAX. > > > > LOAJAX adds real browser feedback to Prototype's Ajax calls. > > > OK, you've got me. I don't see any difference regardless of browser, > > is that the point? > > Ha ha. Shall we tell him? > > Look at the browser spinner/throbber.
That pretty much sums it up - it's interesting technically, but does it deliver anything useful? UI design is not something that I claim to be an expert (or even competent) in. However, that's not going to stop me expressing an opinion. :-) The "page loading" indicator is different in each browser, generally it is somewhere at the top and toward the right (in some browsers, the extreme top right) which is about the last place users will look when a page is loading. They are generally concentrating either on the top left (where content will usually first appear) or on the spot they just interacted with (the submit button, the field they modified, whatever). So there is little point in using a subtle animation in a location that is unlikely to be noticed. There's a reason why most page load animations are set to occur right in the middle of the screen or window. :-) What is a user to make of the indication that a page is loading? Clearly that is inappropriate in some cases (e.g. type-ahead searches) but useful in others (clicking a button that is supposed to do something). So the fact that an interaction is occuring with the server is not what the user needs to know about, and it's another choice for programmers to decide which effect should be used for what action (and programmers are notoriously bad judges of that). Also, if what the user just did is important from a business process perspective, they need more feed back than "the page was loading... the page stoped loading... something", they need to be told explicitly "you just updated the foo record" or similar. I focus on the status bar since that has useful information (I use Safar). So while the page loading indicator is doing its thing at the top (and increasingly more to the right as tabs are added) my focus is at the other end of the window. My overall impression is that this is an interesting novelty that adds little to the user experience. But I may be mistaken about that. -- Rob --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Spinoffs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
