But Worldcoin doesn't solve the problem of unequal distribution. The real world still exists.
Even if the food/money is perfectly evenly distributed via Worldcoin, a gang boss can have his muscle go around and threaten violence if people don't give him their share of the food/money. That's the problem, right?
The kind of injustice that spurs people to build Worldcoin can't be solved by Worldcoin.
For what it's worth, I deliberately trained myself to be able to do that as a kid. I noticed I couldn't, and it bothered me, so I just kept practicing until I had it down. I don't know whether it's possible to train as an adult, though.
That’s funny, I’m the opposite. I love front-end work. I adore JavaScript when I can write it using TypeScript. I program in React for my job all day and go home and make more React websites for fun. I do appreciate the more backend-y developers who send data to power the front-ends I build.
Because going to all this trouble has distinct advantages.
- With media queries in CSS my page can be responsive, scaling its size and content from 320px smartphones to multi-monitor desktops. I don't have to build and maintain multiple pages or specifically target individual devices.
- Using semantic tags makes it simpler for search engines to index your content and for visually impaired people to use screen readers and understand it.
- With advanced JavaScript I can reduce the friction of multi-page forms. AJAX lets us do instant checks on data against a remote database without loading the rest of the layout. Google helpfully suggests the rest of your query as you type.
Of course, it's not hard to go overboard with modern web tech, and these features can introduce bugs and alienate users running old hardware and software. But such is the price of progress.
> - With media queries in CSS my page can be responsive, scaling its size and content from 320px smartphones to multi-monitor desktops.
I guess I just don't want my pages to change, just
want them to look the same. On a big screen on a desktop
computer, one of my pages is still just 800 pixels
wide -- that's all I need for what I'm trying to
display to the user. I'm not trying to take up his
whole screen.
I see what from the user side Google has
done with AJAX -- it's nice. But Google
has nearly infinite money and wants the
most polished UI/UX they can get. But there's
some irony here: In most respects, the Google
screens are quite simple, and nothing "jumps
around" either during loading or usage. And the
loading is fast.
For sending one of my screens, I need send
only 400,000 bits; so, my screens should
send and load quickly.
I'll consider semantic tags. Thanks.
Yes, multi-page forms could be a bummer;
each of my forms fits easily on just one
page. But my UI is just dirt simple
for the user.
For
> old hardware and software
I'm not sure what I'm running is too old
to matter. But if there are such users,
then maybe they will like my pages because
I suspect that the pages will look fine
in any browser up to date as of 5, maybe
10, years ago.
> It's not hard to go overboard with modern web tech
That's an impression I got.
I've had a related point: Let's compare, say,
the Microsoft Word UI and Web page
UIs of, say, 10 years ago. Then,
the Word UI can take weeks to master, for
just that one program, more for Excel,
more for Outlook (I finally found how to
increase the font sizes, etc. in Outlook),
while there were tens of million of
Web sites 1+ billion people could use right
away. Why? Because all the sites were
simple and similar. Lesson: If Web
programming offers as much opportunity for
unique UIs, then we could lose the big
advantage of the Web that anyone can
use any page quickly. If that happens,
then I want to vote with the majority
and let others have unique UIs.
Sure do! This has been an issue in web design since 1999. Usability studies back this up.
Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents (Jakob Nielsen, 2005) [0]
The Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 1999 (Jakob Nielsen, 1999) [1]
Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design (Jakob Neilsen, 2011) [2]
We gain nothing by "keeping the user on our site." The user doesn't care, to them it's all just content they want to look at. If they want to come back to our site they can use the back button, the most popular feature on a browser[3]. If we open new windows we are: littering the user's screen; breaking their chain of navigation; and if they're on a mobile device, consuming extra RAM and causing other windows to disappear prematurely.
Are there any more recent studies with actual numbers and not just some vague talk about increased cognitive load (whatever this means)? Most I found seem to refer to the same 15 year old NN/g research report.
Since then a lot has changed, including the spread of multi-tabbed browsing (which one could imagine would have a huge impact on this issue) and drastic changes in the way web applications are designed. Is the "back" feature even still the most popular feature on a browser? While this claim would have been indisputable a few years ago, I seem to almost never use it these days unless I accidentally clicked on the wrong link. At least in my case, the evolutions I mentioned have changed the way I use my browser quite a lot. Less anecdotically, this does seem to be a more global trend since on Chrome for Android the back button has even been demoted to the "More" menu, while tab-switching has been given a more prominent spot (swipe from edge).
Not saying it has now become good to open links in new windows of course, but I'd be curious to see more recent research about the topic.
Not sure what the point would be… Besides the offender's unwarranted sense of entitlement (by keeping you around against your will), the main issue is that it breaks the back button. 15 years later, it's still an unwarranted sense of entitlement, and it's still breaking the back button. End of story, no?
If anything, we can an extra issue and suggest it's even worse nowadays. Per parent, it gobbles RAM on mobile devices, and this leads other tabs to close prematurely. It also turns older devices into helicopters when the fan kicks in.
But if you really need one, here's a study:
Date: just now.
Author: yours truly.
Methodology: browse random news websites every now and then on an old laptop and on an old mobile device.
Sample: yours truly.
Results: far too much cursing to publish as a HN comment, and frequent rage against the punk designers who ship huge JS payloads.
Conclusion: it still sucks. :-)
"In God we trust, all others must bring data." Best practices should be grounded in data rather than opinions whenever possible, especially when they're based on claims about users' cognitive load like in the NN/g recommendations.
> Per parent, it gobbles RAM on mobile devices, and this leads other tabs to close prematurely. It also turns older devices into helicopters when the fan kicks in.
I don't find that to be true with mobile devices. I much prefer having my links on mobile opening in a new tab, because a) mobile internet connection can be unreliable (and often a much bigger problem than lack of RAM), so I may not still have reception when trying to reload the original page, b) slow page loads makes browsing not as enjoyable since transitions take time, so I'd rather have everything in separate tabs and c) being on the move means I often put my phone down to do something else, so I don't necessarily remember every tab's browsing history.
Besides, mobile browsers have gotten a lot better at managing RAM and most have been able to optimize background tabs for a long time, so I think the RAM issue is way overrated.
> Besides the offender's unwarranted sense of entitlement (by keeping you around against your will), the main issue is that it breaks the back button. 15 years later, it's still an unwarranted sense of entitlement, and it's still breaking the back button.
I can see several reasons except for "unwarranted sense of entitlement" for this practice. It's all about reasonable expectations on the users' end: if a user can reasonably expect the website will behave some way, then not doing it this way can be detrimental to him. For example, many people expect "help" links (like the one next to the HN comment box) to not make you leave the page and rely on the "back" function to restore your painfully typed comment once you realize it does. They may be wrong in expecting this, but this seems like a perfectly rational safeguard against accidental data loss, so going against this could very well "increase the user's cognitive load".
As for the breaking the back button, my previous point was that the back button is not as important anymore, in part because a) a lot of things break the back button because dynamic content has made it much easier to do so and b) multi-tabbed browsing is now widespread and users may not be as confused by the fact each window/tab has its own browsing history anymore.
There are plenty of contradicting effects (precisely the reason why you and I can legitimately feel different about this issue) and the point of doing an actual study is to be able to measure them so we can compare them and say which trade-offs are worth it and which aren't.
> "In God we trust, all others must bring data." Best practices should be grounded in data rather than opinions whenever possible, especially when they're based on claims about users' cognitive load like in the NN/g recommendations.
Indeed they should. Except that here, the case is bloody obvious. "Show me the data that says the grass is green!" "Show me that evolution exists!" The onus of finding the data is on whoever thinks the statements are unreasonable.
Look… Opening links in new tabs does break the back button; no extra evidence is needed here beyond stating the obvious. The hardware back button on Android phones do lead to unexpected behavior; no extra evidence needed either. Having a save button in a word processor is needlessly forcing 40-year old IO limits onto end-users; no extra evidence needed here either.
In each case, what you can argue with and request data for, is this: whether end-users successfully cope with it or not; not whether it's broken to begin with.
And sadly, we humans are wonderfully adaptable. Including to pathetically poor user interfaces decisions such as the need to click a Start button in order to shut down a Win95 computer.
> Besides, mobile browsers have gotten a lot better at managing RAM and most have been able to optimize background tabs for a long time, so I think the RAM issue is way overrated.
Not everyone has a modern device. A whole bunch of iOS 5.1 devices (3rd-gen iPhones, 1st-gen iPads) and old Android devices are still in the wild.
> For example, many people expect "help" links (like the one next to the HN comment box) to not make you leave the page and rely on the "back" function to restore your painfully typed comment once you realize it does.
And that would qualify as a session that shouldn't be interrupted — i.e. it's a perfectly valid use-case, including for the OP.
(I, for one, would nonetheless suggest that a floating div on the same screen might be superior in that case, because the current window/tab would not lose its focus — a hopefully obvious fact.)
> a lot of things break the back button because dynamic content has made it much easier to do so
Assuredly so. But two wrongs don't make a right, so posting that as a reason to break it further is dubious at best.
Speaking personally, I hate those sites because they break my back button. I actually use the damned thing a lot, come to think of it. Especially on my 1st-gen iPad, since RAM-starved device can't seem hold more than a tab or two in memory when browsing sites loaded with JS.
> the point of doing an actual study is to be able to measure them so we can compare them and say which trade-offs are worth it and which aren't
Indeed. But chances are you wouldn't actually be measuring these things due to the huge bias involved in the measurement itself.
By simply asking a user if he prefers A or B, even qualitatively, you may open up a whole new world that he was unaware of until you asked; if so, the odds are good that — of course! — he'll prefer it rather than his more familiar daily routine, since the latter is in shambles due to widespread bad practices.
But hold… Your profile states that you're a data scientist, and I see you attended IEP at that. So you necessarily know this, and the — obvious — fact that a great many studies out there are inconclusive due to dubious methodology.
You're missing my point though. My point was not that opening links in a new window is always a good thing, just that usability experts keep parading the same old studies and scientific-sounding claims about "cognitive load" (and it's not just about this link issue) and that I was curious about how they were backing up their claims. Regardless of what I think the best behavior should be, as someone who cares about quality data and methodology I simply wished UX could be a little bit more rigorous, which is why I've been playing devil's advocate. Note that my original comment did not state any preference towards one side or the other (my last sentence even explicitly said so), I was just commenting on how I was curious to find more compelling arguments. If they were to say "it is the preferred convention because it seems reasonable and is consistent with our recommendations", that would be another story. But passing personal preference for scientific truth, and then using this as a pretext to be self-righteous about it (like the author of the linked post) is not OK.
My original argument was simple:
1) opening links in new windows is said to be bad because a) it breaks the back button, and b) the back button is the most important one
2) the back button does not seem to be as important as it is now because of multi-tabbed browsing. Furthermore, since what matters is not not the back button itself, but how users expect the back button to perform, the fact this functionality has become unreliable could change the user's expectations (it changed mine)
3) therefore, the original argument may not be relevant anymore
> Indeed. But chances are you wouldn't actually be measuring these things due to the huge bias involved in the measurement itself.
The burden of proof should be proportional to the size of the claims you make. You can only be as confident as your data: if you believe there are biases in the measurement, then you should stay measured, too.
By the way, you say:
> And that would qualify as a session that shouldn't be interrupted — i.e. it's a perfectly valid use-case, including for the OP.
Who defines what should and shouldn't be interrupted? In the case of an article, I could argue that when I click a link in the middle of an article (like in The Verge's case), it's generally just because I'm curious about the link, kind of like I would read a footnote in a book, but ultimately I don't want to lose my pace and that would interrupt my reading "session". It is definitely not an indisputable claim, but it sure is a justifiable one (unlike, say, auto-loading audio advertisements) so The Verge isn't evil for doing so. If they had an A/B test and it showed it increased retention and that this is worth irritating some users, that's their decision to make.
Anyway, I feel this discussion has grown way out of proportion to the original claim and that we're just arguing for the sake of being right at that point. I'll willingly concede that you're right to say that as of now, forcing new tabs may place an unnecessary burden on users using older hardware.
I'm working in a 2D RPG in ImpactJS. Spent the last week getting HTML 5 caching to work on desktop and iOS, then put the finishing touches on a bash script to update the cache manifest, compress all my JS files and rsync them to the server.
Love it. I'm not an engine guy, so having some of it done for me is wonderful. ImpactJS is well documented, reasonably fast, and has classes for the basics that work well. Plus it has a level editor that now includes collision detection. I'm satisfied with the $100 price.
The new lighting engine is welcome. Torches give off an orange glow, and outside light peeks through openings with a misty blue look. This makes exploring much more tense and atmospheric.
I'm also fond of the larger biomes. The first world I spawned in 1.8 placed me on a small island with one tree in the middle of what looked like an infinite ocean. Forests, swamps, deserts etc. seem to go to the horizon, which is nice.
Sadly, there's still the bug where breaking a block doesn't erase it from the world, so you can "step inside" it and see the tunnels and lava pools below the surface.
What was behind the decision to use Starbucks' size names for your plans? I really like the site and the prices are reasonable, but the thought of signing up for a "Venti" video hosting service doesn't sound appealing to me.
The usual solutions of Bronze/Silver/Gold work rather well for that and have the advantage of self-evident meanings and widespread usage. If you want something more amusing, you might try a movie or video metaphor.
I believe Nintendo intends to profit via software licensing and hardware sales. The Wii was profitable at launch[1].
But I wonder how the Virtual Console works on the Wii. Does Nintendo have an SNES hardware-to-software conversion guide? Do their VC releases turn out perfect? I've bought a few, and while they're certainly faithful, I'm not enough of a connoisseur to spot the flaws.
I'm under the impression that each Virtual Console download includes an instance of an emulator. If that's the case, they may tweak the emulator for compatibility with each game (or hack the game itself). If you want to look into it some more, the guys who do 'Virtual Console WAD injection' might have an idea. ROM Hacking and (NES/SNES) console development sites/forums might have some information, too.
I vaguely remember hearing of instances where games weren't emulated accurately (or even as well as on other emulators), particularly with regard to slowdown on PAL consoles.
Yeah, in the one case where I tried the wii virtual console with a game that was big in my childhood (Contra 3), it just doesn't feel quite the same. Noone's gotten an SNES controller quite right, either. So I hang on to a SNES to bring out every now and then.
http://www.retrousb.com/ has adapters to connect the original NES or SNES pads to either USB or a Gamecube/Wii. I've used their SNES-to-USB adapter and it works perfectly.
Even if the food/money is perfectly evenly distributed via Worldcoin, a gang boss can have his muscle go around and threaten violence if people don't give him their share of the food/money. That's the problem, right?
The kind of injustice that spurs people to build Worldcoin can't be solved by Worldcoin.