- From: Malcolm Rowe <malcolm-what@farside.org.uk>
- Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 11:30:36 +0100
Hi Ian, >Ok so here's a question for everyone. Assuming we want the <repeat> >mechanism, which I think we do, [...] > Personally, I'm not so sure. The logic required to support the repetition model is extremely complex, compared to the rest of the document, so it should need to provide a significant benefit to us (users, authors) for it to be included. It sounds like a good idea in theory. For example, all those order-entry applications could use it instead of providing a large input form with 'add/delete' buttons. But in reality, where would it be used? I've been trying to think of examples, and I'm having trouble. I'm not sure if the reason that I can't think of examples is because the functionality isn't yet available (and so people have designed sites to work without it), or whether it's because it's not as useful as it initially sounds. For example, would Amazon use it? Theirs is a site with a 'shopping-basket' metaphor, so it seems like it might be natural. But no, I don't think they would - the shopping-basket metaphor is a good one, because you want to assemble a list of the things you want in the background while browsing. You don't want to fill in a large list of items as a foreground task. Ok then: At work, I use an intranet-based timesheet-entry application, with just a large entry form, and a list of entries with edit/delete buttons. Would we change that to use the repetition model? Again, probably not. There are several reasons: the entry form we have contains a lot of extra explanatory text that isn't in the list; the form is more powerful than the inline 'edit' functionality (not a good thing, but just illustrating that we'd need a significant amount of work to convert it); and finally, I don't think that a page of 100-200 form controls would be particularly usable (10-20 entries of 10 or so fields each). In other words, the model we're using is 'good enough', and it's not clear that the repetition model makes things significantly better. I guess it boils down to this: it's really complex, so show me a compelling use case. I'm not against it, just not particularly sure whether I should be 'for' it. Thanks, Malcolm
Received on Saturday, 19 June 2004 03:30:36 UTC