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Web application inconsistencies, etc...

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:08 pm
by alex.barylski
What do you find to be the most over looked bugs, inconsistencies, etc in web applications, even of today.

For example, state preservation is typically never implemented completely. I don't think I have ever worked with ONE web application that nailed this 110%. There is always one page in a wizard that when you click back is cleared of it's previous contents, etc.

One thing that really annoys me is typical record listings with advanced filtering options. I find the record I want viewing browsing or searching or a combo of both, begin to edit details, save or cancel and BAM the record is updated but the filter state is lost and I have to find my record AGAIN in order to validate whether the save was successful.

I've seen some apps which try and circumvent this issue by using extensive AJAX. Problem is, when Javascript is disabled, nothing works. Even Facebook doesn't seem to work 100% when JS is disabled.

What do you often find missing in web apps which make you uneasy about using it, because as a developer you know it could be better?

Cheers :)

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:30 pm
by Kieran Huggins
hmmm... putting the search/filter params in a session variable and defaulting to the session for a GET request might solve that problem.

I'll have to think about other commonly overlooked issues.

Having really good documentation is often overlooked, IMO. I find that the PHP manual is an excellent example of how to do it properly.

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 7:05 pm
by alex.barylski
Kieran Huggins wrote:hmmm... putting the search/filter params in a session variable and defaulting to the session for a GET request might solve that problem.

I'll have to think about other commonly overlooked issues.

Having really good documentation is often overlooked, IMO. I find that the PHP manual is an excellent example of how to do it properly.
Personally I avoid using sessions unless it's mandatory or it provides a more elegant solution than using URL propagation. Although I wasn't looking for a fix but rather using it as an example of where web applications go bad. State persistence is just one common example.

Responsive-ness is one which is commonly touted and apparently solved via AJAX, although I find it slightly faster it often comes at the sacrafice of a really usbale interface.

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:51 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
What do you find to be the most over looked bugs, inconsistencies, etc in web applications, even of today.
Easy, sites which think the world speaks English only. ;) I love them - each and every one is incapable of accepting my real name in forms, displaying it, and otherwise using it. My name is Pádraic, and without that fuzzy fada over the first "a" it has a completely different pronunciation. I think over half my online accounts now require I use the English Patrick instead - not ideal but at least it means it's still barely valid.
What do you often find missing in web apps which make you uneasy about using it, because as a developer you know it could be better?
A brain. Sometimes you come across a truly stupid lack of a feature. For example, Ohloh lets you list open source projects you can add to a stack (stack of ones you actually use), and you can filter them. But the stack list is really small, there is no pagination of the list, and the filter is reset after each submitted project to your stack. It's pretty obvious how irritating it's going to be to users, and it wouldn't take a genius to implement a dynamic scrollable list that remembers it's filter state. In fact, why reload the page after adding a stacked app if Ajax is available? It's a simple REST request surely.

As Kieran noted - lack of documentation is painful. I'd apply it more to open source though - I know I spent a while writing documentation for a PHPSpec manual and it wasn't that difficult or time consuming (and I was writing Docbook XML, using a PHP XSLT task, and also adding a PHP Syntax Highlighter to Phing for post-processing of the HTML output). Documentation is not that hard even in a complex format - in PHP Docbook is even simple. PHP does have an xsl extension!

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:23 pm
by s.dot
I feel when you post a form, and there's an error, you should not have to fill out the whole form again. Take an extra 20 minutes and fill in the values for me that I previously filled in.

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:54 pm
by RobertGonzalez
My biggest pet peeve is when sites/applications make you, the user, have to figure out how to do what you want. I like it when an app is self explanatory and intuitive.