By Mike Madaio

Mike,

Why do all of the coolest technologies have such major usability problems?! I’m pretty much an entry-level coder (HTML, some PHP), but I want to learn something higher-end like ActionScript (Flash coding) or Ajax. But then users seem to have such issues with Flash and Ajax. Which one should I focus on learning if I’m pretty concerned about usability?

Thanks!

Diane

Hi Diane,

The coolest technologies don’t need to have such major usability problems, but for some reason we keep letting them! People can get so caught up in using these technologies that they forget about the core user-centric principles that have been developed over the past 10-15 years of the web. The good news, Diane, is that you are concerned enough about this to ask me, so I’m less worried about you. So long as you keep the user in mind, and take time to usability test your designs, you should be fine with either AJAX or Flash.

For more info, you might also want to read my two part post, “Staying User-Centric in the Maze of Web 2.0″.
BTW Diane, as a coder myself, I would say that if your current background is HTML and PHP, you might be better off going down the JavaScript (DOM Scripting) and AJAX path, as it will build on what you have already learned. But that is just one guy’s opinion.

Mike

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.