[thelist] Examples of excellent control panel usage

Marc Seyon seyon at delime.com
Wed Jun 12 18:23:02 CDT 2002


Message from Tom Dell'Aringa (6/12/2002 01:40 PM)

>--- David Ulevitch <davidu at everydns.net> wrote:
> > I am beginning to redesign the web frontend for my DNS service and I was
> > wondering if you all could do a coulple of things for me<snip>
>
>David, I bet you get a lot of responses from this, but having used some
>brutal control panels in
>the past I can at least say a couple things:
>
>1) Don't get cute with the design and implementation. I used one that was
>all in DHTML, and it loaded all kinds of wacky buttons and special menus
>and it took FOREVER - for a freaking CONTROL PANEL! It's a utility, not a
>webby award nominee - build it that way.

Agreeing with Tom here.

When surfing around for the latest music or movies or such, one probably
has some spare time, and doesn't mind a bit of a wait. However when you're
using a Control Panel, it suggests you need to get something done, FAST.

That said, if it's a tool that you would intend to be using continually,
for a fairly long period of time, you might be less likely to mind a bit of
a wait, if it made things more convenient in the long run.

For example, loading a stock market streamer, I don't mind the 2-minute
wait for a Java applet, that will deliver the real time quotes. Cause
chances are I'll be staring at it for a few hours on end.

regards.
-marc



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