One Interface or Two?
The authors of Getting Real recommend that a web application provide just one interface. Any administration tasks should be incorporated into the same interface that the public sees. This is an implementation of the half-mode change that I discussed in the previous weblog entry. Well, I disagreed with the concept of a half-mode change, and I certainly disagree with the concept that a web application should provide just one interface.
To incorporate the administration screens in the public interface means to extend the administration plumbing out into the public areas, which is about as appropriate as extending the plumbing of a house out into its living rooms and placing a toilet beside the lounge. There are many reasons why a toilet belongs in a bathroom, and privacy is just one reason. There are mechanical and architectural reasons too.
It is my contention that a website requires exactly two interfaces, and that both interfaces are very, very different. One is the web site interface and the other is the web application interface.
The website interface is what the visitor sees. The website interface should be completely unaffected by any administration concerns. If the website displays surfboards, then it should be free to present the boards using HTML, Flash, SVG, PDF, or whatever technology best allows the website owner to communicate with its customers. If you attempt to shoehorn the administration stuff into the same interface, then you’re limiting the choices available. The goal of maintaining just one interface penalizes the website owner’s message and the visitor’s experience, for the benefit of the developer, and that’s just wrong.
The web application interface is what the website’s administrators see. The web application interface should be completely unaffected by the pages that the visitor sees. The administrators should be able to edit content, never needing to worry about whether that content will be served to a browser, to a PDA, to a cellular phone, to an RSS aggregator, to a web service SOAP response, to the Google spider, to a PDF document, or to any other type of device or document. Moveover, the administration screens should be able to use whatever trickery is necessary to support the administrators, such as JavaScript and AJAX and form processing, even though such trickery may not be permissible in creating an accessible website.
To put it another way, the web site should be free to use the simplest and most effective approach possible for the website’s owner to communicate with its customers. The web application should be free to use any amount of complexity necessary to carry out administration tasks. The web site and the web application have different purposes, different requirements, and different forces. What good can come from trying to mesh the two together?
Charlie will not attempt to achieve a single interface by incorporating administration functions in the public website. The public website and the private web application will be kept separate.
by Alister Jones | Next up: Getting Real. Get It! →
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