Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
Filespots: Is it Vista? Or the web?
Filespots is an online file management system that allows you to store, manage, share, and version your files on the web.
The application uses Ext 2.0, and it shows. If you are a Vista user, you will be surprised to see how similar the look and feel of this web application is.
Glen Lipka discussed this in his review. He mentions that when your web app tries to look like a desktop app, it is likely to get compared to them. It is hard to compare performance and such between a web app and a native desktop one.
Compared to other web applications though, Glen is a huge fan, and some of his concerns (e.g. no right click context menus) have already been addresses in new versions of Filespots.
Just take a look:
4.5 rating from 87 votes
The Uncanny Valley
http://billhiggins.us/weblog/2007/05/17/the-uncanny-valley-of-user-interface-design/
well, that’ll look nice on my mac…
@Cyril:
Lol but at least it is a clean, good looking UI.
Mac theme is coming soon… ;-)
So, who thinks that a webapplication should look just like a regular application? I think it shouldn’t. For one, a Mac/Linux/Windows XP user is not familiar at all with this interface, so why copy the ‘exact’ looks of Vista?
Stupid question: who has an invitation, please?
Looks good, but IMO having your web app open in a popup is a no-no, a bit too 1998-y where you have a simple page saying “enter” and then a flash site pops up in a new maximized window.
@Mike
Given that the Windows explorer interface is pretty well known (even among those who don’t use Windows as their primary OS), I don’t think its much of an issue in this case. The Vista version of explorer is a bit different, but better (I love the combo clickable/text paths). Generally though, I would agree with you.
wow! I was impressed when webshare popped out of nowhere to steal KFM’s glory, but this looks even better! Looking forward to actually trying it out.
If you don’t want to wait around for Filespots to work through the preview phase (where “only friends of the developers (and their friends) can access this new application”)… try Folders by Fresh Logic Studios. It’s free and has many of the same features:
http://www.freshlogicstudios.com/Products/Folders/
It looks real nice, but I agree with other comments saying web apps should have their own designs/personalities rather than an OS’s.
I think this web desktop approch has its advantages depending in the type of the application. For example many server requests can be saved using windows (like in the desktop in the ext examples). You can have many windows opened (data grids for example) with the information you maybe need for later use, instead of hiting the back forward buttons of the browser or simply doing an action again.
I disagree on the point that web apps should look different. “Web conventions†arose as a result of browser and technology limits. Whilst I understand violating the user’s mental model is sometimes bad (for example, single clicking a file in the OS opens it - most (all?) OS’s use double click to open a file), this is not one of those cases.
Quotes from an O’Reilly article and Bill Higgins respectively state:
“We must ensure that we design our applications to remain consistent with the environment in which our software runsâ€
“A Windows application should look and feel like a Windows application, a Mac application should look and feel like a Mac application, and a web application should look and feel like a web applicationâ€
What’s the environment in which the application runs? Is it really a browser, or just another runtime in the OS? What’s the difference between a browser running a JavaScript App and a JRE running a Swing app (Swing is not native - it is another desktop emulation)?
I think the line has (or always was) blurred for those who aren’t technology professionals. Do most users really care that there’s a distinction between a desktop app and a web app? I don’t think so, or are they really concerned with getting the job done quickly and efficiently?
I also don’t agree with the whole “uncanny valley” thing, I don’t believe anyone has ever empathised with Micrsoft Word or Mozilla Firefox. I think what happens with browser based apps is that when it looks like a native app the user expects the app to work like a native app e.g. drag ‘n’ drop, single click selection, right click context menu etc - when the app dosen’t work like this is when it’s ‘broken’ or ‘uncanny’… if you must.
Just my 2p.
The problem is when webapps try to emulate the look and feel of a desktop app but fail is some subtile ways. Menues don’t quite behave like in the OS, reactions to dragging are not 100% done. It is already irritating when (even modern) Java applications differ in some ways from native ones.
I am a huge fan of leaving the form controls in their native look for usability reasons. But I refrain from creating the impression that the webapp will behave exactly like your native app. For now at least.
@Michael
Have you ever designed an application where you were directly involved with the users? I wish I could make my applications look as closely-related to the host OS as this — trust me, it would remove about 90% of the headaches that I have (you know, questions like, “Where’s the button at?” and “Where do I type in my name?”).