An oblique compliment for Facebook's designers

Even with technologies that make web pages act more like applications, many apps. still act like old-fashioned web pages, namely in that they rely on loading a new page (or reloading the same one) to update data. That's changing, of course. Naturally, some programmers/designers over-rely on the glittery new tools, which can have annoying side effects when done poorly. Particularly when the programmers/designers in question don't bother to stress-test their work or test it on multiple web browsers, operating systems, etc.

So, sadly, I still find myself surprised when it works so well that the web application behaves more like a program running on my desktop than it does a web page. The case in point is the bottom bar that Facebook uses for widgets like chat, notifications and its own version of the Windows Start menu. (Sorry for the analogy, Linux folks!) The Facebook "Start" menu in particular is done so well that I've found myself clicking it rather than the Linux taskbar when I need to launch a desktop--i.e. non web--program. Which would be only mildly annoying if I didn't do it again and again and again.

But if the menu widget is that convincing, I really can't consider it anything but a backhanded compliment to Facebook's user interface designers every time I'm punk'd. Good job, folks. [mumblegrumblemumblegrumble...]