Instead of the user experience being built around "explicitly tell me when you don't want to save something," why not "explicitly tell me when you do want to save something?"
That would be the favorites system you have pretty much everywhere, including FA. Good point that it makes the ability to keep notifications around redundant.
Really, though, I'm just expressing disappointment that so few sites are playing around with the fundamental interaction models we've had for a decade.
It's generally true for all software. Touchscreen devices have amply demonstrated the inadequacy of the window/menubar/scrollbar/modal dialog system, yet barring a few adjustments we still cling to that dusty paradigm. And on the desktop we haven't even adopted those few adjustments.
My impression is that most of the other sites are betting that FA's eternal state of dysfunction is eventually going to cause it to topple [...]
Yep... and that never happens either. Technical superiority never wins. Linux versus Windows. Status.Net versus Twitter. It's natural, too: people go after convenience, and then there's the network effect, a.k.a. the "everybody uses X" argument.
I just wish more people understood that when we criticize something, for example FA, is because we care. The moment we stop caring, that's when you need to start worrying that we'll all go elsewhere.
That would be the favorites system you have pretty much everywhere, including FA. Good point that it makes the ability to keep notifications around redundant.
It's generally true for all software. Touchscreen devices have amply demonstrated the inadequacy of the window/menubar/scrollbar/modal dialog system, yet barring a few adjustments we still cling to that dusty paradigm. And on the desktop we haven't even adopted those few adjustments.
Yep... and that never happens either. Technical superiority never wins. Linux versus Windows. Status.Net versus Twitter. It's natural, too: people go after convenience, and then there's the network effect, a.k.a. the "everybody uses X" argument.
I just wish more people understood that when we criticize something, for example FA, is because we care. The moment we stop caring, that's when you need to start worrying that we'll all go elsewhere.