Jon has been following the burgeoning commentary on greasemonkey scripts for a while now. As many besides Nivi have noticed, they’ve got significant “phenomenon potential.” Even if you’re not java-script savvy, you can now adjust an interface’s function to match your preferences - at least in Firefox (and according to some, Opera).

In addition to the issues pointed out by Nivi and people like Luke W, we think GMS’s are worth watching because:

- They change the novice vs. advanced-user dynamic. User-centered design has long grappled with the needs different audiences place on the same interface. First-time visitors and power users do very different things - and both are often equally important to interface viability. (Catalyst explored some of the nuances of this issue in our “Adolescent Internet” white paper). If GMS’s were to become more prevalent, sites could prioritize new users.

- They offer the possibility of personalization without registration. When sites first began offering the ability to customize themselves, it was a powerful advantage for both the interface and the user. The user got what they wanted - and sites usually got a permissioned relationship as well as a lot of data. GMS’s on the other hand are what Nick called a “client-side preference setting.” A user is holding a set of custom functions off your servers - and therefore in some cases could adjust interaction without the need to accept cookies or log in.

- They therefore suggest a new type of interaction strategy around customization. One day, perhaps, sites might make a GMS library available to to users as an efficient means of accommodating a variety of behavioral preferences and business models. The library might even be something that users could expand themselves - much the same way that iTunes allows people to share playlists.

All this is just to say that GMS’s are yet another example of the “democratic” tendency of certain types of technology. Using them, a motivated group of users can override a site’s judgement about what visitors really want. Instances of this - many of them highlighted in the links above, abound. A personal favorite is the “delete” button people have added to Gmail. (Much of my impatience with that product results from the hidden implications of not having an easy way to throw emails out - i.e., that Google gets that much more data on your preferences and conversations.)

Another favorite script around here is the one for About.com. A little over a year ago, Catalyst did a great project for them where we collaborated on re-working the whole site - and also made sure they could keep evolving the interface on their own. This they have done - but of course, that means that some of our concepts have long since been obscured. Interestingly, this GMS makes the pages look more like the originals.

As I said above, discussion is burgeoning. A search on Technorati yesterday produced 160 results. The same keyword today got 656. But of those, here are some more particularly helpful links:

- Cool demo of grease monkey scripts.

- The Mozilla dev site.

- Another good intro to GMS’s.

- And an encyclopedia of some great scripts.

We’ll keep pondering this area going forward - at least two of us at Catalyst Group Design use Firefox for our primary web surfing. Additionally, anything that has the “democratic technology” charisma swirling around it is bound to deserve commentary as the debate surrounding hierarchical organization vs. tagging evolves. So stay tuned.

JF

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 at 10:54 am and is filed under Usability, Interaction Strategy.