In my opinion it's not "installing" apps in Mac that can be "unintuitive", it's grasping the fact that a lot of applications are self contained; setting up an application on your OS is as simple as dragging it to a folder on your hard drive (generally) and it can be unintuitive to users that are accustomed to Microsoft installers and package managers.
OSX by default (at least for DMG's) opens a window with the extracted content and most include "setup" instructions ("drag FOO into the Applications folder"), so it's not hard to miss.
Seriously not impressed by the generalization that interns are the ones responsible for "making the web a terrible place." So as soon as that same developer takes a position as a full-timer they're magically imbued with all the best practices and knowledge required to run a great website?
Also, you just admitted that your own place of work serves large images. Let's not throw blame around that we're not willing to take ourselves.
> you just admitted that your own place of work serves large images. Let's not throw blame around that we're not willing to take ourselves.
Yes, it happens at my place of work, and that is where my generalization came from. I intended to indicate that even when taking steps to mitigate the issue, it still crops up because it's a hard problem to fix. Eventually, work gets delegated to people that don't know everything they should. It is not a big deal as long as people are learning from it.
It happens when we assign web tasks to interns "and non-webdev staff" without proper education/training. So if you follow Toyota's "five whys" rule, it is not the interns' fault at all.
To corroborate your point, one of the Chromium developers spoke about this sort of problem, but in the context of invalid SSL certificates and the associated warning that Chrome displays. A ridiculous percentage of users ignored the warning that the site they were visiting wasn't verified and simply clicked 'Visit this site anyway.' Most users don't understand that there are potentially serious costs to ignoring security warnings.
"Get me out of here!" is the only visible button and the obvious action. To override the SSL check, you have to click "I Understand the Risks" to expand the page, revealing both an "Add Exception..." button and a further warning (in bold). "Add Exception..." brings up a dialog which again warns you in bold: "Legitimate banks, stores, and other public sites will not ask you to do this." And finally "Confirm Security Exception".
Firefox steers you toward the safe choice and makes you very, very aware of the gravity of the situation before doing something dangerous. That's good UI.
Chrome on the other hand has a "Proceed anyway" button right there that within less than a second you've clicked on and now the warning is gone. Developers who would blame dumb users for this are mistaken. People are busy, they're distracted, and Chrome makes it way too easy to do the wrong thing while Firefox gets this right.
I also prefer Firefox's handling of SSL issues. Allowing permanent whitelisting of sites reduces the number of times a user will see the warning, reducing the muscle memory around clicking proceed anyway.
I agree that Firefox's certificate warning page is much better designed. I'm not blaming 'dumb' users for anything, I was providing supporting evidence of the fact that when browsers make warnings easy to bypass, users will simply click right through them.
Absolutely. If I took issue with anything in your post specifically it was "Most users don't understand that there are potentially serious costs". This to me seems to implicitly blame the users for not understanding, whereas I'd blame Chrome for a UI that makes it easy for a distracted user not to understand. As developers we have a responsibility not to lead users into doing something dangerous just because we don't have their full, undivided attention.
I was mostly disagreeing with the general "blame the users" mentality apparent upthread and among developers in general, not with you specifically. I've edited my post to make that clearer.
To be honest, this seems like a set of 'nice company policies,' rather than core values. A lot of these could be summarized with a single value that they are idealizing. This list looks like a good way to implement those core values.
Edit: Here are the core values of Google, Apple, Facebook, Zynga, Salesforce, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Netflix, HP, Zappos, Twitter, LinkedIn, SAS, and Cisco.
Saying that different defaults should be documented prominently is like saying that because every piece of software is different, you should be required to read the documentation before you use it...
They're not even trying to hide the fact that they're patent trolls:
"We are located in East Texas, and we are developing innovative technologies and products. We have a team who is responsible for some of the web’s most popular software and applications, and we own some really amazing patents."
