Web pages are big

Web pages load their own user interface code.

There are two immediate consequences of this.

First, each web page must load its own libraries to implement that interface. That slows the loading of web pages. The libraries include more than code; they include stylesheets, fonts, graphics, images and lots of HTML to tie it all together. The code often includes bits to identify the type of device (desktop web browser, mobile web browser, etc.) and functions to load assets when needed ("lazy loading").

I imagine that lots of this code is duplicated from page to page on a web site, and lots of the functions are similar to corresponding functions on other web sites.

Second, each web page has its own user interface, its own "look and feel", to use a term from the 1980s.

Each web page (or perhaps more accurately, each web site) has its own appearance, and its own conventions.

Even the simple convention of "login and logout links are in the top right corner" is not all that common. Of the dozens of web sites that I frequent, many have the "login" and "logout" links in the top right corner, but many others do not. Some have the links close to the top (but not topmost) and close to the right side (but not rightmost). Some web sites bury the "login" and "logout" links in menus. Some web sites put one of the "login" and "logout" links in a menu, but leave the other on the page. Some web sites put the "login" link in the center of their welcome page. And there are other variations.

Variation in the user interface is not evil, but it is inconsistent and it increases the mental effort to visit different web sites. But what do the owners of each web site care? As long as customers come to their web site (and pay them) then the web site is working, according to the company. The fact that it is not consistent with other web sites is not a problem (for them).

Web sites have to load all of their libraries, which increases overall load time for the site. The companies running the web sites probably care little, as the cost is imposed on their customers. The attitude that many companies take is probably (I say "probably" because I have not spoken to companies about this) is that the user (the customer), if dissatisfied with load time, can purchase a faster computer or a faster internet service. The company feels no obligation to improve the experience for the customer.

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The situation of individual, differing user interfaces is not unique. In the 1980s, prior to Microsoft Windows, PC software had different user interfaces. The word processors of the time (WordPerfect, WordStar, and even Microsoft Word which had a version for MS-DOS) each had their own "look and feel". The spreadsheets of the time (Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro Pro, and Microsoft Multiplan) each had their own user interfaces, different from each other and different from the user interfaces for word processors. Database packages (dBase, R:Base, Clipper, Condor) each had their own... you get the idea.

Windows offered consistency in the user interface. (It also offered graphics, which is what I think really sold Windows over IBM's OS/2, but that's another topic.) With Windows, programs started the same way, appeared the same way, and provided a set of common functions for opening files, printing, copying and pasting data, and more.

Windows arrived at an opportune time. Computers were fairly common, people (and companies) were using them for serious work, and applications had their various user interfaces. Windows offered consistency across applications, and reduced the effort to learn new applications. A spreadsheet was different from a word processor, but at least someone who was familiar with a word processor under Windows could perform basic operations in a spreadsheet under Windows. People, when learning new applications, could focus on those aspects that were unique to the new applications, not the common operations.

The result was that people learned to use computers more rapidly than in the earlier age of MS-DOS. Windows was sold on the reduction of effort (and therefore costs) in using computers.

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Will we see a similar transition for the web? Will someone come along and sell a unified interface for web apps, advertising a lower cost of use? 

In a sense, we have. The apps on smart phones have a more consistent user interface than web sites. This is due to Apple's and Google's efforts, providing libraries for common UI functions and guidelines for application appearance.

But I don't see a unifying transition for web sites in traditional (desktop) browsers. Each company wants its own look and feel, its own brand presence. It doesn't care that web sites take a long time to load, and it probably doesn't care that web sites require a lot of expensive maintenance. Microsoft was able to sell Windows from a position of strength, in a market that had few options. With the web, any company can set up a web site and offer it to the world. There is no convenient choke point, and there is no company strong enough to offer a user interface that could meet the needs of the myriad web sites in existence.

Which means that we are stuck with large web pages, long download times, and different interfaces for different web sites.

Modern times for websites

I visited a website recently; it recommended using Internet Explorer version 6.0 or higher. I found the idea nostolgic and amusing.

The website was clearly designed several years ago, when there were good reasons to require specific browsers.

But today, such a statement makes one look foolish. Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera all perform well. Internet Explorer's share of the market has dropped, and one must design a website for the bunch, not the one.

There is no good reason to design a website for a single browser, nor demand IE6 as a minimum. Even Microsoft is requesting that people move on from IE6!

Websites are dynamic, and even websites with static content must change. They must grow with the standards or die.

How to select talent

COMSYS connects people to positions. COMSYS has a website.

Registration should be easy. It should be a no-brainer. The concept of registration at a web site has been around for slightly less time that the age of the Web. It is "old hat". Granted, some web pages need more information than others, based on the services that they provide. And some web sites need more security than others. But everyone does it.

The first problem with COMSYS' site is the "explanation" web page. This page informs the registrant of the steps needed to register, and includes instructions such as "first click on this link, and then fill out this information, and then click on this other link to fill out more information". The need for such an explanation page indicates a failure of web design.

If you need to explain to people the steps need to register on your web site, you have a very poorly designed web site.

COMSYS' problems extend beyond the need for an explanation page.

The basic profile section, which lists a phone number and *two* e-mail addresses, has some major UI gaffes. I'll ignore the ability for a variable number of items for e-mail and phone numbers, like the GMail contacts UI. Variable fields are fairly new, and only the cutting-edge companies have them.

But COMSYS' site has major flubs. A phone number is edited, by the site, to contain only digits. Their edits remove parentheses and dashes -- those symbols that make the phone number readable to humans. And for the e-mail address fields, if you enter only one, the web site copies the e-mail address to the second field.

One field is listed as "Industry Experience". It's a text field, and you don't know quite what to put in it, until you realize that it is only two characters wide. (The text box is much wider than two characters.) Apparently it is for "years of experience".

The skills pages allow you to select various skills and self-rate your level for each (a nice feature). You can even mark skills as "primary". But only after selecting a bunch of skills as primary, and then clicking on 'submit', do you learn that you can select at most three as primary. The shock of a hidden rule for data entry overwhelms the amazement at a limit of three primary skills.

Major UI gaffes on your web site make you look like an amateur.

The task of connecting contractors with positions is a complex one. COMSYS chooses to collect information on the skills of each individual. The UI they have is not particularly onerous, but it's not friendly either. They have a series of pages that list sets of skills, and the registrant checks the skills that they have. The problem with this approach is the omitted skills ("Ruby on Rails" was listed, but not "Ruby").

Using a defined list of skills (or not allowing registrants to define their own skills) gives you an incomplete view of the person.

But these are nit-picks. I see bigger problems:

Problem one: COMSYS has built a web site to (apparently) let their back end (identifying candidates for positions) work efficiently. They have done this at the expense of the front end.

Problem two: COMSYS has built a web site that conveys the attitude "we are in charge and you are the product". Registrants must follow COMSYS' rules on the web site, listing only those skills that COMSYS deems important. Registrants have no ability to add unique skills to the list.

Problem three: Registrants cannot use the COMSYS site to extend their personal branding. People want to buy in to a job site, to define themselves and show off their talents. (I'm not saying that COMSYS should allow people to re-design the COMSYS web site and use custom graphics, but I am suggesting that people want to list their own skills and provide custom descriptions.)

The bottom line is that this web site offends, and COMSYS will probably lose talent because of it. After using this web site, I am pretty sure I understand the corporate philosophy of COMSYS, and I don't want to work there. Of course, they would place me not at COMSYS but at a client site, so the internal workings of COMSYS are not an issue.

Or are they? I suspect that COMSYS deals with corporations that think like themselves, just as individuals associate with like-minded people. If that is true (and I recognize that the reasoning starts with an interpretation of a web site and follows some tenuous logic) then I don't really want to work with COMSYS' friends, either.