[IxDA Discuss] Interview with Google Chrome Team
For anyone interested in trying to revive the IxDA dead horse called Google Chrome, Steve Gillmor had an excellent interview with the product manager and UI developer. Lots of things we discussed here were talked about in the interview, confirming my thinking on where they are going. Gillmor's synopsis: http://tinyurl.com/5bv645 The audio of the interview: http://tinyurl.com/64bcbz Jared Jared M. Spool User Interface Engineering 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +1 978 327 5561 http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interview with Google Chrome Team
On Sep 6, 2008, at 4:59 PM, Jared Spool wrote: For anyone interested in trying to revive the IxDA dead horse called Google Chrome, Steve Gillmor had an excellent interview with the product manager and UI developer. Lots of things we discussed here were talked about in the interview, confirming my thinking on where they are going. They keep saying they want people to make cool web apps, but that they are still going to operate fundamentally as Web Browser #4, they'll be OpenSource and they'll follow web standards. I have to believe they are being honest. Nothing tells me they are trying to be devious here. So... The only way I think they can begin to believe that premise is that they also believe that an SDI application model is sufficient for everything that can be considered a web application. That Google Docs, Spreadsheet, Maps, and a whole host of certain kind of apps can be sustained in single window interfaces and be completely self- contained. That's where the breakdown occurs for me. Web apps currently work in an SDI mode, and a fairly limited SDI mode at that. You can't take over the keyboard interaction, you can't make floating palettes or slave windows that are aware of each other to pass data via a common pipe, and you can't do other things like use OS alerts, OS dialogs, etc. And web apps in that SDI model have to worry abut the address bar, the back button, and other browsing interactions resident inside a web browser that have nothing to do with more tool oriented application interactions. Given all of that, they are basically building Browser #4, and all innovation will stop there, or at least innovation done there will be done across the browsers, and nothing will be done for Chrome specifically. Their route is certainly legit (even Photoshop Lightroom works largely in an SDI conceptual model so that type of interface approach can certainly do a lot if the task at hand is reasonably specific), but in going this route, it will be clear that the RIA+ route of AIR will be very different, as the RIA+ route will head back towards more fully fleshed out little desktop applications. Who will win? Not sure I care. I don't pick sides in these sorts of things. I just design what I have to for whatever I'm asked to do it for. But there is a big difference between Chrome being Browser #4 and Chrome being a new application platform that happens to use OpenSource web technologies but plans on making a clean break from being a browser. As I'm sure you might have guessed... I wish they'd do the latter. If they did, we'd have a lot of choices going forward to make software: traditional web browser for more service like applications, richer web application platforms for more robust tool-like apps, RIA+ using proprietary tech for even more complex tool-like apps, and good old traditional desktop application built right on the OS itself to do whatever the heck you want. But Chrome in its current trajectory is clearly not going to help me with what we design anytime soon, as being Browser #4 will only mean for me that things will largely be faster. It won't solve the problems of trying to build multi-window, rich interaction based web applications that just happen to use a lot of web technologies at its base instead of a proprietary technology like Flex, et al. Ah well. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interview with Google Chrome Team
On Sep 6, 2008, at 9:33 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: That's where the breakdown occurs for me. Web apps currently work in an SDI mode, and a fairly limited SDI mode at that. You can't take over the keyboard interaction, you can't make floating palettes or slave windows that are aware of each other to pass data via a common pipe, and you can't do other things like use OS alerts, OS dialogs, etc. And web apps in that SDI model have to worry abut the address bar, the back button, and other browsing interactions resident inside a web browser that have nothing to do with more tool oriented application interactions. Yah, yah, yah. However... First: Gears could do those things and does some of them already. One of the things from the interview I found interesting was that Chrome is optimized for Gears, but Gears is also a middle-ware package for the other browsers. I think that's a fascinating strategy to make things work. Second: I'm betting that somewhere between 65% and 80% of the applications that are built today *could* operate in an SDI model. Granted, it's nice to have floating windows, but apps with those types of interaction modalities are fairly advanced. UPS, for example, doesn't need that kind of interaction model for their WorldShip app, which is sophisticated in functionality, but straight forward in terms of the demand on UI modalities. Even something as sophisticated as Salesforce can get away with an SDI model for 90% of what people try to do with it. (And Flash/Flex/AIR can provide the rest.) Not everyone builds a sophisticated tool for manipulating artwork. Many just build tools for manipulating customer data. But there is a big difference between Chrome being Browser #4 and Chrome being a new application platform that happens to use OpenSource web technologies but plans on making a clean break from being a browser. As I'm sure you might have guessed... I wish they'd do the latter. There's a third possibility, which is what I heard in the interview: Chrome is a stimulus for a competitive response by the other big browser producers. It came out that Sergei Brin/Google would consider Chrome a success if MS IE9 adopted the core components from the Chrome open source set. I think that's really where I think this is heading and why I'm excited about it. Jared Jared M. Spool User Interface Engineering 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +1 978 327 5561 http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interview with Google Chrome Team
On Sep 6, 2008, at 6:59 PM, Jared Spool wrote: Not everyone builds a sophisticated tool for manipulating artwork. Many just build tools for manipulating customer data. Agreed. Like I said... Photoshop Lightroom is largely an SDI model type of application, and it's pretty intense with the rich interaction model it follows inside the confines of SDI. If you haven't used it, go grab the 30 day trial download to see what I mean. But there are plenty of examples that aren't. Some light, some heavy. Instant Messenger applications are relatively light apps that work a ton better outside the SDI confines. The WebSketch product example would as well. Many industrial strength enterprise apps would benefit immensely from being web technology based but built outside the SDI confines. We also helped design an enterprise application for Agile Software (who were acquired by Oracle last year), which is a prime example of something that needed a multiple window environment. The application was a document management and project workflow product where you had to track thousands of parts that go into building physical products. We ended up having to do a lot of custom work to make it happen so windows could talk to each other). There a ton of enterprise level applications that are quite simply *begging* for such an development environment. There's a third possibility, which is what I heard in the interview: Chrome is a stimulus for a competitive response by the other big browser producers. It came out that Sergei Brin/Google would consider Chrome a success if MS IE9 adopted the core components from the Chrome open source set. I heard that too... but that doesn't change the browser paradigm, it only really makes it more robust at the tech level, which helps it somewhat at the interaction level, but not in the core mode it operates. In other words, an intense, interaction rich product like Lightroom could someday be built in that new platform with that more robust engine, but in the end, it's *still* SDI. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interview with Google Chrome Team
On Sep 6, 2008, at 8:41 PM, Daniel Szuc wrote: What if Chrome was simply a stepping stone towards a Google OS? What if some of the principles in the Google apps to date suggest not having to rely on the need for deeper functions? One trend is to be able to serve up applications that have a few key simple functions that people use more regularly with the ability to switch on more features as needed. What's interesting about the interview is that the product manager said that the reason there is no Mac or Linux version yet is that they've optimized the existing beta heavily to Windows. He also said that Android, which *is* a Google OS, isn't using Chrome for the same reason. They are using the same rendering engine, WebKit, but have different UIs and components because their OS environment is very different. I thought that was very interesting and telling about Google's view. Jared Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
