Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: How are we doing?

Author:Jakob Nielsen
Posted:11/28/1999; 2:40:47 PM
Topic:How are we doing?
Msg #:13304 (In response to 13299)
Prev/Next:13303 / 13305

I have said this before (bottom of User-Supportive Internet Architecture(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990919.html):

The "edit this page" feature is the metaphoric equivalent of WYSIWYG for the Internet age. Literal WYSIWYG is misguided for the Web (despite being the foundation for most Web editors) because there is no canonical output format on the Web the way there was for office automation. Pages *will* look different on different client units, especially with the coming explosion in Internet appliances. But the basic idea of unification is good and usually leads to improved usability (unless there are important reasons to maintain and understand the differences between two versions). I believe that it is a benefit to unify your browser navigation and website editing as opposed to distinguishing between what's on your harddisk and what's on the Internet. Sort of like it would be better if office automation GUIs could drop the concept of a "Save" command and the distinction between the document in RAM and the document on disk. Of course, when we drop such distinctions, we also need better Undo commands, and I don't know whether Manila supports that.

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