Internet Explorer 9's new "site pinning" feature

Web browsers are becoming more of an extension of the computer/device’s capabilities than simply being a portal to access and share content with people, and this is allowing the landscape of website design to change along with it. People can now use an online photo service like Flickr® to upload, edit, manage, share, print and pretty much do anything outside of professional photo editing without even needing photo management software. The most extreme example of this idea is that something like Google’s Chrome OS® can actually be reasonable for Google to work on and for people to use.

Google made a great (under 4 minute) video that explains what Chrome OS is, but essentially it’s an operating system (replacing Windows/Mac OS X/iOS) that doesn’t include anything that isn’t necessary to access and use the Internet to it’s fullest. Doing so allows for greater speed optimizations and interface simplicity for those that only use their computers and devices to access the Internet and/or do things that could easily be accomplished using online services (i.e. manage photos via Flickr, play music via Pandora®, work on office documents via Google Docs, etc.). These things wouldn’t exist if the websites that people use today were to still use the precedents set by websites from years ago.

How are things going to change?

One of the things that’s being worked on and discussed is the natural extension of websites into the web browser’s interface and even into the operating system itself. The problem these efforts are trying to resolve is the non-standardized way that websites present interactivity and limiting the level of restrictions that websites have that’s ultimately limiting people from accessing the content that they’re interested in via their preferred avenue.

The beta for Internet Explorer 9 introduced a new feature called “site pinning.” Site pinning allows websites to provide a quicker way to access their site to those using Windows 7 by adding snippets of info and quick links to the Windows taskbar. A menu is shown where the program’s preview thumbnail is usually shown. This can range from an email provider showing the subject lines of the three most recent emails to a simple list of links that point to various sections of the site.

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There’s plenty of room for discussion in this area in an effort to help determine the best course of action that considers impacts on usability, security, etc. One of the worst things that could be done is have something approved that turns out to be ill-fated, and any websites that spent time developing for that feature end up having their effort be a waste of time or possibly even have their site break. This deliberate and fully thought out advancement of web standards is what leaves features like natural extension of the browser’s interface to be merely proof-of-concept until agreed upon.

W3C Working Draft of the menu tag

HTML5 has a working draft of a feature that would allow websites to add a toolbar to the browser’s top bar only while viewing that specific site. This means sites like Google Docs could have a full screen view that attaches a toolbar that includes items that mimic those that can be seen in Microsoft Word. Doing so would mean that the look and feel will automatically fit the computer/device that’s being used instead of the look and feel that Google created themselves. It also provides greater control for the user (i.e. they could set various preferences for these toolbars that would then be applied to every site they visit automatically rather than having to do so on a per-site basis, resulting in a more unified and custom-tailored interface). This feature isn’t implemented in any web browsers yet due to the potential malicious activity where sites might try to trick users into thinking they’re doing something that’s being advised by their browser software (such as updating to a new version of Flash) and not the website that they’re currently viewing (such as installing malware).

The most common question

Why focus on building applications within a web browser when they can be built like traditional programs that are generally restriction-free and run directly from the operating system?

I’m going to have to keep my response to this quite brief as this article has grown to be much larger than I had originally anticipated. This is a valid point that the developer needs to put into consideration. Some of the more prevalent advantages of building an application online is the fact that rolling out upgrades reaches the entire user-base at once without any required intervention on their part, the inherent communicative aspect of it is well established and practically real-time, and any remaining disadvantages are being targeted in an effort to make them on par with other development environments. Running directly from the operating system will always have it’s advantages (i.e. performance), but the ever changing trade-offs are leaving web development as a valid option for many programmers, designers, and intellectual property owners. I do intend on dedicating a future article to this question so I can go more in depth while addressing this topic.