On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, David Graham wrote:
> Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 11:15:06 -0600
> From: David Graham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: Struts Users Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: Struts Tag Request
>
> I'm not sure I agree with training users that the url is meaningless. This
> goes against everything people know about browsing. They use urls for
> bookmarks, look at the list in there address bar for one they recognize,
> etc. You could train internal people but for internet sites this seems
> unreasonable.
>
A web application is *not* the same as a web site. The problem with
browsers as the delivery vehicle for both is that users get confused on
this issue. And developers who are confused on this issue don't help
matters any :-).
Interactive applications in general (both web-based and rich client based,
as well as those built into hardware like the controls on your microwave
or VCR) should be modelled as a set of reactions to user gestures (button
clicks and so on). The set of possible gestures that are recognized at
any point in time *should* be limited to the set built in to the UI,
because the developer has provided reactors for those events, and only
those events.
Imagine writing a Swing-based app where the user had some external
mechanism to cause *any* arbitrary event to happen, whenever they want.
That's essentially what the back button and bookmarks do to you.
> I don't like the frames approach because then you can't bookmark any pages.
> This is really frustrating for people.
>
> Also, redirects aren't much slower than forwards so I use them when I want
> to make sure the user doesn't get confused and repost form data. This seems
> easier to me than training millions of people :-).
>
IMHO, if your users find that they can't use your webapp effectively based
on the UI controls you've built in to the user interface, without using
the browser facilities, that's a pretty good clue that your UI needs some
additional navigation controls and other similar features added to it.
Sorry to sound so absolutist ... but this issue is critically important in
good user interface design for web-based applications. It's nearly
impossible to prevent users from using all the built-in functionality of
the browser (even if you don't show the back button, you still have to
worry abou the keyboard equivalents). Our mission needs to include
minimizing their desires to do so.
> Dave
>
Craig
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