Turning Technology Into a Tool

I love discovering clever uses of technology. When Apple came out with the iPod in, what, late 2001?, I was amazed at such a cool little gadget that let you take your entire music library with you. When I bought one a few months later I was amazed anew at how something could so quickly become indispensable and be so much fun to use.

So today I was reading an excellent post on Adactio about progressive enhancement, and he mentions the guys over at Panic, a new PanicGoods site that uses some clever javascript. Now I've been a fan of Panic for awhile, ever since I stumbled across them and realized they were the makers of some excellent software I'd tried before. I had been particularly impressed by the javascript they were using on their home page, allowing the user to drag and drop a product icon in order to download it.

That's the kind of technology we ought to be developing more consistently, because it's from the understanding that the web is a user interface that ought to be interactive, easy to use, and closer to the type of interface we use every day - the OS. For the Panic homepage, it doesn't make as much sense as in their shop, since most users are probably just going to click on an app before they realize they can download it easier by dragging and dropping it. But it's still a cool touch. From a product standpoint, it's a brilliant move to utilize these kinds of tools on the website, since it ties their business approach (well-designed Mac software) directly into their online representation.

Now I need to go read up on progressive enhancement and Ajax. The idea, as far as I understood it without reading the source, resonates with me and I'd like to say that's what I've been doing all along. But I know I've cut a few corners here and there and gone straight to the javascript without ensuring that my creation will gracefully degrade when it needs to.

"The key to making an invention useful is to turn it from a technology into a tool."
- L.A. Times article