April 2000
CHI-WEB: summary of the web apps special interest group from CHI 2000.
Taylor pointed out this chi-web post from jakob nielsen and I have absolutely no comment.
I’ve been trying to pin down a definition of “web applications.” What exactly makes something a web app? Is it that:
- it’s made out of web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? (SASH? Dreamweaver?)
- it speaks web protocols like HTTP or FTP? (Dreamweaver? Fetch?)
- it lives on the network? (an X server? Thinkfree?)
Or, is some combination necessary? Blogger, for example, is made of HTML, speaks FTP, and lives on the network, so I’m pretty sure it counts. Are two of three enough? (Or should I just leave it at “web pages that do stuff” and get on with my life?)
Taylor on non-business uses of the wireless future.. Right on! .. the inability/unwillingness to think beyond commerce and business uses drives me crazy. That’s why I refuse to adopt the “customer experience” meme.
Vincent is back: I had seen human factors international before and ignored it, but there’s some good stuff there, like 10 Web usability tips. He also pointed to Enabling Extremely Rapid Navigation…, which appears to be useful, although I’m not sure I agree that “Every Web Site Needs a Detailed Table of Contents” (obviously I wasn’t able to navigate this rapidly enough to figure out if it was worth reading ;)
I would like to have been at this talk on The design challenge of pervasive computing:
Perhaps we might think about the design of pervasive computing as a new kind of street theatre.
And now they’ve put up a full archive of Doors of Perception 7: FLow
The thing I find really interesting about all the silly culturual infatuations that get spread around the net is that they are the first baby words in a new literacy of graphics and animation. As a culture, we are beginning to communicate in motion graphics, which is, well, neat-o.
From Noise Between Stations, an Introduction to Pattern Languages for Technology Interaction Design (.doc file). A couple of interesting related links in the bibliography:
Designing interfaces for online apps, I keep thinking about the confusion between where the browser ends and the application begins (or between a site’s meta navigation links and its application functionality). How can designers convey the difference between a web page and a web application?
Well, I asked about popping open new windows with no controls on CHI-Web and got a thoughtful post in favor of new windows and a thoughtful argument against ‘em.
Here’s an article on designing navigation for web apps and one on the tension between web and desktop which I found on this list of information architecture resources, which was on eatonweb (via blah blah blah…).
Another old link: The Century’s Top 10 Interfaces.. imperfect, but what isn’t?
I recently noticed The Apartment. My first reaction was: neat, commerce done differently for once. Heh, and then I remembered placing.
I’m still hoping someone will create a beautiful commerce site that undoes all the damage boo.com did. And let me be the first to say that wallpaper ain’t even close.
OK, so I complained a lot while Macromedia was developing Dreamweaver Exchange because I really wanted them to cut the whole download/install step out and have it all run within Dreamweaver. But they’ve done an excellent, excellent job with it.
Scripting pointed to this SOAP—WebServices Resource Center.
Here’s a whole lot of thinkin’ about Designing Navigable Information Spaces. I found it on this MIT information architecture site (via Info Design)
I was just reminded (by rebecca) of Bryan Boyer’s Utilizing Hidden Information Spaces, which will come in handy when I start preparing for an upcoming talk on scripting the UI.
It’s amazing how quickly the net evolves.. While I liked the impulse behind A Standard for Site Organization, the specific suggestion (standard directory names for common site sections) seemed downright archaic to me: Why wouldn’t you just have a standard XML site-description file that pointed to site resources, a la deepleap? But then I noticed the article’s from 1998. It makes me want some sort of ambient date representation, like documents that start to generate a smell as they decay.
Client as server gives a good overview of emerging distributed networking apps like Gnutella, SETI@home, and Freenet. (via camworld)
This one’s for taylor: an XML-RPC capable spell-checker. Er, of course it’s still in beta.
Group think: I’ve been thinking about weblogs (like most people with weblogs), and I’ve been amused at how various links are passed around from log to log. (Think constructor or the Web economy bullshit generator). Obviously different weblogs have different purposes (and those change over time: I started antenna as a way to archive all the HCI and design links I saw on other weblogs but without all the chatty bs, but over time I’ve come to find it more useful to myself to add my own chatty bs because it helps me think things through). But why does every single weblog have to link to the same thing that we’ve all seen already? It’s downright wasteful.
Anyhow, I’m interested in how we can push weblogs somewhere closer to email or usenet (not all the way, but closer). I think blogger’s permanent links is an obvious step in this direction. This thread is a perfect example.. taylor has been talking about related things, such as interface culture as a tribe and the relationship between weblogs and usenet. If interface folks are a tribe, then where’s our agora? Maybe we need some kind of XML-based talking stick!
Basic Color and Design SBFAQ (“Should Be FAQ”). Some absolutely useful and interesting info (i.e. way more than you need to know about color).
Here’s a useful-looking overview of methods for involving users in the design process. (via tremendo)
Vincent also links to this paper on hypermedia navigation, which looks worth reading.
Apparently there is room for humor in human-computer interaction (gzipped postscript of all things.. if that sounds like a pain, here’s another bit on humor in HCI). I was really thinking more of formal definitions of the comedic form than just of humor when I wondered if there was room for comedy (or tragedy) in interface design. I guess what I’m really wondering is where a narrative arc would fit into an interface, especially a task-oriented interface. I can see the value of a beginning and end, but what about the part in the middle where you’re not really sure the hero will succeed? That is a key component of narrative pleasure, but I’m not so sure you want that feeling when you’re trying to finish a paper you’re writing or tallying up your taxes on April 14th. (Thanks to Vincent O’ Keeffe who pointed me to that first link.. I was tempted to keep his excellent interface-related weblog all to myself ;)
On a related note, I really need to read some more of Cliff Nass’ research on how people interact with computers just like they interact with other people.
Well, DeepLeap launched (which I only know because I spend too much time reading weblogs). I’m running it now and I can definitely see the usefulness of abstracting out frequent web-related tasks like printing or bookmarking, but I’m not sure how they’re going to get me to remember it’s there or check back to see if they’ve added or improved functionality.
Casbah—Open Source Application Framework.. umm, I thought Mozilla was an open source application framework. The funny thing is that Mozilla started as a browser and became a platform, and Casbah started as a content management system and became a platform. But we all know that platforms are only as good as their distribution. (via captain cursor).
An interesting paper, subtitled Knowledge Dynamics in Silicon Valley, explores why knowledge clusters (e.g. Silicon Valley) aren’t disappearing despite the rise of networking.
In my own work, I’ve definitely been getting the collaboration religion. The breakthroughs always seem to come when I’m talking to someone, whether it’s something they notice or just the act of describing the problem out loud. And that’s why I like to be around smart people.
Ooooh, taylor pointed to VizBang, which is working on a browser/editor for IAML (Information Architecture Markup Language). I slightly mistrust the VRML-ness of all this, but I am absolutely excited to see people starting to develop better tools for what I do than Visio.
I had a nice birthday yesterday, thanks for asking! I didn’t touch a computer, but I did think a bit about Brenda Laurel’s Computers as Theater. I’ve been finding it incredibly valuable to read stuff that approaches interface outside of a straight-up HCI context. Whether it’s architecture, gaming, comics, or theater, it forces me to step back from the mundane design decisions that I’m making (should the “Cancel” button go on the left or right of the “Continue” button) and think in a different and larger way about what I’m doing.
Anyhoo, I was reading the book, thinking about human-computer interaction in terms of narrative pleasure and I started seeing the interaction differently, with different sub-tasks as little scenes, with beginnings, middles, and ends, and with a need for the interface to move the action from scene to scene: “Congratulations, you’re now registered. Now you can do the following…” Cool.
So, now I’m wondering: is there a place for comedy in human-computer interaction? What about tragedy?
I wish I had been reading lemonyellow all along. I guess that’s what archives are for. I just stumbled on a thought-provoking post from last year about adaptive reuse on the web. It’s a really interesting application of architecture to interface design. I guess the barrier on the web is that (with obvious exceptions that prove the rule) visitors to web sites don’t live in them. Any changes made over time must be made by the original designers (or their descendents) who interpret and apply the needs of the people using the site. Of course, there’s lot’s of feedback to go on, but it’s a pretty long way from designing a new feature based on customer support email to knocking down a wall in your very own living room.
But, of course, the point was how do you design for modification. And is there a solution more satisfying than YA set of modular blocks? [sadly lemonyellow is no more]
If you’re not already reading Captain Cursor, you should be! More than anyone else I know, Taylor is able to synthesize design, engineering, and business strategy, all without forgetting the all-important audience out there behind the bright lights.
Though specialized, Gamasutra—The Art & Science of Making Games has several articles that are generally applicable to interface work and lots more that are just plain interesting. (via Robot Wisdom)
Drue Miller on information design basics. So what if it’s from early 1999? It’s still good!
So, I was looking at the finalists in the 5k web design contest. Most of them were a little disappointing because, even if they were extremely cute, they didn’t seem to have much of a point other than to be under 5k. On the other hand, a few were really remarkable, not so much for technical wizardry, but because the page authors clearly gave some thought to creating a meaningful web page.
On O’Reilly net, the first of a series on methods of retrieving data from backend applications.
I’m surprised I’ve never noticed these useful thoughts on user-centered design from peterme. Particularly easy to forget: You are not your user and There is no monolithic “user”.
Like cam, I found Joel on Software User Interface Design for Programmers full of both useful info and infuriating oversimplifications like “[UI programming is] straightforward because when you make a mistake, you immediately see it and can correct it.”
Any fan of Christopher Alexander will be intrigued by the Hypermedia Design Pattern Repository. This has a lot of potential, I think, but currently suffers from a lack of entries. Aside from quantity, the hard thing will be keeping structural integrity: Alexander’s A Pattern Language took about 10 years to pull together.
While I share a lot of the fears of this suck column on skins, I think a lot of good can come of them. First of all, it’s been noted that we are stuck in an imperfect UI paradigm, and I think it will be very hard for HCI professionals to break free without some pushing. Christina Aguillera skins notwithstanding, putting control of the entie UI in the hands of anyone with a text editor will certainly do some pushing on our notions of what is acceptable human-computer interaction. Second, by putting full control of the chrome in the hands of developers, XUL effectively does away with the browser as browser. Mozilla is a web-based application platform, and that is very interesting to me. Anything that gets me away from building every damn function on a site as a wizard-like loop is welcome at this point. The trouble is that (as usual) it’s not cross-platform.
OK, so, yeah, Microsoft’s disregard for web standards—simultaneously implementing new features and failing to implement standards such as DOM and CSS—is really, really crapulent. And there’s no way I’m gonna start using totally proprietary, non-degrading stuff like element behaviors, but shit some of what they’re doing is just way cool, like editable content (try it here with IE 5.5.). And, speaking of proprietary extensions, what about XUL? How is that so different?
Heh, I like the Windows International Word List. Now I know how to lament Amazon’s Scheda problem in Italian.
Also a lot of great links in the Information Architecture Guide maintained by Argus Associates.
Oh, and Jef Raskin’s site, which has a whole lot of wisdom. I’m really looking forward to reading The Humane Interface.
And, as long as I’m archiving old links: tim’s user interface guidelines.
An old, old link that I just found again: Interface Hall of Shame.
XML Data Islands, combined with XMLHttp is just plain rad! First the bad news: IE 5 only. The exciting, thing, though is that this is a big step away from page-based web applications (which suck) towards multi-state, single-page apps. The ability to manipulate data (including communication back and forth to the server) without switching pages means we can finally start moving beyond clunky wizard interfaces. But, well, did I mention that it’s MSIE 5 only.
As much as I want an alt.browser and pine for standards with teeth, part of me definitely respects Microsoft’s strategy of making IE so incredibly much better that people are forced to develop for its extensions. Basically they see the lack of adoption of proprietary extensions like Netscape’s <layer> tag as evidence of inferior design and implementation rather than as condemnation of the strategy of extending the browser beyond accepted standards. And, wow.. look at what they’ve built.
I tend to agree with taylor’s thoughts on Netscape 6. The summary: Mozilla has a lot of good stuff under the hood, such as XML and CSS/DOM standards-compliance, but the interface is some kind of sloppy anti-design that clutters the screen with AOL cruft which competes visually with the content. XUL is interesting, sure, but unless the page author can control them skins are not an interface design solution.
As Edd Dumbill points out, browser wars are back! Upcoming releases from Netscape and Microsoft. Yikes!
Richard I. Anderson’s Web Page on Overcoming [Organizational] Obstacles to User-Centered Design.
From uidesign.net, a proposal to the W3C: XML Document Navigation Language outlines a syntax for marking up data for navigation within a document (for teeny-tiny screens like cellphones and butter dishes). As the uidesign review of XDNL points out, this may work for static documents, but not as well for applications. (I also think we probably ought to avoid designing all our content-delivery tools for the crappy displays on today’s cellphones).
I think a big part of the trouble is that we’re trying to organize all types of data (including applications) in terms of documents. It’s that same old the-web-was-designed-for-physics-papers problem.
The California Department of Corrections has a new web site up! One of the most appealing things to me about culture hacking like this is that it changes what we normally think of as a one-way medium into a two (or three?) way interface.
Via peterme, The Elements of User Experience (PDF), a sweet chart exploring the tension between “Web as software interface” and “Web as hypertext system,” which also gives a nice theoretical map of the different types of work involved in user experience design. Thinking about the app-hypertext tension makes me think we, as users, have a lot of unlearning to do (e.g. unlearn that you have to be really careful before clicking on a link because it’ll take a long time to download the next page).
Mappa.Mundi: Demystifying Metadata.
Hidden in this Mapping Web Sites seminar outline are a whole lot of examples of different ways people have chosen to represent web sites, including several site-map research prototypes. It’s ironic that most “way new” site maps are more or less useless for navigation, although they are sometimes useful for other purposes such as measuring the size of different sections of a site.
Also from xblog, which rules, btw, The Usability Methods Toolbox. I haven’t read through it, but it looks like a nice overview of usability evaluation methodology (it seems not to include methods specific to usability design, such as use case modeling).
Just to prove I don’t have a one-track mind, here’s a description of user testing with a paper prototype. The one thing it doesn’t mention, which I think is one of the key benefits of paper prototypes, is that users evaluate them differently than they do HTML mockups. No one expects a paper prototype to resemble a finished design. With HTML, even if it’s all shades of grey and you explain that it’s not a finished design and it’s ugly and so on, people still focus a fair amount on the visual design.
With a link to the misery of web applications on tweney.com, Mark Hurst more or less ridicules the notion of web apps. I think both of them have some really good points (Yes, the internet is too slow). And I definitely appreciate the hype-deflating impulse, but I also think they’re being kinda reactionary. These are all soluble problems, so stop complaining and start solving! (God, did I just say that? I better go drink some Kava).
ps—one of the keys to all this is data storage for web apps.
It’s great when people do your work for you.. Captain Cursor linked to SOAP on a ZOPE, which, indeed, includes lots of good XML-RPC links. I actually don’t think it’s that hard to think of useful applications for this stuff (although they always seem to involve Yahoo calendar).. what I want to see is an explanation of how we’re going to convince companies whose sole business model is making money off their users’ data to open that data up to their competitors. In response to this question, Dave Winer suggested to me that non-web developers who had proprietary file formats back in the day probably said the same thing. But they were selling software, not the data itself. Am I missing something here? Or will users simply demand interoperability and force the market to deal with it.