@AC 12th March 2011 01:59 GMT
"I've seen too many web devs say things like "I know this isn't what the users asked for, or what they need, but they'll love it when they see it"."
So very very true, it irks me when I see perfectly good and usable websites get an overhaul or more features added because they think the end user will thank them for it - whereas all that added shit just gets in the way of using the site.
It's like the web masters feel they have to keep evolving the site(s) they're paid to maintain or they won't get paid anymore, thus we get 'improvements' that most end users don't actually want. eBay is perhaps the biggest culprit, I've seen it evolve massively over the past decade of regularly using it and most of the 'advances' they've done to the site are bitched and moaned about relentlessly by users (me most certainly included) but sadly I can't remember any 'improvement' that's been reversed because the end users don't like it.
Mobile apps, like you say, have limitations on the amount of stuff they can cram on the screen and features they can impliment, this can be a good thing like the early days of computing when you had severe ram & CPU speed limitations so you have to get really creative - the web has become bloated by too many people becoming lazy, I hope the app creation mentality makes it's way more onto the web because so many sites could do with some simplification to make them more usable.