Still Not Integrated Enough
Jeffrey Zeldman again proves that you can judge a man’s wisdom by the degree to which he agrees with you. Therefore, I think he is very smart indeed.
Jeffrey goes on to discuss some of the nuts-and-bolts headaches of working with Ajax — hard to make the wireframes — but the overall sardonic, but still positive tone, makes it really worth the read. And of course, another supporter of the term.[from A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0 by Jeffrey Zeldman]
[…] ours is a medium in which, more often than not, big teams have slowly and expensively labored to produce overly complex web applications whose usability was near nil on behalf of clients with at best vague goals. The realization that small, self-directed teams powered by Pareto’s Principle can quickly create sleeker stuff that works better is not merely bracing but dynamic. As 100 garage bands sprang from every Velvet Underground record sold, so the realization that one small team can make good prompts 100 others to try.
The best and most famous of these new web products (i.e. the two I just mentioned [Flickr and Basecamp]) foster community and collaboration, offering new or improved modes of personal and business interaction. By virtue of their virtues, they own their categories, which is good for the creators, because they get paid. It is also good for our industry, because the prospect of wealth inspires smart developers who once passively took orders to start thinking about usability and design, and to try to solve problems in a niche they can own. In so doing, some of them may create jobs and wealth. And even where the payday is smaller, these developers can raise the design and usability bar. This is good for everyone. If consumers can choose better applications that cost less or are free, then the web works better, and clients are more likely to request good (usable, well-designed) work instead of the usual schlock.
