[thelist] What shall we do with the W3C DOM?

[David.Cantrell at Gunter.AF.mil]

>I think the problem you will run into is that building a effective
>and usable UI is done by somebody who knows what that should be,
>because they have training and experience in the field.

I know I'm coming in late in this conversation, but on this note I have to
chime in that we should take this blanket statement completely out of web
context and apply it to something else and see if the logic is still sound.

Windows comes with a very pleasant interface color scheme, IMO, because it
is designed to be unobtrusive. However, it gives you the ability to change
the color scheme to your liking. I don't know anyone who would say a bright
purple window with bright green content backgrounds and two-inch always-bold
fonts would be more usable, but I have known people who will only work that
way and set every system they touch to those specs.

I see a middle-ground here. The designers break their page up into "chunks"
such as masthead, toolbar, content, pull-quotes, footer, secondary
navigation, etc. Then they let users drag them around and change the colors
as desired. Designers could create pre-made themes the user could then
modify (I like this theme but want a different color heading, etc) and even
offer pre-made "grids" the users could use to drag their content around
inside to provide a framework within which the user could work (giving the
users confidence) while still maintaining some usability control (giving the
designers confidence).

Just my two cents.
-dave