[thelist] What makes a good web site?

Luther, Ron Ron.Luther at hp.com
Wed Oct 18 15:17:14 CDT 2006


alan herrell noted that [many || most] web experiences are linear in
nature ...

>>Tabbed Browsing is for geeks. Nobody else cares.......

>>Most folks, I have found, work sequentially, rather than multi task,
especially on the web.


Hi Alan,

Good point.  And I would agree that for folks looking for a good price
on a new digital 
camera, or researching a medical condition, or checking up on their
local sports 
team, or any one of a bazillion other very common activities the
sequential model 
holds: check one site for information, if good -> continue, else (or
when done) try 
another site ... and is, therefore, probably a very good generalization.

Looks like I inadvisably projected my own small area of expertise.  An
easy mistake 
to make.  I was working in IntraNet reporting.  Some of our reports were
very large 
and would take a long time to execute and return results to the user.
Our users 
(and I) quickly learned to multi-task, (reading email / opening another
browser 
window to read the news / etc.), while waiting for the results we needed
in order 
to continue our sequential work-path.  [When you _know_ that SQL
statement you 
just kicked off is going to take 20 minutes to complete that full table
scan 
you requested, you _will_ find other things to do while you wait.]  It's
probably 
more akin to reading a magazine in the dentist's waiting room than
actual multi-tasking.


RonL.

[Hi Norman!  Yeah, I remember MBWA!  I used to keep a xerox copy of a
'Management 
By Walking Around" article in a three ring binder on my desk ... a
looooong time ago.]



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