14 Dec 2007

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Silverlight)

I have been hearing and blogging about Sylverlight for many months now
But it's actually the first time that I encounter a sylverlight application while trying to: download the .NET Framework.

Microsoft doesn't force you to use it (there is an alternate web1.0 interface) but I thought I'd give it a try :)

First impressions:
  • I had to download sylverlight (1Mo, small = cool)
  • Restart firefox :( (bad especially when you have dozen of web pages open...)
  • Quit slow to start up (reminds me of applets)
  • The interface (controls, buttons...) is neat, it looks cool
  • The application I tested has too many gadgets for my taste (everything can fold/unfold) could have been more simple (but that's not a technology problem, it's an UI improvement)
  • Things that looks like buttons don't response or do anything ?! (that's really bad) that actually made me quit the application/web page

Well it didn't convince me.
Nice buttons, control, interface... but not user friendly and technical problems.
I know that's 2 different things but for users it's the same.
It reminds me of applets: nice idea but in practice it's not working well (I would have expect microsoft to know how there own technology work)...

update: After re-entering the sylverlight application/webpage; buttons are working, but the interface is really really not user friendly. It seems to me they wanted to use all those nice new features without thinking of the user :(
Also I tried to send them a mail or comment with this post link to help them improve but I gave up when I landed on this horrible support page.

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