[Sigia-l] RSS usage. Was Rant about bad IA practice.

[Skot Nelson]

On Oct-29-2006, at 06:41 , Stewart Dean wrote:

> The RSS has a lots of potential and uptake is rising.  I think my  
> original point is that for the average user it still remains a  
> confusing technology.  A lot has been done to try and make it  
> easier to understand but it's lead to a huge amount of small icons  
> appear in sites

I'm not sure that I agree that it "remains a confusing technology."  
RSS has a number of applications, many of them completely invisible.  
I think that to generalize RSS as a tool that is designed to allow  
"end users" or "consumers" to subscribe to feeds undersells the tool.

Nonetheless, Peter Bogaards Infodesign newletter pointed me to this  
article, and a comment from Jared Spool that on a superficial level  
at least supports your comments. I think it's only fair to note it.

http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000133.php
> According to Jared, shown in Figure 2, many RIAs (Rich Internet  
> Applications) suffer greatly from usability issues, but “we do not  
> know how to design for this!” he said. For example, lots of people  
> still have a hard time understanding the concept and usage of RSS  
> feeds. And what about the usability of APIs? Ultimately, the user  
> experience determines the success of Web 2.0 applications, not the  
> technologies themselves.
--
Skot Nelson
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http://www.penguinstorm.com/

skype. skot.nelson

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