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Burying the URL

allenpike.com

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131–140 of 376 posts

Re: Burying the URL

#131

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

muaddirac wrote: post #31

This idea (or at least, where this idea could lead) is actually a far more RESTful approach to the web. REST services should offer a single entry point - the root url - and the rest of a service's content should be navigated to through hypermedia affordances. The advantages are clear: the user never hits a broken page (theoretically) or finds that content has been relocated. The disadvantages are also clear: no more…

I think you are confusing discoverability with navigation. It's good if you can discover all content through hypermedia, but why should you prevent direct access?! It's like saying that there should be an indes in every book (yes!), and therefore you should not ever tell anyone on which page of the book they can find something relevant (wtf?).

Re: Burying the URL

#133

Post by NhanH »

mpweiher wrote: post #120
pjmlp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, "A to B" means getting stuff done, not hacking around with the system. So they won't care about the technology stack, as long as that spreadsheet, text document, 3D image, .... can be edited, saved and printed or a game played.

Glad you put spreadsheet in that list. "Spreadsheet" is also programming, just one form of programming that by accident of history made it to "things users do".

Advanced reactive programming for mission critical computational task!

Re: Burying the URL

#134

Post by nanidin »

paulirish wrote: post #121

This is a new UI experiment that's deployed to a small fraction of users. We're looking at a few key metrics to see if this change is a net positive for Chrome users. (I imagine it may help defend against phishing). My personal opinion is that it's a very bad change and runs anti-thetical to Chrome's goals. I hope the data backs that up as well. But regardless, this change is far from shipping as the new default beha…

Genuinely curious, what kind of metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness of a change like this?

Re: Burying the URL

#135

Post by the_af »

comex wrote: post #90
Crito wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Modern cars: rarely need fixing; also much more efficient. That really has nothing to do with what is being discussed though. The reliability and efficiency of modern cars are consequences of advances in technology and engineering, not user interface redesign.

Modern computers have also gotten... not more reliable exactly (they have, but it's not the point), but more robust against the need for manual configuration. When's the last time you had to defragment a disk, or figure out why some device in Windows Device Manager had a question mark next to it or what driver cocktail to install, or enter complicated settings to access the Internet? (Or XF86Config, for that matter..…

I don't think robustness has much to do with the need for manual configuration. Configuration is needed not (only) because users need to do troubleshooting, but also because they want to adjust and tweak their cars/computers/gadgets to their needs. The current trend is less configuration, less control in the hands of the consumer, more lock-down.

I believe hiding implementation details is part of this trend to reduce complexity (which is good) but also to wrestle control away from the user (which is bad).

Re: Burying the URL

#136

Post by zacinbusiness »

jimbobimbo wrote: post #86
zacinbusiness wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How?

Instead of seeing a very-very-very long URL that may contain legit words and pushing domain name out of the view, the user sees only the domain name. And if the user came to the Bank of America, but the domain is some hackedtravelagency.co.kr, it's more likely to ring bells.

But how observant are most people? www.halifaxbank.com vs www.halfaxbank.com for instance is a very minor difference. Remember that people misread things all the time, and the more comfortable they are with a string the less likely they are to actually read it.

Re: Burying the URL

#137

Post by surye »

Figs wrote: post #125
comex wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern computers have also gotten... not more reliable exactly (they have, but it's not the point), but more robust against the need for manual configuration. When's the last time you had to defragment a disk, or figure out why some device in Windows Device Manager had a question mark next to it or what driver cocktail to install, or enter complicated settings to access the Internet? (Or XF86Config, for that matter..…

figure out why some device in Windows Device Manager had a question mark next to it or what driver cocktail to install I did this just last week with a fresh Windows 7 installation because the drivers for the Ethernet adapter had to be manually installed...

When was the last time you thought about IRQ settings?

Re: Burying the URL

#138

Post by userbinator »

nevir wrote: post #114
qwerty_asdf wrote: post #36

I don't understand what "chip" means in this context? When did I miss the boat on all this "chip" business? A URL has a thing called a chip? What?

Chip is a UI term (that widget is a chip, names styled as blocks in a To: field are chips, etc)

Is there a reason to use that though? From some quick Googling, I can't find any references to it. Also, there is already a term for a piece of a UI that you can click on to do something, one that doesn't have over a dozen other overloaded meanings (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chip ), and one that users would be far more familiar with: "button".

Re: Burying the URL

#139

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

gaelian wrote: post #74
jpatokal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For kicks, try replacing "software" with "automobiles" in your paragraph. The innards of a modern car are incomprehensible to all but "the few elite", and its interface goes a long way to hide all that complexity. I only have the vaguest idea how it works, and am perfectly happy to outsource its maintenance to professional mechanics, because all I care about is that it works . This should apply to computers. My famil…

I take your point, but I would argue that it's not comparing apples to apples. Some time ago I read the Douglas Rushkoff book Program or Be Programmed , wherein he puts forth his view (if I may paraphrase) that this last communication revolution based upon the computer is a very important one, because now we’re actually getting to the point where the tools we are creating are starting to take on the characteristics o…

I think literacy generally is a very good example to study to clear up some widely held misconceptions about "usability". Usability should not be about making things effortless for idiots, but about improving the overall economics of using something - and literacy is far more economical than illiteracy even though an enormous up-front investment is necessary (learning to read and write is a lot of work).

Luckily, society (mostly) seems to have recognized that in the case of literacy and essentially forces everyone through it, instead of assuming that people are morons that can not be taught anything. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about a lot of recent technological development.

Re: Burying the URL

#140

Post by qwerty_asdf »

nevir wrote: post #114
qwerty_asdf wrote: post #36

I don't understand what "chip" means in this context? When did I miss the boat on all this "chip" business? A URL has a thing called a chip? What?

Chip is a UI term (that widget is a chip, names styled as blocks in a To: field are chips, etc)

Thanks! I've never heard that expression before. I'd be curious to know where it's usage comes from. It sounds like vague, new-school slang.
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