Web Applications Innovation

June 4, 2007 on 11:51 pm | In Web apps |

Since we talked about web applications last time, I just wanted to say something more. Something I’ve been telling others in conversations, but never had a place to write in before I started this blog.

Next-gen web applications really need innovation. If there is one thing I hate about the world wide web and web technologies, it’s bandwagon-jumpers who only learn the surface of things. There are more than enough web developers (or so-called developers) who only learn the latest tricks and start abusing them. JavaScript tricks and Flash were such things back then.

With AJAX and DOM scripting, you get those guys too. There are plenty of “Web 2.0″ companies/web sites out there, and many are simply unnecessary and useless. With small web sites, you can afford to simply ignore their existences. Unfortunately, such lack of innovation also exists in large corporations.

I really hate to say it, but to give you an idea of what I mean: Yahoo falls under this category, especially in comparison with Google.

First of all, I just want to say that I like Yahoo as a company. Yahoo Games are some wonderful stuff that no other sites can replace even today. As for other services like Mail, Maps, and other things, I appreciate their effort to make them better every day.

Let’s look at Yahoo Mail now. And for comparison’s sake, we’ll also be looking at Google’s Gmail. If you still don’t know what Yahoo Mail is like today (you probably don’t use it then?), here’s a screenshot:

(Click to enlarge picture)

Looks familiar? That’s right, because it is familiar. That’s just like Outlook/Outlook Express! It is a great design, and it looks very pretty, I’ll give you that. If you were shown this UI 5 years ago, you would even think this is a desktop application and wouldn’t believe it if I told you it was web-based. It’s basically Outlook Express, with ads.

There is only one thing it lacks — innovation. You can argue that from a usability point-of-view, this is a good design because it brings familiarity. Users tend to use their old knowledge to judge a new interface they come across. Being able to bring the desktop application experience entirely to a web application is a good thing. However, is that really all you can do? There are certainly more. So let’s look at how Google takes its approach at emails.

First, I should tell you (if you don’t already know) that Gmail came out way before Yahoo Mail released their new AJAX interface — so you can’t say that Gmail is better because it came late. Now, let’s look at a screenshot:

(Click to enlarge picture)

Gmail chose not to “duplicate” an all-too-familiar desktop email program look-and-feel. Instead, they just sticked with a regular web-based email design. However, a few things distinguish Gmail from the rest of the world’s email services.

1. Threaded conversation. It’s one of those things where you say, “Why was email never done this way before?” or “How could I ever live without that before?” Just like Apple says — the best design is one that goes unnoticed in users. It’s something that should be that way. Apple’s done it with iPhone and voicemails. (Why did nobody think of checking voicemails with a GUI and choosing which one to listen to? Why would you have to listen to the first 5 messages from friends before you get to the most important one from your boss?)

Why are there still no other email services that do it this way, after Gmail has done it for so long? If you have ever planned trips with friends, using Reply-All on every response, and getting people’s replies on the subject and leading to 100-message threads, you will not want anything but Gmail.

This wasn’t even something that would require the use of AJAX and DOM scripting. Using them just made it all a lot smoother. It’s just a general new idea, and Google was the one who made it.

2. Labels and searching. Personally, I don’t use labels as much as I should. Labels are better than folders in all kinds of ways, but I have to admit that many users just don’t “get it” — they don’t see how it can be used in place of folders. As for searching, it’s Google’s thing. You really can’t beat Google at searching, and they incorporated it into email, so I don’t have much to say about that.

3. Instant messaging within email. Yahoo has finally incorporated it now too (yeah, finally). As we all know, though, it’s coming up with the idea that is the hardest. It’s only half the work if you just say, “Hey, those guys did that. Let’s make that in our product too.”

All the same thing can be said with Google Maps. Interactive dragging, zooming were all done at Google first. Why did Mapquest, Yahoo Maps, etc. not think of them before? They have been in the mapping business for so much longer. Everybody switched over to Google Maps once it was released. Why? Innovation.

Conclusion

True, it would be unreasonable to require everyone to be innovated geniuses. And Google is certainly not the only one who has made good stuff from technology. Meebo has done something incredible, and so has many other companies. (By the way, I have read an article before saying how Meebo is what’s wrong with today’s web technologies. I happen to disagree with it, but that’s topic for another day.) If you don’t try, you’ll never succeed, right?