While Google Instant is somewhat annoying to me, and therefore turned off, on my Mac (because of the interaction between it and Safari), I think that the process of throwing any old idea against the wall and seeing if it sticks is a sound one in the usual case. The argument the article is making seems to be that theory is better than experiment; I think this would only be true in the case where experiment has shown over and over to be in line with theory, but UI design is such a young field that I'm strongly skeptical of that claim. Surely there have been enough recent accidental or surprising improvements that experiment with unusual ideas is still worthwhile?
Comments
While Google Instant is somewhat annoying to me, and therefore turned off, on my Mac (because of the interaction between it and Safari), I think that the process of throwing any old idea against the wall and seeing if it sticks is a sound one in the usual case. The argument the article is making seems to be that theory is better than experiment; I think this would only be true in the case where experiment has shown over and over to be in line with theory, but UI design is such a young field that I'm strongly skeptical of that claim. Surely there have been enough recent accidental or surprising improvements that experiment with unusual ideas is still worthwhile?