[Sigia-l] "Standard" interfaces? (was: DHTML Menus and Usability)

[Steven Champeon]

on Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 09:05:31AM -0700, David Heller wrote:
> I think this is the difference between web site design and web
> application design. When I say application, I mean building a tool that
> will be resold over and over again, as opposed to an application that is
> single purpose like a stock trading site.

I'm not sure I understand the difference. I use the term 'application'
in a variety of sense, but reserve 'utility' or 'tool' for software that
does one thing in a specialized manner. Things can evolve from a tool to
a utility and even to an application if the protocol and suite of
possible interactions/functionality is large enough, though. 

I remember reacting negatively to the idea of a browser incorporating
ftp and email and news, for instance, because in general it meant that
all of the good tools I'd been using (e.g., Fetch, Anarchie, the Mac
Gopher client, Eudora, and Newswatcher) were being replaced by poor
implementations whose sole "benefit" was their integration with the
browser.

Anyway, let me derail the discussion a bit.

Taken from the standpoint of a question about UIs and usability and the
achievement of perfection - there seem to be two different camps:

 - some software UIs are more intuitive than others, therefore there
   is a "best", or ideal UI (think of this as the Platonic view)
 - all software UIs are learned, and idiomatic, and some are more
   easily learned than others (think of this as the Aristotlean view)

I tend to fall into the second group of adherents, which saves me a lot
of time I would have spent arguing over first principles or paradigms or
how closely one implementation hews to the scripture published by one
proponent of a particular paradigm or another. Instead, we can focus on
how quickly the elements are learned, and whether they make sense to a
new user, and how they may be improved.

The net effect of this approach is that we can improve UI usability
iteratively, instead of waiting for the sudden and potentially
disruptive introduction/adoption of a new UI paradigm.

But then, I use a terminal for about half of my interaction with the Net,
so my opinions are probably suspect.

Cheers,
Steve

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