Welcome! Now go away!
By Kenneth Maage. Wednesday, 24. January 2007, 14:58:12
This just in, from the "God bless and keep our customers...far away from us!" department.
Yahoo has taken the "first run" concept to new heights. The first time you use the new yahoo photo, it starts as a normal webpage*, looks like a regular page, then...BAM!
The screen goes grey. Going grey is a good way to indicate that you can't interact with those elements. Except...a second ago I could!
To give you a feel for what happens, you have to understand that the page doesn't load in a greyed out state, it loads in a "looks like it is fully interactive" style, then switches to the inactive state. As if to say, "Ha ha!" (queue that kid from the Simpsons). You thought you were in control, but WE are.
It even gets worse. After one attempt to get rid of the "help," I was forced into page one of a six page tutorial. Same grey background still.
And the creme-de-la-creme, is the condescending, "We'll let you pass,"
remeniscient of Monty Python's Holy Grail. If you answer these three questions... "What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
How many times do I have to say this, people? (at Yahoo) Users hate when you put things in their way. When you force them to do things your way.
* The "start as a webpage then switch to grey" is especially visible with Opera's progressive rendering, where Opera displays content as soon as it has something, instead of waiting for the entire page to load first.
Yahoo has taken the "first run" concept to new heights. The first time you use the new yahoo photo, it starts as a normal webpage*, looks like a regular page, then...BAM!
The screen goes grey. Going grey is a good way to indicate that you can't interact with those elements. Except...a second ago I could!
To give you a feel for what happens, you have to understand that the page doesn't load in a greyed out state, it loads in a "looks like it is fully interactive" style, then switches to the inactive state. As if to say, "Ha ha!" (queue that kid from the Simpsons). You thought you were in control, but WE are.
It even gets worse. After one attempt to get rid of the "help," I was forced into page one of a six page tutorial. Same grey background still.
And the creme-de-la-creme, is the condescending, "We'll let you pass,"
remeniscient of Monty Python's Holy Grail. If you answer these three questions... "What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
How many times do I have to say this, people? (at Yahoo) Users hate when you put things in their way. When you force them to do things your way.
* The "start as a webpage then switch to grey" is especially visible with Opera's progressive rendering, where Opera displays content as soon as it has something, instead of waiting for the entire page to load first.
WIDGETIZE