The article has a lot of extreme generalizations, one of which is that the browser is better than a full-featured user interface because it's easier to use.
It was so wonderful when the browser interfaces came on; the vendors had to discard all those stupid sliders and cascaded menus and eight-way toggles, and only leave the stuff that mattered.
There are badly designed GUI apps, but there are also badly designed web pages, and badly designed web interfaces. I teach at a school that uses a browser-based system for entering grades, scheduling classes, etc. The interface sucks, because it's slow and unresponsive, and you have to click through many web pages in a row in order to get where you want.
There's also a problem with saying web==open. A lot of web applications use proprietary extensions, like Flash. Actually, one of the coolest web apps I've seen recently is a Flash video game on a Harry Potter web site.
Web browsers are optimized for "e-brochures", but not forms, at least not beyond the trivial. The biggest problem is that HTML forms want to refresh/redraw the entire page just to change something minor. Getting around this creates tangled, proprietary JavaScript. Lacking is also decent grid and tree widgets. There is a huge need for a decent GUI-over-HTTP protocol in the B-to-B world. HTML forms just don't cut it. If a decent open GUI protocol is not adopted, then people will demand developers use Microsof
There's also a problem with the fact that HTTP is a stateless protocol, and all the ways of making browser+HTTP stateful (cookies,...) are kind of kludgy and tend to confuse the user. For example, it's not always obvious even to sophisticated users when it's possible to hit the back button and when it's not -- people are always afraid they're going to buy a second airplane ticket by accident if they back up to the page where they bought one. The mechanisms browsers use for preserving state were not really d
For example, it's not always obvious even to sophisticated users when it's possible to hit the back button and when it's not -- people are always afraid they're going to buy a second airplane ticket by accident if they back up to the page where they bought one.
Perhapse the interface should provide a way for the user to go back to a previous point without the use of the back-button. The last time I used an online ticket service, it did.
There's also a problem with saying web==open. A lot of web applications use proprietary extensions, like Flash. Actually, one of the coolest web apps I've seen recently is a Flash video game on a Harry Potter web site.
Is this game a "web application" or a "flash application"? I've come to realize that a lot of what people refer to as "web applications" are really Java apps, Internet Explorer apps, Flash apps, etc. They're not web apps.
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
browser uber alles (Score:5, Insightful)
It was so wonderful when the browser interfaces came on; the vendors had to discard all those stupid sliders and cascaded menus and eight-way toggles, and only leave the stuff that mattered.
There are badly designed GUI apps, but there are also badly designed web pages, and badly designed web interfaces. I teach at a school that uses a browser-based system for entering grades, scheduling classes, etc. The interface sucks, because it's slow and unresponsive, and you have to click through many web pages in a row in order to get where you want.
There's also a problem with saying web==open. A lot of web applications use proprietary extensions, like Flash. Actually, one of the coolest web apps I've seen recently is a Flash video game on a Harry Potter web site.
Re:browser uber alles (Score:1)
Re:browser uber alles (Score:1)
Re:browser uber alles (Score:2)
Perhapse the interface should provide a way for the user to go back to a previous point without the use of the back-button. The last time I used an online ticket service, it did.
Re:browser uber alles (Score:2)
Is this game a "web application" or a "flash application"? I've come to realize that a lot of what people refer to as "web applications" are really Java apps, Internet Explorer apps, Flash apps, etc. They're not web apps.