Web design vs. Desktop app design - a discussion.

[Kilgore_Trout_Redux]

The latest Facebook security breach has gotten me thinking. At what point does a web application become so complex that it should move off the web and into a desktop application (If at all.)

My experience with web design is that at a certain level of complexity traditional web design reaches a point at which it is just too much of a mess to develop with.

There are absolutely no interface standards which means that the frequent UI updates we see tend to frighten off users and each website has its own UI quirks that makes learning how a site works a serious hurdle (One that gets higher with complexity) while there are established patterns and standards in desktop UI design that most users are already familiar with.

Desktop development is also more mature so it arguably makes complex coding tasks simpler.

Would you be interested in a desktop version of Facebook?

 

[Necuno]

The latest Facebook security breach has gotten me thinking. At what point does a web application become so complex that it should move off the web and into a desktop application (If at all.)

My experience with web design is that at a certain level of complexity traditional web design reaches a point at which it is just too much of a mess to develop with.

There are absolutely no interface standards which means that the frequent UI updates we see tend to frighten off users and each website has its own UI quirks that makes learning how a site works a serious hurdle (One that gets higher with complexity) while there are established patterns and standards in desktop UI design that most users are already familiar with.

Desktop development is also more mature so it arguable makes complex coding tasks simpler.

Would you be interested in a desktop version of Facebook?

lol. i suggest you work with or in a decent programming team that does follow standards and coherency. as it seems you know only chaos, disorder and every jack for himself (if i understand where you are coming from with this, we do follow same layout, color, controls etc etc in our web dev with kiss)

 

[tco21]

This could be an interesting thread.

 

[dequadin]

From a purely security point of view, the cloud is not yet considered secure.

Cloud computing risks outweigh benefits, survey finds

 

[Raithlin]

You're not the first to be upset with Facebook being all online: http://www.google.co.za/search?ie=UTF-8&q=facebook+desktop

However, moving away from the specifics to the general philosophic question at hand, I beg to differ. Programming standards and best practices can be applied equally across both desktop and web programming. In reality though, I've seen some bad website coding, as well as bad desktop coding. It's not the platform that is at fault.

 

[Necuno]

From a purely security point of view, the cloud is not yet considered secure.

Cloud computing risks outweigh benefits, survey finds

it's going to be a cold day in hell before we adopt cloud, well at least not now anyways.

You're not the first to be upset with Facebook being all online: http://www.google.co.za/search?ie=UTF-8&q=facebook+desktop

However, moving away from the specifics to the general philosophic question at hand, I beg to differ. Programming standards and best practices can be applied equally across both desktop and web programming. In reality though, I've seen some bad website coding, as well as bad desktop coding. It's not the platform that is at fault.

exactly.

 

[davemc]

I would consider a facebook appication. But, I would expect the application to be inflexible, not adding plugins as it see's fit, something which is against the very nature of facebook.

 

[DarkStreet]

The latest Facebook security breach has gotten me thinking. At what point does a web application become so complex that it should move off the web and into a desktop application (If at all.)

My experience with web design is that at a certain level of complexity traditional web design reaches a point at which it is just too much of a mess to develop with.

There are absolutely no interface standards which means that the frequent UI updates we see tend to frighten off users and each website has its own UI quirks that makes learning how a site works a serious hurdle (One that gets higher with complexity) while there are established patterns and standards in desktop UI design that most users are already familiar with.

Desktop development is also more mature so it arguably makes complex coding tasks simpler.

Would you be interested in a desktop version of Facebook?

If a web app becomes too messy you're not doing it right.

Desktop applications have equally severe problems when it comes to things like exploits. Look how often browsers and plugins like PDF and Flash need to update to patch security vulnerabilities. Facebook as a desktop app will be infinitely insecure as it's susceptible to the usual software exploits, reverse engineering, etc. plus not everybody will always have the latest version (this problem exists with all desktop software) which will make for even more risk (versus the current web platform where an update is available to everybody immediately).

 

[Raithlin]

I would consider a facebook appication. But, I would expect the application to be inflexible, not adding plugins as it see's fit, something which is against the very nature of facebook.

I would look into the Silverlight client for Facebook (Google it) - it was developed by Facebook and Microsoft. Received some rave reviews. Personally, I use Sobees Lite for updates, along with my Twitter feeds. It's all I'm interested in anyway.

 

[crazy_cat]

At what point does a web application become so complex that it should move off the web and into a desktop application (If at all.)

Complexity is relative to your problem domain. A well designed system should be able to handle the additional requirements (even if they are complex) for that domain. This would apply equally to both web and desktop apps

To further explain the relative part:- when someone says complex, does it mean that it will a long time to implement (new requirement), or its easy but it will consist of countless hours of dogwork?

Nothing is too complex, to partially quote the phrase from the movie "The first 20 mill $ is the hardest" Simplify, Clarify ...

My experience with web design is that at a certain level of complexity traditional web design reaches a point at which it is just too much of a mess to develop with.

To clarify, what is 'traditional' and what is 'a mess'?

There are absolutely no interface standards which means that the frequent UI updates we see tend to frighten off users and each website has its own UI quirks that makes learning how a site works a serious hurdle (One that gets higher with complexity) while there are established patterns and standards in desktop UI design that most users are already familiar with.

You may be right there - but the key is consistency. Updating your UI, or even creating new UI should be a problem as long as they are consistent with existing ones (layout, style, how it works etc). Thus when presented to users, they have a certain level of expectation that can and will be met.
Can you provide a reference to the desktop standards you mention?

Desktop development is also more mature so it arguably makes complex coding tasks simpler.

To put this mildly, that BS!! Any developer can equally code krap for desktop and web apps. Bearing in mind that there is fundamental difference between a web app and desktop app (eg HTTP vs no HTTP)

Would you be interested in a desktop version of Facebook?

No ways - i figure it will be too bloated, and an overall memory hog which bring my machine to screeching halt and cause me frustration beyond belief as which point will result me having burst blood vessels in my brain causing my untimely death which will then blamed on the evils of social networking and cause undue panic in the world resulting in more people getting the facebook desktop app to see what all the fuss is about.

Alternatively, i could just (hopefully) uninstall the damn thing.

Programming standards and best practices can be applied equally across both desktop and web programming. In reality though, I've seen some bad website coding, as well as bad desktop coding. It's not the platform that is at fault.

Agreed.

 

[Keeper]

Im already using a Facebook Application on my iPhone and it's brilliant!

I would not use it as a program on a Desktop though, whats the point?!

 

[dequadin]

Can you provide a reference to the desktop standards you mention?

I think it's safe to assume he's talking about Windows UI standards. The menu bar File, Edit. Options Help etc. And the standard icon sets Stiffy Disk for Save etc.

To put this mildly, that BS!! Any developer can equally code krap for desktop and web apps. Bearing in mind that there is fundamental difference between a web app and desktop app (eg HTTP vs no HTTP)

I think it depends on which layer you are talking. Data & Business layers are equal whether it's web/desktop. But the UI layer is much easier to do on a desktop than on the web. How much javascript does it take to do Drag and drop? Desktop UI's are also a lot more responsive. Even the best are struggling with this, Google/Facebook etc

 

[crazy_cat]

I think it's safe to assume he's talking about Windows UI standards. The menu bar File, Edit. Options Help etc. And the standard icon sets Stiffy Disk for Save etc.

Would the ffg be examples of what the web standards are (both refer to the same/similar stuff)

• YUI
• Quince

I think it depends on which layer you are talking. Data & Business layers are equal whether it's web/desktop. But the UI layer is much easier to do on a desktop than on the web. How much javascript does it take to do Drag and drop? Desktop UI's are also a lot more responsive. Even the best are struggling with this, Google/Facebook etc

Unless you planning to do it yourself, alot otherwise Jquery or similar... Frameworks exist for a reason.

 

[dequadin]

Unless you planning to do it yourself, alot otherwise Jquery or similar... Frameworks exist for a reason.

I agree I a big fan of frameworks, but which one do you choose? You also have 5 "major" browsers to support, graceful degradation blah blah.

The "best" web UI I've used is Google Calendar, even that can be a pain. GMail has only just added right-click and that's a labs feature.

Google Docs and Wave are really awesome, but so unresponsive it's irritating to work with them - so I stay away.

All I'm saying is "complex" UI's are easier on a desktop, I don't think there's much argument there hey...?

 

[crazy_cat]

I agree I a big fan of frameworks, but which one do you choose? You also have 5 "major" browsers to support, graceful degradation blah blah.

The "best" web UI I've used is Google Calendar, even that can be a pain. GMail has only just added right-click and that's a labs feature.

Google Docs and Wave are really awesome, but so unresponsive it's irritating to work with them - so I stay away.

All I'm saying is "complex" UI's are easier on a desktop, I don't think there's much argument there hey...?

Jquery, but recently I have reading some rave reviews about MooTools - so will give that a bash. For me, I find the challenge of web-apps with these types of blah, blahs really challenging and gets kicks out of it.

The unresponsive part is why I stopped FB..

I concede that you are right, but the web ones look and feel so much more better. To turn this question on its head, what is the best desktop UI you have used and have you seen or used an equivalent web-based one?

 

[dequadin]

To turn this question on its head, what is the best desktop UI you have used and have you seen or used an equivalent web-based one?

That's easy, Google Chrome

I do think that GMail > Outlook 2003 & Thunderbird 3, I'm waiting to see what they do in Outlook 2010 (but I'm not a fan of the ribbon).

That all being said, my "life" is pretty much in the cloud. Google Apps (GMail/Calendar/Reader), rememberthemilk, evernote. Purely from a convenience point of view, I work from 4 different machines and keeping those synced is impossible - i tried.

Now only if we had faster broadband so I could use dropbox. Mint.com also looks brilliant but US only

 

[crazy_cat]

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Double click the ribbon (on the tab name) to hide the whole ribbon instantly
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[crazy_cat]

Chrome is awesome - Simple, clean, neat etc etc

I think that Outlook is better than gmail...

 

[Raithlin]

Getting back to the standards / best practice for web dev, check out this link: http://molecularvoices.molecular.com/standards/

 

[FarligOpptreden]

Awesome article, Raithlin. Love the humorous slant on many of the statements as well...