Re: Static? Dynamic?

At 11:12 PM 6/29/99 -0500, Dan Connolly wrote:
>Mike Meyer wrote:
>>  I want something that has the same looks and interface as a
>> link. [and yet invokes METHOD=POST]
>
>I suggest it would be anti-social to take this bit
>of user interface that everybody knows and radically
>change the semantics of it. Right now, everybody knows
>its harmless to follow a link, just like it's harmless
>to turn the pages of a book. It would be antisocial
>if, by turning to page 100, I deleted my bank account
>or some such.
>

This is not idle piety.  If the Web is to be more than a parlor game, it
needs to grow up to support the standards of a high-quality engaged dialog
per Deborah Tannen et_al.  Especially once we get into transactions
involving transfers of funds in micropayments.

Yes, we want the "JustClick" actions to gain in power; but there has to be
a control safety net to go with it.  Re-read the history of how Sears
Roebuck made mail order take off by offering a no-questions-asked
money-back guarantee.

You can't fool all of the people all of the time.  And the less you leave
people feeling that they were fooled, the more business you can do via
expedited procedures.

If the tear-off coupon is to be replaced by the rip-off link the current
boom in Internet commerce could yet go sour.

Al

>
>-- 
>Dan Connolly, W3C
>http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
>tel:+1-512-310-2971 (office, mobile)
>mailto:connolly.pager@w3.org (put your tel# in the Subject:)
> 

Received on Wednesday, 30 June 1999 08:36:53 UTC