I mean "hackable" in the sense that one can decide to experience it in ways that were not exactly what the author decided it would be. In short, the Web is not TV. It's not PDF either. Nor Flash.
A couple of months ago, we had this discussion during the Mozcamp in Utrecht. It's hard to summarize all of this in a blog post, but I'm going to give it a try.
I guess that all my readers know that a Web page is made of HTML (structure of the document), CSS (presentation via style sheets), JavaScript and DOM (behavior of the doc, if any). It's sent from a Web server on which one has no control (in most cases, of course), carried using the HTTP protocol, on an IP network and then displayed in the browser of your choice. (please bear with the over simplification here).
What's cool for the (Open) Web is that one can tweak/change/hack most of the pieces of the stack. Of course, some of the pieces are out of reach (the DNS servers, the Web server, most of the network) and it's good. But for a lot of the pieces, the users has – if he wants – the ability to change the pieces in order to fit his needs. This sounds a little complex? Let's use examples:
- Changing the look of the document via CSS : you can use User Stylesheets (even better and easier with Stylish)
- Changing the content via user scripts, implemented via Bookmarklets, GreaseMonkey or Jetpack.
- Change the look of the browser using Themes for your browser or Personas
- Change the way you interact with the browser, with add-ons such as Ubiquity, which completely redefines how we interact with the Web browser and the Web itself.
The beauty of all this is that the people who have invented this did not have to ask permission to innovate. The way the Web was invented, with standardized layers, enable these kinds of things[1], and it's good.
This "hackability" (or generativity) is one of the key things I love about the Web. Now the issue is that this key ability does not have an actual name. Mark Surman has a good post on this topic. Should we call this essential "characteristic" about the Web "Generative", "remix", "opportunity", "hackable", "permissive"? Go and read Mark's post and comment here or there!
Notes
[1] The Web was invented 20 years ago, and bookmarklets became somewhat popular in 2002, GreaseMonkey was popular in 2005, Ubiquity Alpha was released in 2008 and Jetpack was announced a couple of weeks ago! No one knows what's going to be invented thanks to the generative nature of the Web...
8 réactions
1 De adw - 03/06/2009, 20:20
Just a note that Jetpack should importantly be included in the last category too, "Change the way you interact with the browser." See the simple example at https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/dem... for instance.
2 De Stéphane Deschamps - 03/06/2009, 20:38
I love 'hackable'. Makes one think of oneself as a real hacker -- so as being part of the thing and not just being a 'consumer' of the web platform.
3 De Georges - 03/06/2009, 21:42
Synthèse et point de vue vraiment intéressants. Cela m'a également permis de découvrir quelques nouveaux outils.
Par contre, j'avoue ne pas du tout comprendre la raison d'être de Personas. Je n'y vois qu'une dégradation possible du navigateur. Peut-être est-ce parcque je n'ai pas encore vu de thèmes susceptibles d'améliorer l'expérience utilisateur. En tout cas, je suis prêt à étudier tous les arguments en sa faveur.
Pendant que j'y suis, félicitations pour la qualité de vos billets !
4 De Frank Taillandier - 03/06/2009, 22:56
On ne peut pas encore hacker tout ce qu'on voudrait, juste ce qui est mis à disposition. Le père du world wide web aimerait voir se libérer les données enfermées un peu partout.
Pour ceux qui n'auraient pas encore entendu l'appel de Sir Tim Berners Lee :
http://nicolas.cynober.fr/blog/167,...
La mise à disposition d'API et l'apparition des mashups aident à faire comprendre l'importance de cette libération des données pour l'avenir du web .
La fondation Mozilla et les outils intégrés à Firefox vont aussi dans ce sens et c'est bien pour le web.
5 De Jan Odvarko - 04/06/2009, 00:51
The first word that came to my mind after reading this post was *extensible*. As Wikipedia says: Extensible is a system design principle where the implementation takes into consideration future growth (without having to make major changes to the system infrastructure). So, I think the salient trait of our time is: *The Web is extensible*.
6 De Anonymous - 04/06/2009, 05:03
"Hackable" would work perfectly if the general public didn't have a bad impression of "hack". Sadly, it would convey entirely the wrong message.
I personally like "remixable", or more verbosely "keeping the user in charge".
7 De Tristan - 04/06/2009, 16:04
@Georges : merci pour le compliment !
L'intérêt de Personas est double :
8 De Georges - 06/06/2009, 19:35
Merci pour la réponse.
Je comprends ce que fait Personas mais je doute de son véritable intérêt pour l'utilisateur. Par exemple, offrir la possibilité d'éditer les labels (i.e. "File", "Edit", ...) est communément admis comme contraire au principe de compatibilité en IHM. En quoi la création de thèmes est fondamentalement différente ?
Bonne continuation !