The trouble with web apps: instant upgrade
by Celine Roque
I’ve always been a fan of Wordpress, which I use in all my blogs. However, the latest version, 2.7 or Coltrane, gave me mixed feelings. While I welcome all of the security fixes and added features, I didn’t like the admin interface redesign. Now this is entirely subjective, as most people probably like the slick UI. For me, however, the older ones were more intuitive out of the box.
For my self-hosted installations of Wordpress, this isn’t much of a problem as I could choose to skip this upgrade (with its own consequences) or rearrange the admin page and install a few plugins. But for my Wordpress-hosted blog, I’ll have to live with it, and in time I may eventually come to like it. Still, this got me thinking about web apps in general, and how the instant upgrade it affords may need a second look.
In terms of interface design, I hope that changes are incremental, or even optional (e.g. users can choose between “classic view” and “standard view”). Like I said, security updates are fine and I appreciate that web applications are constantly upgraded for bug fixes while I sleep, with no effort required on my part. However, the user interface is both a matter of function and taste, and so developers should take both into account.
As web applications become increasingly complex, I also see speed as being an issue for downloading heavier pages. Not everyone is on high-speed broadband, and I’m sure users will appreciate being given the an option to pick a plainer version of the web app if the need arises, as in the case of Gmail’s HTML and AJAX versions. This may not be possible with everything, but it’s a nice thing to have for those that can.
Being fed something passively may be more convenient, but sometimes it’s also good to be in control.
