Hugoware

Something that drives me nuts is having to pay for something before you can check it out. Normally in an actual store this is no big deal. You can try on clothes before you buy them. You can try out different electronics before you commit.

But why is it that software, especially websites, expect you to sign-up before you see their product? Why do you rarely find ‘demo’ versions of software anymore. Why do I have to commit before I can see what I’m getting?

That’s something that’s always bugged me. I’ve wasted money on console games and BlackBerry games just to find that they don’t work as advertised.

That was something I wanted to make sure to avoid with jLinq. How can I expect anyone to want to download and figure out yet another Javascript library without any help? People want to see the benefits of a product before they commit their time (and money) to it.

The jLinq demo page is geared to help people see the immediate power of the library without making them setup a site or build test data just to see how it works. The page is not only littered with examples, but each of the examples has a button to click on and run it right away.

Now granted, this isn’t exactly the usability that Steve Krug would brag about, but it takes a step in that direction.

Why is the software world forcing the buy before you try mentality?