Pownce.com Bought Some Pretty Dumb Computers
Computers are smart. They can do lots of cool things like tell me it’s my turn to pick up the produce from the CSA or load up an interesting blog post for you to read. Unfortunately, ’social network’ startup Pownce.com isn’t buying the smartest computers.
They need to be told the difference between a message, link, file, and event.
Jeeeeez. I’m not a computer and I know the difference between those things. A message is words, a link has a clear structure (’http://’ is generally a good hint), an event has dates in it (same with grandma’s cookies), and a file is a something I upload.
If Pownce.com bought smarter computers, the top of you page might look something like this:
Go Pro, if only to contribute to their Smarter Computer Fund.
John Gruber talked about the difference when he compared iCal to the calendar in 37signals’ Backpack.
5 Comments
It doesn’t hurt to lead your users a little bit, does it? Not everyone uses "http://" or uses urls that begin with "www" or writes their dates and times the same way. A funny point comes up though out of this: if Pownce did it as you suggested then there’d be virtually no difference between it and Twitter.
As a joke:
I think Pownce should aim higher than to be a clumsier, less useful Twitter.
I just don’t get these new services.
“Pownce is a way to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends.”
So, it’s a replacement for email? Wait. Doesn’t email still work? Oh, it’s like Twitter! Wait. What is twitter for?
Oh! Twitter let’s people know what I’m doing. Cool. Er…wait a minute…why does anyone care what I’m doing?
Sigh…I’m turning into a web curmudgeon…
I’m not totally convinced by Gruber’s post, either.
Yes, the more steps it takes to do something, and the more complex the interface, likely the more annoying it is.
But the same can be said for the opposite as well. One can oversimplify an interface as well, leaving to little information to easily intuit what to do.
In the end, I don’t think one can simply say ‘fewer clicks are better’ or ‘fewer widgets’ are better as any sort of absolute rule. Yes, in general, that’s usually the case, but it’s really a task-by-task issue.
The best example is navigation. We’ve all be trained to use fewer options than more, but that often leads to people just giving up as they can’t find the particular task they need.
Take the Office 2007 interface. I’m sure it was done in the name of simplifying tasks, but why did it then take me a half hour to figure out how to print a file the first time I used it? ;o)
I agree with Garrick. The Pownce interface is stupid.
I see no reason why I should click a button to add a date. Once it notices I’m typing a date, it should pop up the little box (to the side) to allow me to add more metadata (if needed).
It should improve upon the Google ‘quick add’ feature, not be a step backward…
Links, tho, should be pretty damn obvious. No need for the button at all. If it on its own line, put it in a special link box. Otherwise, treat it as inline.