Article:		The Pace of Innovation
Subject:		End-user use of XML
Date:		2003-02-24 08:22:22
From:		William Burkett
I completely agree with Clark's observation (and lament?) that XML's thorough embrace by developers and tepid interest (boring on apathy) from end-users is due to the lack of end-user tools. But this is really, truly an example of putting the cart before the horse. It's not the lack of tools, but the lack of understanding of (or interest in) what people do, why they do it, and how they work. Users consume and produce information, and they need familiar and natural interfaces/mechanisms for creating and consuming digital forms of this information. What tools do they normally use to work with "their data"? How can I get my data out of my spreadsheet or workflow tool into an XML format to send to you? (I'm not going to create XML directly regardless of whether I have a fancy editor or not.)

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