Comments on: Manifesto of the UI

By: Jason Marsh - Website designer

Jason Marsh - Website designer — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:54:15 +0000

There is certainly a lot to say about semantics and the way we interact with information.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:49:38 +0000

Shawn: I appreciate your enthusiasm for WebKit, and I do enjoy that so much effort has been put into the WebKit engine as far as lightweight animations. But please, they are just that: lightweight animations.

It does not come close to handling the raw power necessary of a fully functional modern animation engine. Think about trying to create things like 3D carousels, genie effects, morphing vector masks, etc. I know people love to tout that their own tech can “do it too!!!!!”, but in this case we’re just talking about completely different magnitudes of scale :)

Most importantly, the webkit animations currently are one-off’s. There’s really no dynamic controlling of them (how would you animate something to music or user input?). There are structures for pre-defined looping, etc — but it’s just one-off’s that they’ve provided for. Again, nothing against the WebKit team — we’re just talking about apples and oranges. WebKit CSS animations are for lightweight animations, not a fully functional animation framework (think Core Animation).

By: links for 2008-02-05

links for 2008-02-05 — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:19:42 +0000

[...] Manifesto of the UI - Warpspire Over the past few years (we’re talking less than 5), we’ve seen user interfaces across the digital world morph from a static experience into highly dynamic interactive experiences. Web sites like Facebook and MySpace have proven that interactivity and (tags: ui ux design interface accessibility) [...]

By: Shawn Medero

Shawn Medero — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:14:16 +0000

WebKit’s CSS animation and transform extensions handle things like:

rotate
skew
scale
opacity
ease-in/out

Source:
http://webkit.org/blog/138/css-animation/
http://webkit.org/blog/130/css-transforms/

(And I’ve seen them in action with my own eyes. More impressive is seeing them work in-combination with HTML 5’s video element… also supported in WebKit nightly builds.)

The WebKit team appears to be actively documenting these extensions into a specification anyone can use. A demo of the extensions to the HTML Working Group received very positive remarks from Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera folks… so maybe there’s an opportunity we will see cross-browser implementations.

I just wanted to clear up any misinformation on those… I’m not saying don’t use Flash or Flash isn’t the future… nothing like that at all. Just a friendly heads up.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:56:42 +0000

Kyle, I have to say you are right on. I think you've made a very good case in support of all risks that are posed in building either in CSS or Air or Flash. I think we are still in the infancy of technology built for online, pda's, or anything interactive for that matter. We have so many variables that can shift an idea 1 degree or 180 degrees.

As long as technology continues to change we will need to change with them.

By: Geof Harries

Geof Harries — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:35:35 +0000

While the Flex applications I’ve been building this year have yet to be publicly deployed (for various reasons) I can say the work experience has completely changed my perspective on interaction design and what end-users can and should be able to do with an application.

Using Flex means I don’t have to be tied to a web browser, HTML, Javascript and CSS or limited by their technical restrictions. I’m all for constraints, but being allowed to solve a problem in a new way, unbound by rules and regulations set out nearly a decade ago - here’s looking at you, W3C - is refreshing and heck, just a lot of fun. You need that change after a while or you’ll grow incredibly stale.

I always keep people (and thus principles of accessibility, usefulness and usability) in mind when I’m designing and developing in Flex. These are lessons learned from years of wrangling HTML/CSS. There is no rationale reason why you shouldn’t be able to transfer these values across to, dare I say, the new paradigm.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:42:15 +0000

Oliver: I think you're a lot confused on a lot of points, and my guess is that you haven't really built an application with Flash, WPF, or Cocoa. Vectors are certainly style (unless you're going to argue that background images should be put in the HTML (content) now. AIR is far more than a fancy wrapper (hell, we've had standalone executable .fla's for half a decade now). I urge you to branch out and try some of these new technologies before setting fire to their existence. I think you'll find much of your viewpoints change.

Jeff Seager: I believe most people use the word accessibility as an excuse not to learn new languages in all honesty. Flash can be accessible in the same way HTML can be accessible. Neither are accessible in the fashion that they are truly useful to disabled persons. The idea of providing your content in an easily consumed format allows people to build custom applications targeted at the disabled, and all your problems are solved.

By: Tzek

Tzek — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:04:52 +0000

Interesante. Aunque creo que apostar por tecnologías mencionadas en explícito puede ser riesgoso por lo cambiante que es el futuro... pero las ideas generales y conceptuales, muy posibles.

A ver que sucede. Saludos desde México.

By: Jeff Seager

Jeff Seager — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:21:53 +0000

Great insights, yet I wonder where you see accessibility fitting with all this. Flash and its progeny require accessibility accommodations that many developers simply overlook, and I don't see this changing.

It may or may not interest you to know that 6.5 million Americans over age 65 now have age-related vision loss. In the next two decades, rates of vision loss from diseases like age-related macular degeneration are expected to double as the nation's 78 million baby boomers reach retirement age. Many of us will be accustomed to interacting professionally and socially on the Web.

It remains to be seen whether daily interaction with computers will hasten the onset or prevalence of such disabilities. I think it may. But even if it doesn't, what will become of us if these technologies become so ubiquitous (as I think they will, if they haven't already) that the majority of us rely on them for everyday functions of our lives? The person affected may be you or me, my wife, my child or friend. So this should matter to all of us. None of us is immune or immortal.

I think accessibility must be considered hand-in-hand with each advancement, and I'd be interested to know your own thoughts on that, Kyle.

By: David Malouf

David Malouf — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:53:29 +0000

Hi Kyle,
great piece. I think you would find that there is a community of people adjacent to the UI Developer world thinking in greater detail and with more direct contact to the practice of the design side of UI and Interaction. The Interaction Design Association has a global community which speak a lot on the topics this piece is about. I really recommend it to you.

http://ixda.org/

Great article, BTW and I agree with almost all of it. I think that your insights can be really heavily supported within the confines of interaction design and then applied through UI Development.

– dave