2005 / September 3^rd/ When programmers attack: Giving the wrong people control of the UI

There has been much discussion in the rails community about script.aculo.us and whether the full library of effects should be included into the rails core. The problem being: Programmers use rails for the most part. Try as they will, programmers don’t know jack about user experience. I read quotes like this on the mailing list:

Let me throw in that I can’t disagree enough. Visual effects are an essential part of making the switch to Ajax. Now when we don’t have the browser reloads to acknowledge action, we need a substitute. Visual effects allow us to slow down the action enough for the user to keep up with what’s going on. -David Heinemeier Hansson

Visual effects are an essential part of switching to a more dynamic web application experience, I full heartedly agree with David here. David is one of those rare programmers that actually has a handle on how to design a usable UI, probably from haging around the signals so much. This is what I want to be hearing.

Here’s where I start reading and I cringe:

I put the effects library to very good use in a (AJAX) product we develop. I wouldn’t have made it if I had no use for it.

As an example, we put the Shake effect on the login box, when login fails. We’ve sliding in/out property drawers. And so on and so forth. All in all we use effects on 4 or 5 occasions throughout the app where they just make the UI experience much more smooth and enjoyable for the user. -Thomas Fuchs

Shit, this really is becoming <marquee> 2.0, not web 2.0. No, this is not a proper way to use the effects library. The only acceptable use of a shaking effect I’ve seen is in Mac OSX’s login screen, and even then I disagree with it personally. The only reason it works in OSX is because it is instantaneous. Now, there is a very large difference between instantaneous and an asychronous javascript call. Sometimes the request can take seconds to happen… this is where the effect fails. The user doesn’t know why it is shaking, nor why their login didn’t go through. What’s so wrong with a warning box with some bold red text saying “I’m sorry but your login failed. Please check your login and password and try again. If you have forgotten your password, click here to retrieve it.”

But, that’s not really the root of the problem. As I said, here we have probably an extremely capable programmer thinking he can tinker with UI. You just can’t hand over the reigns like that. Just because you think an effect is usable, doesn’t mean it is. The absolute hardest part of becoming a great designer is realizing that you really don’t know best. You never design for yourself, rather you design for your users. This kind of realization is essential in a person who designs a UI for a web application.

Another problem is that a lot of these new railsers are trying to mimic the OSX UI. Not easy to do. Apple is one of those companies that excells in design. I’ve ran into a lot of people that think it’s “easy” to design Apple-style. Umm, no. While on the outside it may look like a bit of Myriad Pro and some white space, there’s an immense amount of depth to their design. Every single effect in OSX has been throught-through by UI experts and refined through the many releases. You can’t just try and mimic an effet like a drawer so easy on a web application. It won’t be the same. These programmers take on mimicing OSX as a challenge, with no UI experience whatsoever. They think they can just slap on a few gradients and YFT’s and they’ll be on their way. But you can’t just do that.

1. 

   jinesh

   September 5^th | #

   programmers aren’t the only ones doing this, in a lot of cases, adding unnecessary dhtml effects is justified by claiming it makes a product even more ’saleable’.

   web interfaces are supposed to let a user carry out their tasks/actions and slip into the background, but marketing guys like to think their users are logged in 24hrs and need interfaces to resemble an OS as much as possible :)

   and with javascript libraries becoming so much easier to plug into existing code, it’s hard not to give in to temptation..

2. 

   panikeeer

   November 24^th | #

   I didnt find thing that i need… :-(
   yahoo

3. 

   Jameson Huckaba

   March 5^th | #

   I disagree that the ’shake’ effect shouldn’t be used in a login situation. I’ve seen it used in conjunction with other effects (i.e., the ‘password’ field turning a shade of red along with the shake effect) quite, well, effectively.

   I understand what you’re saying when you raise issue of a call taking longer than necessary, and thus confusing the user. 99% of the time, keeping it light and simple solves the problem.

4. 

   Sol

   July 20 | #

   I have been a programmer for a long time now and I have to say that I have never worked with a designer that even knew what javascript was much less how to effectively use it.

   If you really want to get to the point Web 2.0 is the problem. I enjoy DHTML menus and things of that nature.. tree views…, but when you stop asking asking is that “effect” serving a purpose or is it just eye candy and just do stuff to be cool and on the edge with new tech… your pretty much masterbaiting

   The best use of Ajax is to prevent screen flicker and not freaking out people who don’t know how the web works.

   Good programmers know how to make a proper UI because they use UI all the time in hundreds of programs, bad programmers know how to use VB…

   Hyper Text Transfer Protocol -> Not -> Hip Trendy Target Perception

5. 

   seocontest2008

   February 29^th | #

   I have a good list of wrong UI’s people…..I can post all their name :)

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