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Stop Being an Idiot

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Re: Stop Being an Idiot

#41

Post by tokenadult »

pvg wrote: post #26
warfangle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All using the same blog template is definitely not in the same ballpark as overriding default browser behavior with something that doesn't work. It's not even the same sport.. Edit to respond to your revised comment that replaced its content with the title of your article (wow, way to be accepting of criticism, dude! When you do usability testing and a user finds a bug or complains about something, do you tell them t…

So you suggested he not be an asshole and it offends you he proposes you cease being an idiot. It's the sort of discourse that promises further Great Insights.

The term "idiot" was introduced in the submitted article title, so we know where that problem began.

Re: Stop Being an Idiot

#42

Post by MaysonL »

gprisament wrote: post #38
warfangle wrote: post #15

Stop reinvinting the wheel. Don't be an asshole and replace the browser's scrollbar with one of your own. Especially when the scrollbar you invent doesn't work in Chrome.

I find "Don't reinvent the wheel" to be a terrible idiom. Think about the wheel for a moment. Is the wheel on your bike the same as the wheel on your car, or on a train, or an an airplane? Of course they're all different! The wheel has been reinvented thousands of times, and we're better off for it! Yes, it can be worthwhile to borrow successful concepts from other disciplines. But in many cases, the concrete impleme…

OK. How about "Don't build hexagonal wheels, unless you have a very unusual use case."

Re: Stop Being an Idiot

#43

Post by ewjordan »

Psyonic wrote: post #36

Isn't "Dumbing it down" exactly what apple is doing with the iPad, which will almost certainly be a runaway success?

There's a fine line, and I suspect the iPad is on the right side of it.

What you probably want to shoot for is offering features that will leave 90% of your customers 99% satisfied. If you only offer the stuff that the bottom 50% needs, too many people will feel crippled (and that's what a dumbed down product will look like), whereas if you try to please that top 10%, you're going to have to make the UI far too complex. If you please 90% of the target audience, you'll likely end up with a clean interface without pissing off too many people.

I'm all but certain the iPad will fully satisfy 90% of the people that buy it, especially since it's not being positioned as a desktop replacement.

Re: Stop Being an Idiot

#44

Post by oscardelben »

edw519 wrote: post #6

Nobody likes the unfamiliar. Then why is your blog dim white letters on a black background? The first thing my reptilian brain thought was that this was some kind of left-brained new-age artistic fluff. But it's not. You have important points to make. So do your readers (and back button pushers) a favor and practice what you preach. Combine your artistic tendencies with a more familiar, more functional white backgrou…

I found the scrollbar to be a poor example of usability in that website. It was hard for me to figure out where I was in the page. Probably with other browsers works differently, but still!

Re: Stop Being an Idiot

#45

Post by anamax »

gprisament wrote: post #38
warfangle wrote: post #15

Stop reinvinting the wheel. Don't be an asshole and replace the browser's scrollbar with one of your own. Especially when the scrollbar you invent doesn't work in Chrome.

I find "Don't reinvent the wheel" to be a terrible idiom. Think about the wheel for a moment. Is the wheel on your bike the same as the wheel on your car, or on a train, or an an airplane? Of course they're all different! The wheel has been reinvented thousands of times, and we're better off for it! Yes, it can be worthwhile to borrow successful concepts from other disciplines. But in many cases, the concrete impleme…

> The wheel has been reinvented thousands of times, and we're better off for it!

We're better off only for the reinventions that were actually improvements. Most of the reinventions weren't improvements.

Different is a disadvantage, a cost, that is worthwhile only in specific cases when the difference produces some advantages that more than make up the difference.

Re: Stop Being an Idiot

#46

Post by Psyonic »

ewjordan wrote: post #43
Psyonic wrote: post #36

Isn't "Dumbing it down" exactly what apple is doing with the iPad, which will almost certainly be a runaway success?

There's a fine line, and I suspect the iPad is on the right side of it. What you probably want to shoot for is offering features that will leave 90% of your customers 99% satisfied. If you only offer the stuff that the bottom 50% needs, too many people will feel crippled (and that's what a dumbed down product will look like), whereas if you try to please that top 10%, you're going to have to make the UI far too compl…

Interesting. Thanks for your thoughts
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