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Why our website looks like an operating system

posthog.com

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Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#281

Post by Twey »

Barrin92 wrote: post #24
Twey wrote: post #3

I've always thought ‘multi-document interfaces’ as we used to call them are an anti-pattern. I have a perfectly good window manager; why does every app need its own incompatible, usually inferior window manager built in? (Mind you on mobile I very much don't have a perfectly good window manager, and indeed can't even open multiple instances of most apps…)

>why does every app need its own incompatible, usually inferior window manager built in? You answered your own question, because a lot of applications work across multiple platforms, and if you want to have control over the experience because you don't know what capacities the OS's window manager has you need to abstract it away.

Abstracting something away and duplicating it for yourself are two very different things! Remember Java Swing?

But I take your point, if you want to target the lowest common denominator of window managers it makes some sense to do your own window management. Mind you you could just ship both a browser and a window manager…

I wonder to what extent the pattern of applications doing their own window management masks (and therefore perpetuates) the problem of inadequate window managers.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#282

Post by ivanjermakov »

vander_elst wrote: post #225

Nice idea, awesome implementation, but please no. I now need to learn a new UI and UX, I have to to organize windows inside my windows. I want websites to be more like a block of text rather than a super fancy interface.

Agreed. Closer the website to the single chunk of text, easier it is to customize for the user agent (think reader mode, dark mode, accessibility). This won't apply to every website, but this is what I expect from blogs - block of text.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#284

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

ttiurani wrote: post #64
Retr0id wrote: post #33

> Legally-required cookie banner > PostHog.com doesn't use third-party cookies, only a single in-house cookie You're legally required to let me opt out of that cookie. Unless it's essential to the site functionality, in which case you don't need the banner at all.

Exactly. If they indeed only use the cookie for essential functionality, this kind of joke banner only makes their choice to respect visitors' privacy equally annoying. Even worse: because it makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people, they are actually fighting for the right for worse sites to spy on their visitors. It's baffling.

> makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people

Which it is?

I am from the EU and I don't see what this law has accomplished apart from making the WWW worse, especially on mobile.

I remember back when Opera was a paid browser, last century, it already have options to accept all cookies, refuse them, or set fine-grained preferences per website. No need for handling it at the website level if the client can do it.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#285

Post by lucideer »

Retr0id wrote: post #33

> Legally-required cookie banner > PostHog.com doesn't use third-party cookies, only a single in-house cookie You're legally required to let me opt out of that cookie. Unless it's essential to the site functionality, in which case you don't need the banner at all.

I love this website but yeah that banner really bothered me. 100% appreciate the effort to reduce cookies & the commitment to avoid 3rd-party, the tongue-in-cheek "legally required" flies completely in the face of all that effort - especially given it's misinformed & not in fact legally required at all.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#286

Post by dewey »

I'm not sure I would be brave enough to do experiments like that with my landing page. I wonder how it converts.

While it's a fun experiment for a personal website seems a bit impractical for a marketing page for a tool that is not always bought by engineers.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#287

Post by xpe »

dewey wrote: post #286

I'm not sure I would be brave enough to do experiments like that with my landing page. I wonder how it converts. While it's a fun experiment for a personal website seems a bit impractical for a marketing page for a tool that is not always bought by engineers.

Well, it does look a lot like Windows, macOS, and many Linux desktop environments. Yes, it might feel unfamiliar to people who have only used tablets or phones.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#288

Post by lucideer »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #284
ttiurani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If they indeed only use the cookie for essential functionality, this kind of joke banner only makes their choice to respect visitors' privacy equally annoying. Even worse: because it makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people, they are actually fighting for the right for worse sites to spy on their visitors. It's baffling.

> makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people Which it is? I am from the EU and I don't see what this law has accomplished apart from making the WWW worse, especially on mobile. I remember back when Opera was a paid browser, last century, it already have options to accept all cookies, refuse them, or set fine-grained preferences per website. No need for handling it at the website level if the…

> making the WWW worse

You can argue that the law might not have improved things (at least not as much as intended), but nothing about this law has made the WWW worse. If you believe that, you've fallen for the concerted efforts of the advertising industry spreading misinformation about who's idea the annoying consent popups were & (like this website) perpetuating the myth that they're a legal requirement.

None of the new annoyances on the modern web that you're thinking about are mandated by EU law. It benefits the ad industry massively to scapegoat the EU for these annoyances.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#289

Post by urbandw311er »

On the Posthog dashboard, you can activate a chatbot 'hog' which walks around the screen, but you can control it with WASD, and even jump up onto 'ledges' that correspond with the divs of the page you're on. There's a hidden "party mode" where you can see/chat to your other team members' hogs!

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#290

Post by Kwpolska »

piceas wrote: post #207
webprofusion wrote: post #45

It looks awesome but I clicked several bits and pieces and still have no idea what they do or what their product is.

Yeah. I found pictures of feet before I found their products. I guess they assume visitors usually arrive at the home page rather than a blog post. A quick note/link in the blog post might be helpful for those of us stumbling around.

I went to their main page and I still don’t know what they’re really doing. "We’re building every tool for product engineers to build successful products." is an entirely meaningless sentence.
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