[thelist] survey says...

Peter-Paul Koch gassinaumasis at hotmail.com
Sun Dec 29 07:28:01 CST 2002


[keith]

>>2. Web applications are different. But for most cases do NOT try to mimic
>>a windows applications. Users will expect to be in a browser and have the
>>back button work.
>
>I'd like to see someone put some stats to this knee-jerk generalization.
>Since it's a slow Saturday -
>
>The stats: 92% of all Win/IE5+ users select the Windows app interface as
>their default, 5% select the DHTML interface and 3% prefer the  vanilla web
>page interface. Of all users, 94% are Win/IE5+ users meaning that 6%  are
>non-Window OS or non-IE5+ browsers. That 6% uses the vanilla  interface.

Well well, this is interesting. I'd have guessed that most people would opt
for DHTML, too.

Can you provide a URL? I'd like to take a look myself.

>We found that the interface which competed least with our produce for
>attention was the most preferred. It also raised the question, do people
>actually prefer the "website" concept of hopping to different pages
>accessed through hypertext, or do they just tolerate pogo-sticking around a
>site because it's all they've ever seen?

Interesting question. It touches on "what you're used to is what you get"
(WYUTIWYG?).

Generally I think the most succesful interface is the one that most closely
resembles what users are used to (regardless of whether this interface is
actually the best you can invent).

People are used to websites and to applications, so you could use both
interfaces, as you do.

[sasha]

>I believe your questions are answered by reading Flash vs HTML >statistics.
>f given a choice between HTML and Flash versions, I believe >as much as 80%
>pick HTML.

Where did you get these numbers?

>But what type interface is out there that doesn't require a user to >learn
>how to navigate it?

None.

>Can a "Windows app" be bookmarked?  Or searched with a search engine?  >How
>"easy" it is to navigate becomes worthless if people can't find >your site.

Depends on the site. If I read Keith's concept correctly, the users would
only need to find the actual application. Maybe they can store their
preferences through cookies or something, which would help.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that for some sites bookmarking
specific pages (instead of the whole site) is less necessary than for
others.

>Who says a Windows app is even easy to navigate?  A "Windows app" would
>mean that it is built based on Windows (unless you're using the term
>"windows" genericly, instead of MS Windows), which is hardly intuitive, >so
>calling it "easy" becomes relative because it is something users are
>already familiar with after 7 years of brainwashing by Billy.

If you've got 7 years of experience with a certain interface it has become
intuitive, even if it wasn't intuitive when you started using it. So I don't
think this is an argument against app-interfaces.

[keith]

>Food for thought, the hypertext href link is today older than MSDOS was
>when Windows replaced it - when do we leave pogo-sticking href navigation
>behind us and go on to more useful designs? And, why would >we ever resist
>doing so? Imagine, if you can, how the web will work in >2010 and  you'll
>begin to realize the inadequacy that we regularly >force our visitors, and
>ourselves, to tolerate by clinging to our >current design paradigm.

Create a W3C-DOM interface that loads the correct XML files and displays
them (or the portions you want to see) in the way you want to view them.

--------------------------------------------------
ppk, freelance web developer
Interaction, copywriting, JavaScript, integration
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/
Column "Keep it Simple": http://www.digital-web.com/columns/keepitsimple/
Nieuw: Jaaroverzicht 2002
http://www.naarvoren.nl/artikel/jaaroverzicht_2002.html
--------------------------------------------------


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