BigFatNoNo is the working title for a personal project currently in the early stages of development. The aim of the project is to create an online desktop with the power and flexibility to truly be an alternative to the desktop environment for a number of common tasks.
There are many contenders in the 'web desktop' arena and most have merit in one aspect or another, but most are, in my opinion, flawed in that they present the user with a whole new set of challenges in order to learn how to use them.
The vision for BigFatNoNo is to provide an online environment that is familiar to the user by following closely the user experience of the desktop. The modern desktop environment for all it's flaws has one major thing going for it: familiarity. It is now 25 years since the first GUIs were unleashed on the computer world and everyone who uses a computer is familiar with the idiom. So by leveraging that familiarity BigFatNoNo aims to lighten the cognitive load on users enabling them to concentrate on the important tasks at hand.
Ultimately I have big plans for BigFatNoNo, most of which I don't want to divulge right now. What you will see if you enter now are just the beginnings - a working file system with real user accounts and just a few applications: Video Player, Audio Player, Image Browser and News Reader. Using these I have produced what is in effect an alternative to the currently popular social networking sites and also my own portfolio. But this is just one aspect of what I hope the BigFatNoNo project will eventually become.
I have no idea when or if this will ever become anything more than a proof of concept. It all depends on such sticky subjects as time, spare energy and funding (currently 0, 0, and 0) but hopefully over the coming weeks and months that will change.
My next task is to implement some kind of messaging service within the site and possibly an alerts service for folks to sign up to if they are interested in getting progress updates and notifications from BigFatNoNo.
The site is written in Flash so you will need the latest version
mail@jonrowe.com
+44 (0) 7984 412 479