
The Rise of Contextual User Interfaces - breily
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_rise_of_contextual_user_interfaces.php
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tdavis
One ugly thing rarely mentioned about this "rise of contextual user
interfaces" is the decline of providing alternatives for non-javascript users.
Try disabling JS and clicking the contextual menu arrow at the book site
mention in the article, <http://www.shelfari.com>.

Oh, don't have Javascript enabled?! Forget using all those convenient options!
In fact, there's not much of anything you _can_ do on the site w/o JS on and
you can especially forget _all_ the contextual menus, which do not seem to
have non-JS counterparts at all!

This is an alarming trend, at least to me. Yes, there are times when you can
make some convenience functionality in JS and not have to worry about when
users don't have it on. But to base an entire menu structure on it, menus that
can be accessed no other way? That's sort of a step backwards, isn't it?

They also kind of ripped off the bookshelf design from Delicious Library, but
that's neither here nor there I suppose.

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misterbwong
This is pure ignorance on my part but why do you disable javascript? I can
only think of two reasons: a) safety concerns and b) old browser. Both of
these can be taken care of pretty easily. Are there other reasons?

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tdavis
Many lesser mobile browsers still have limited/no Javascript support. I know
quite a few people who disable both JS and Flash because they don't want crazy
crap flying around the screen and so forth. Some people are security nuts as
well.

It's not a matter of coming up with a lot of reasons, though. The fact is that
as a web developer, even today, we cannot safely assume that Javascript will
be enabled or available. For some the need for JS far outweighs the
consequences of not having it. Take for example an app suite like Zoho or
Zimbra. However, even GMail has an HTML version.

Javascript also causes usability and accessibility concerns, especially for
those using screen readers, CLI browsers (like lynx), and other non-typical
devices to browse the web. There are countless books and essays and blog posts
on the subject of Javascript's destruction of usability and accessibility when
not used in a progressively-enhancing way.

Personally, I never disable Javascript. I disabled it on that site in order to
confirm my suspicion that their entire navigation structure depends on it.
However, I do recommend turning off Javascript for a day while browsing the
web and visiting your favorite sites. It is truly an eye-opener.

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rrwhite
I'm sure it's an eye-opener just as browsing with Netscape 4 would be, but I
don't think it really means anything.

I gave up on caring about what a site does without JS a long time ago. It's
not worth my time to do it just like it's not worth designing cars for people
without legs.

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henning
Office is a completely different kind of application from iTunes and video
players. The interface will therefore be different as well. Comparing a
product 8 years old to something 8 months old isn't fair, anyway.

Plenty of Microsoft products support contextual user interfaces - all the
windows and tabs in Visual Studio can be set to auto-hide and placed on the
margins of the window so that mousing over them exposes them (like in IntelliJ
IDEA). It works especially well for doing demos and working on low-resolution
displays like laptops, but I use it that way anyway because I love the
relatively minimalist feel it has (I disable the menu bar, scroll bar, and
tool bar in Emacs, too).

Beyond that, observing that Apple pays more attention to the user interface
than Microsoft is trite.

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josefresco
Amazing how the craptacular iTunes is used as an example of a 'good' UI from
Apple. Apple makes some great UI's and software, iTunes is not one of them.

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gommm
How so? I've read some people saying that itunes is crap but have never found
a software that was this convenient for managing my music.... So care to
explain more in details why you think it's crap? And what other software you
would recommend me?

