Installing Software? Nah, I have a Browser

Alice Toth, Thursday, March 15, 2007 @ 5:26 pm

Let me tell you about my day which, for most of you, will sound very familiar (the actions if not the details).

When I came home, I was glad to see that not only had my Netflix DVD arrived, my updating of my queue was successfully completed before this latest mailing was sent out.  Putting the movie aside momentarily, I popped online to pay a bill because I realized I had never received the paper bill which should have arrived by now. But no worries here because I figured there was an online option available, which there was, so I easily took care of that outstanding item.

I then jumped over to the Benjamin Moore site and, using their interactive tools, was able to see what my friend’s house rehab will look like with the colors she’s selected. It should end up looking very nice. Then, being the good daughter that I am, I sent my mom some flowers (to celebrate the warmer weather that will surely arrive one of these days!) before settling in and watching my movie.

So in one evening I received the correct product thanks to real-time data management, accessed an accounts payable system, an interactive color tool, and a purchasing system. The Web has become an integral part of our lives, evolving from a static, digital publishing medium into a series of interactive applications that we use on a daily basis.

What struck me about all of this, however, is that not once did I have to insert a disk and install software in order to take advantage of what’s out there. Now perhaps you don't consider what you’re viewing on the web as software, but consider this: moving forward, we’re seeing an increase in the availability of hosted apps such as Google’s docs and spreadsheets and Adobe’s soon to be released online version of Photoshop. Features that used to require loading software in order to access are available via a web browser. Makes you wonder if maybe that dvd tray *is* a cupholder after all!

Related posts:

1. Installing Edge Ferret/acts_as_ferret
2. Visualizing Rich Interactions in Paper Prototypes
3. The iPhone experience
4. Agile Software Development and the Lazy Client Trap
5. Browser Wars : Part IV a new hope?

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User Experience Design

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