Re: [Dynapi-Dev] Light widgets. (or "remember the user!")

[Raymond I. <xw...@ya...>]

I too like the concept of using "very light weight
widgets" for those web apps that don't need heavy duty
widgets. But these widgets should still have a
nice/standard appearance (e.g. windows 3.1 or window
95 look and feel). Functionality should also be
standard.

--
Raymond Irving 

--- Doug Melvin <do...@cr...> wrote:
> Okay. Maybe this is why the lightest widgets should
> be called widget_light.js
> 
> What I want everyone to understand is that not every
> user of the dynapi will be an advanced Javascript
> programmer. Nor are we desiging this soley for our
> use.
> 
> We are, after all, trying to define the next
> generation all-browser-all-platform javascript
> library here.
> 
> But in order to get any level of acceptance at all,
> we have to remember the users.
> 
> A _USER_ is not us. 
> A user has no intemate knowledge of the internal
> workings of the dynapi.
> Nor do they want to.
> A user can have any level of compentance.
> Or none at all.
> A user has the statistcal attention span of _7
> seconds_ 
> when looking at something new and shiney.
> 
> And where not just talking about people who find us
> through google either.
> On more than one occasion I have landed a contract
> simply on the apperent strength of the DynAPI 2.
> Not just that it's pretty and works, but that I
> could train any of their code monkeys to maintain
> the code I
> would write for them.
> 
> Now comes DynAPI 3 and those contracts I did not get
> due to the api seeming 'slow' or 'heavy' now promise
> to be a thing of the past. With tighter integration
> of inline creation, a smoother events structure, and
> ligher 
> acetecture this version actually has the portential
> to take off, to allow us to do greater thing, to let
> the _user_
> do greater things, but none of this will matter if
> we forget to "remember the user"
> 
> :-)
> 
> Post Script: I am not saying more coplex widgets and
> components are bad, only that we need to maintain a
> base of simple widgets to allow for siple tasks to
> be completed by simple users.
> 
> Thus ends the official Doug Melvin Rant on Usability
> for DynAPI 3.. Had to come sooner or later right? 
> I just figured sooner would be better.
> 


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