3 ms·

> I tend to agree that all the SPA hype and all the additional levels of abstraction on top of HTML+JS+CSS need to go in favour of lightweight readable dead-sim

> I tend to agree that all the SPA hype and all the additional levels of abstraction on top of HTML+JS+CSS need to go in favour of lightweight readable dead-simple sites, this is what the web is meant for in the end. For apps we have apps. I kind of disagree. The web is no longer about a single consistent form of content. You have sites. And you have web apps. They are not the same thing. When people ask me what I do for a living, I say, "I write web apps." They often say, "oh, cool, I've been looking for a web designer." I say, "no, I don't really do web design for web sites, I build software applications that run on a web page." So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. But that doesn't mean one should disappear. That's up to designers to understand, not really for users to understand.

scandox 9y ago
This is a true description of the current situation. Question is: is it a good situation? I feel like the web is a really poor paradigm for many apps. Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. Which is grand for the public but I think really backwards inside organisations.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. There is definitely a danger of "dumbing down" our software too much, but for most purposes I think it is orthogonal to the technology used. I suspect mobile apps have done far more to dumb down software than the evolution of the web in recent years, for example. Part of the problem is that good tools to develop more powerful, flexible software haven't been available on some of these platforms. For example, JavaScript only discovered modular design relatively recently, and even today its community is still fighting early battles like how to manage dependencies and how to build larger projects efficiently. The tools are decades behind the curve compared to how we make desktop, server and embedded software. Another part of the problem is that a lot of the people developing web and mobile apps are relatively unskilled and inexperienced, either having never worked outside that part of the software industry or having moved into it from a less technical role like graphic design or marketing. They don't even realise how far behind the curve their tools are, because they wouldn't recognise or know how to use more powerful tools if they had them. There's also the non-problem that for many purposes, dumbed down software does the job just fine. A great deal of useful, real world work does not require massive business software suites, bought for staggering sums of money from big name suppliers. If there's one thing we've learned from the software success stories of recent years, it's that very often the information you're working with is relatively simple, and the abilities to organise it and to communicate about it with the right people in a convenient way are worth a lot. There's nothing wrong with providing those abilities to new users in a simple way that does not require extensive training; in fact, it's highly desirable to do so.
- tylerjwilk00 9y ago
  I think the situation we are in with the web proves that the distribution system with the lowest friction and that allows points of friction to be smoothed out in iterations over time will win.
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    But the friction in Web apps is not smoothed out. It only becomes worse. More and more megabytes of JS that nobody knows the purpose of -- or if they do, they are bummed as to why must they be 1.5 MB minified. Also, HTTP 2.0 fell victim to too much pressure for backwards compatibility. Things aren't improving.
- fpig 9y ago
  I agree, but IMO that is a people problem, not a platform problem. I'd say there are 2 often conflicting goals in UX: 1. Make something as intuitive and easy to use as possible for someone seeing it for the first time 2. Make something as efficient as possible for someone who knows how to use it Now, common sense says that #1 is more important when it's a mass consumer app that many users will spend little time on. And it also says that #2 is more important when it's an app that does "work" that users will actually spend countless hours working in. The problem is that #1 is often pushed too hard by managers, salespeople and designers (especially designers with mainly web or mobile experience) even when your use case requires #2. This is because they want to make a good first impression when they show the app to potential customers, especially when the app is new and without an established user base. "Look how I can do this in 3 clicks, the app guides you through it!" And it is often because they simply don't know better and they're just parroting what they're used to. It is not an inherent problem with the platform. As an example, MS has Office on the web and they didn't create a dumbed down UI for it.
yaseer 9y ago
I can completely empathise with this, and the distinction between website vs web-app doesn't seem to be clearly defined for most people, outside of software. I often find myself explaining the difference using Google Docs, vs BBC News to illustrate the distinction.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dyarosla 9y ago
In reality there are also two kinds of end users. Those who want websites to perform like apps and those that want them to be focused on readability and (mostly text) content only. Website owners/designers/what have you must figure out which of the audiences to appeal to, if not both at once.
Silhouette 9y ago
So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. I respectfully disagree. There's a spectrum here, and there's no reason you shouldn't have a site that has some relatively static parts that are purely about providing information and other more interactive parts that work more like an app, if that is what the purpose of the site calls for.

scandox 9y ago

This is a true description of the current situation. Question is: is it a good situation? I feel like the web is a really poor paradigm for many apps. Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. Which is grand for the public but I think really backwards inside organisations.

Silhouette 9y ago
Especially business apps where users can be trained to use a more complex but more efficient interface. The web drives us all to create "universal" style applications that anyone can use more or less without training. There is definitely a danger of "dumbing down" our software too much, but for most purposes I think it is orthogonal to the technology used. I suspect mobile apps have done far more to dumb down software than the evolution of the web in recent years, for example. Part of the problem is that good tools to develop more powerful, flexible software haven't been available on some of these platforms. For example, JavaScript only discovered modular design relatively recently, and even today its community is still fighting early battles like how to manage dependencies and how to build larger projects efficiently. The tools are decades behind the curve compared to how we make desktop, server and embedded software. Another part of the problem is that a lot of the people developing web and mobile apps are relatively unskilled and inexperienced, either having never worked outside that part of the software industry or having moved into it from a less technical role like graphic design or marketing. They don't even realise how far behind the curve their tools are, because they wouldn't recognise or know how to use more powerful tools if they had them. There's also the non-problem that for many purposes, dumbed down software does the job just fine. A great deal of useful, real world work does not require massive business software suites, bought for staggering sums of money from big name suppliers. If there's one thing we've learned from the software success stories of recent years, it's that very often the information you're working with is relatively simple, and the abilities to organise it and to communicate about it with the right people in a convenient way are worth a lot. There's nothing wrong with providing those abilities to new users in a simple way that does not require extensive training; in fact, it's highly desirable to do so.
tylerjwilk00 9y ago
I think the situation we are in with the web proves that the distribution system with the lowest friction and that allows points of friction to be smoothed out in iterations over time will win.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  But the friction in Web apps is not smoothed out. It only becomes worse. More and more megabytes of JS that nobody knows the purpose of -- or if they do, they are bummed as to why must they be 1.5 MB minified. Also, HTTP 2.0 fell victim to too much pressure for backwards compatibility. Things aren't improving.
fpig 9y ago
I agree, but IMO that is a people problem, not a platform problem. I'd say there are 2 often conflicting goals in UX: 1. Make something as intuitive and easy to use as possible for someone seeing it for the first time 2. Make something as efficient as possible for someone who knows how to use it Now, common sense says that #1 is more important when it's a mass consumer app that many users will spend little time on. And it also says that #2 is more important when it's an app that does "work" that users will actually spend countless hours working in. The problem is that #1 is often pushed too hard by managers, salespeople and designers (especially designers with mainly web or mobile experience) even when your use case requires #2. This is because they want to make a good first impression when they show the app to potential customers, especially when the app is new and without an established user base. "Look how I can do this in 3 clicks, the app guides you through it!" And it is often because they simply don't know better and they're just parroting what they're used to. It is not an inherent problem with the platform. As an example, MS has Office on the web and they didn't create a dumbed down UI for it.

yaseer 9y ago

I can completely empathise with this, and the distinction between website vs web-app doesn't seem to be clearly defined for most people, outside of software. I often find myself explaining the difference using Google Docs, vs BBC News to illustrate the distinction.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dyarosla 9y ago

In reality there are also two kinds of end users. Those who want websites to perform like apps and those that want them to be focused on readability and (mostly text) content only. Website owners/designers/what have you must figure out which of the audiences to appeal to, if not both at once.

Silhouette 9y ago

So maybe the world isn't entirely used to the concept yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid separation. A web app should not be like an informational web site, and vice versa. I respectfully disagree. There's a spectrum here, and there's no reason you shouldn't have a site that has some relatively static parts that are purely about providing information and other more interactive parts that work more like an app, if that is what the purpose of the site calls for.