Comments on: Usability matters http://sellmic.com/blog/2007/02/20/usability-matters/ Augusto's corner of art, code and fun Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:25:54 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: b http://sellmic.com/blog/2007/02/20/usability-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-504 b Sat, 18 Aug 2007 20:57:46 +0000 http://sellmic.com/blog/2007/02/20/usability-matters/#comment-504 I really like this design. You didn't cite where you got your definition of the typical user, but there are a lot of us who need more than just wget -r (or more likely, wget -np -r). When I run wget, I need to keep the manual page open in another window to keep track of all the switches, and this saves me that effort. It even covers a few of the things that are too well-hidden, like ignoring robots.txt (really, there are valid reasons to do so). The author did a good job of avoiding the temptation to put every option in a dialog, which you'll see by checking the wget man page. I think the ones chosen are the sensible and common options that a user would want beyond -np -r, while the more obscure ones are omitted. In fact, one of my favorite switches, to identify as Googlebot, is missing. The layout generally makes sense to me, but then, I've used wget before, so I'm not interested in ease of _initial_ use, but in ease of use. It's not pretty or inviting, but I think it solves its need admirably. I really like this design. You didn’t cite where you got your definition of the typical user, but there are a lot of us who need more than just wget -r (or more likely, wget -np -r). When I run wget, I need to keep the manual page open in another window to keep track of all the switches, and this saves me that effort. It even covers a few of the things that are too well-hidden, like ignoring robots.txt (really, there are valid reasons to do so).

The author did a good job of avoiding the temptation to put every option in a dialog, which you’ll see by checking the wget man page. I think the ones chosen are the sensible and common options that a user would want beyond -np -r, while the more obscure ones are omitted. In fact, one of my favorite switches, to identify as Googlebot, is missing.

The layout generally makes sense to me, but then, I’ve used wget before, so I’m not interested in ease of _initial_ use, but in ease of use. It’s not pretty or inviting, but I think it solves its need admirably.

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