S60 Open to new features

This is one of those questions that seems trivial at first glance, but takes on more significance the more you consider it. Why is a web browser called a “browser” at all?

Browsing, before the Web era, meant perusing, skimming, just looking at. It connoted something relaxed, nonspecific, and relatively unimportant. You’d be more likely to say you were “just browsing” than to reserve 10:00 to 11:00 for “browsing” as a task in itself. You’d browse through People magazine, but you’d be more likely to read, study, or consult a “serious text.” Not that I’m suggesting that there’s anything frivolous about Britney, Paris, or Tom!

At some point the term browsing came into use for computer software that let you peruse some set of “things”. There are file browsers, database browsers, and, of course, web browsers.

In the process of UI design, it’s often useful to explore connotations — in this case, connotations of the term we use. If we used a different term, how would that impact our design decisions? Would we go in different directions if we were designing the S60 Research Assistant? The S60 Page Viewer? How about the S60 Server Object Loader?

Although a great deal of web browsing today is anything but relaxed, nonspecific, and unimportant, I think it’s pretty significant that we still call it “browsing”. The connotation of a relaxed, noncritical activity constantly prods us to keep the user interface easy — something you don’t have to work at; something that has a certain element of fun and leisure.

When you design software with a serious, work-related intent, you’re often more willing to expect that the user will make more of an investment in learning the software. If finding information in a database is part of your job, you’ll do your best to learn to use it. But “browsing”…well, that’s something you do because you want to. So software that makes that possible should be clear and easy for everyone, right?

I have a pet theory (and there’s a connotation too: a relaxed, noncritical set of ideas I like to think about but probably wouldn’t explore in a rigorous way) that you can predict something about the adoption of new ideas purely by the language used to describe them, and how well the language fits the context of use. “Browser” is really an exceptionally good term. Some associated terms are equally good. “Link” (much better than “cross reference”). “Home page” (much better than “default view”). But there are some that I wonder about. Anyone want to predict the lifespan of terms like “Plugin”, “RSS”, or even the currently fashionable “AJAX”?