When I first embarked on creating the VelociPeek blog, I considered a couple of options including: AOL Journals, another blogging site like Weblogs, Inc. or Blogger, and AOL Hometown. Although these are all good products and choices, I ultimately decided to go with my own hostname and site so I could have full control over the content, the markup and styles, and code. Being within AOL technologies, a sandbox like this is good for keeping the mind sharp concerning the Web. Around this same time, Apple announced its release of iLife ‘06 with iWeb, so I was enthusiastic about giving it a spin as a means of prototyping the page. Unfortunately, the prototyping didn’t go as well as I would have liked.
However, before going there, let me write a few quick blurbs about Apple. Overall, I have been impressed–along with many others–with Steve Jobs, with how the company has turned itself around, with its OS platform, and with its line of compelling products. Furthermore, I experienced their passion first hand when I attended the WWDC 2005 last June. In all, I would classify myself as an Apple fan witnessed by the multiplicity of iMacs, iPods, and software I own as well.
Because of this, it may be a little of a surprise to you, as it was to me, that the underlying code iWeb generated was not usuable as a template for my blog. When I first installed iLife ‘06 with iWeb, I was initially impressed with its user-interface: clean, easy-to-use, and compelling. However, once my graphics were complete and my site ready for integration, the compelling nature of the product waned substantially.
For example, I noticed that various graphics, that I had dragged and dropped into the site, were named: droppedimage.jpg or droppedimage.png and the alt tags where null strings. This aspect didn’t help to differentiate image names or descriptions. Another interesting aspect was that the blog directories were text-based GUIDs like D5E6F4AE-0CF6-4938-97CD-9C11A3D50563.html. Perhaps, others will see this as a good way to provide unique entries; however, with the droppedimage and GUID names, I think time needs to be spent making asset names more human readable and discernable–at least a combination of user-identified tags and unqiueness. I also noticed that the text entries on the main blog page were raster images as opposed to text and CSS styles, which I think should change in future releases; it makes the blog slow and extremely limited in many regards (e.g., various text viewers, accessibility, etc.).
Let me write that I do get that this is a product for novice users. I get it because many folks in the early days of AOL didn’t really understand that AOL was trying to reach the masses and average users, which required a level of abstraction and simplicity. Also, as some used to say in the early days at AOL: easy to use does not mean easy to build. However, as mentioned, there are usability limitations in the way that iWeb publishes pages, which are pertinent for the novice blogger and homepage creator as well, from which we can all learn.
I am confident that Apple will improve the iWeb software through time; but for now, I will stick to Textpad or trusty vim for Unix, and a little elbow grease.