Will My Time Ever Come…

I think you’ll find your answer in the post, Al. These technologies (well at least SIFR) are innovative and someone invented them. If they can do it, why can’t you? It just takes some innovation and good marketing.

Keep as many doors open and don’t put all your efforts into one thing. Get feedback at all stages in development of technology.

As for the scrollbar thingy, I agree with the angry bloggers. Would you like it if a website changed your desktop background image or your user settings? I surely wouldn’t. Scrollbars are no different.

I know the rush you are talking about.

No offense, but with an attitude of “I believe that the designer should have complete control over the user’s graphical experience (period)” - You are going to have continued troubled to ‘innovate’ anything. Any experienced web developer knows that the medium of the web is where you have to lose some control. You cannot control every possible environment where your website is being viewed, nor should you try and control the devices.

Scrollbars? I instantly thought it was a joke when you were upset about this. We are past that ‘fad’ - and have realized how stupid it was in the first place. If you seriously want to embrace all of the controls, you are going to have issues making sites that people actually enjoy.

I, for one, refuse to visit sites that constantly think it is in their place to resize my browser. I instantly leave sites that think I should listen to their music. It isn’t about creating a ‘mood’. There are over 100 million websites out there, people are searching for content.

I think the job of a designer is not to worry about things like scrollbars, but to really dive in and make the design WORK.

I’ll be honest, I was a little surprised at this post and the complaints you bring to the table. Any IR has its downfalls, including sIFR. Think about your medium - look at real web designer’s sites and see what they have to offer. They know they can’t have complete control.

I would like to comment on your last para. In my opinion, Net still needs endless innovations. But all of them will stem from the user’s needs/convenience/experience. The challenge in the Web innovation really is to provide more without imposing anything on the user. I was thrilled when I came across projects like Hyperscope or no-next-page design with AJAX.

RE: Al
You are mixing apples and oranges. They are two different mediums/modes of communication. People use the two things very differently (as research shows). Again, show me a department store that agrees with this, and maybe I will re-consider my thinking. Department stores understand the difference between the two, and they harness the power that they have with each medium.

“…if you do not like a web site in particular then you need not return to it”
This is asinine thinking. A website should cater to it’s intended audience? Tell me - how do you define this and come to this conclusion with your research? What metrics/analytics to you use? User testing modes? And - when all of this is said and done, can you really pinpoint an EXACT audience that uses the site? Look at myspace - it started (by spammers) for musicians, now every mom, dad, and kid has their own myspace. They have all their freedom so it became a train wreck. It was initially built for MUSICIANS. Now, its about social networking more than about music. I work for a Book Distributor, and I would NEVER make assumptions about our users. Yes, I know who the majority are - what kinds of connections they are using, their geographical location, and even an age bracket. But the truth is, there are OTHERS coming to the site (trade market, PR people, etc) who are looking to get information from our site. If I were to think narrow mindedly about our audience, then our traffic would suffer as a result. I don’t want people to get so annoyed that they never return to our site. It is still in its infancy and more features are being added for different things, but it is all centered around the USER - not what I THINK the user wants. If you really have that frame of mind - then I would question your professionalism as a web developer.

Every site has an intended purpose and audience, but that doesn’t mean people outside of that don’t visit the site. To alienate users or restrict based on your ‘assumptions’ is absolutely ridiculous. Why would you build narrow, when you could build for a wider audience and communication. Why would you require things of users, when you could build it to be accessible to all users - and still have necessary features. THINK ABOUT THE USER. You are not your targeted audience.

I don’t believe a website should be all things to all people. Not at all. That will never happen, no matter how many social networking sites or portals come into play. If I want music, Ill go to purevolume.com. If I want to buy a CD, ill stick with iTunes. If i want to manage my RSS feeds, Ill use google reader. If I want to get a map ill use mapquest. Believe me, I know that a website will never be everything to everyone. But it CAN BE accessible to everyone. Two very different things.

I prefer to build websites that are accessible, usable, and content rich. I don’t want to impose MY browsing habits on our users. Read up on some interaction design and interface design. You have yet to support your argument with anything substantial. Show me where it is recommended by professionals to color the scrollbar or resize the window. Show me where, in research and understanding of users, that this is important or vital to a user’s experience. I base my thought process on research (real world related to our target market), analytics, and adaptation. You are basing your opinions on pure feelings and what you want to impose on the user.

You can only give me one link of work you have done? You stated in your previous comments that you use it all over the place - and you only have one site as an example? Regardless, that one site you showed me gave me enough information. For instance. What good does it do to set my browser to top left of 0,0? What is that doing beside annoying me because I use that area for my instant messenger and mail notifier. You are getting in the WAY of me and the way I get things done. Aside from that, that website fails miserably with ANY validation or standards tests, has NO index inside of google, no inbound links, PR of 0, and its comprised of tag soup.

So then, why should I even see you as credible when your output is something like that? No thanks.

RE: Al
“Most developers don’t see the different ends of the spectrum but I have”

Well then, please enlighten those of us who apparently haven’t seen the different ends of the spectrum.

I said NOTHING about not having a target audience. It’s about knowing your target audience that forces you to build your application accordingly. I work for a Book Distributor, therefore I don’t need to build a tool for users to manage their RSS feeds. It would be a waste of my time, and a waste of theirs. This is what is meant about knowing your target audience. KNOWING your users. You have proven you don’t do this, and that you impose your ‘cool’ technologies on people whether they like it or not. What metrics do you use to weigh things? What user testing methods do you use to find out how people use your site? What inside metrics do you use with the website to gauge a value of a tool? I am very interested to find out. I have built many tools in the past where I posed my ‘cool’ technology on the user. I then tracked it for a certain period and found it to be absolutely useless. Back to the drawing board and then get rid of the useless things from an interface. I can admit when I am wrong, but I won’t base my decisions on feelings of a developer or designer. Sorry.

How do you gauge your audience as ‘people that need less information and more other content (audio, video, etc)? If you truly believe that, what are you doing to gauge the truth to that statement?

I can tell you are humble, yes, educated - I have my doubts. I’m sorry, but for someone who claims to be educated and gets upset because he can’t color the scrollbars in IE7, doesn’t really give me much faith. I could give you a list of credible people, articles, and standards related to the W3C and the web as a whole. I could reference their personal sites, their professional sites, and even many sites which give reports and research for understanding your audience. Again, the fact that you think that site is ‘very good’ further causes me to doubt your ‘education.’ Seriously, in just the 5 pages I visited (and ran reports on), all I saw was tag soup. The medium is the web and you are trying to communicate. Now, even if this IS a private website - statistics will still show up with its usage. However, reports I ran state ‘this site appears to be rarely visited’ amongst the other facts that it can’t be found in search engines - again cause me to question your ‘education.’ Why shouldnt it be found with search engines? What specific reason do you have for this? The browser wasn’t maximized, you just shifted it to the other side of my screen. Why is only access to the web browser available? They have no OS with which to complete other tasks or use information? If not - then I would question why you didn’t build a standalone application. I see you are making many assumptions even with this small sample. If this is what you are proud of, then you and I will never see eye to eye. I will leave you to your sites that impose your ‘thoughts’ of what a website should be, and I’ll stick to working on creating usable and accessible websites for all - and growing traffic and information.

I am not trying to dis-credit you, however, you cannot expect me to take you seriously with the claims you have made in your article and your responses. I even question if you know a ‘little’ by looking at your work. It’s not about disagreeing. It’s not about me being wrong and you being right. It’s about the state of professional web development. It’s no wonder many developers aren’t respected when they have ‘resources’ like this leading them astray of the truth.

You have brought NO facts to the table. Your examples have failed miserably through any test (validation or traffic). All of what you are saying is based off of opinion. I am sorry if I don’t parade around clapping at your ‘feel good’ statements.

M,

We’re sorting it out. Don’t worry. Apologies for the disappointment. Feel to to use our feedback form if you wish to discuss this in private.

@ M

I have another nice review and interview right here:
about the business side of things