I’ve been using the control panel for Rails applications on Media Temple, and have been very impressed by the UI for their web-based hosting controls. A far cry from similar offerings from most of the hosting companies I’ve worked with.

This switch control I will call shenanigans on, however. This is a classic example of a UI component being included because it is cool, not because it is intuitive to the user. When you look at this picture, what do you think you’re supposed to do with this control? Clearly it is meant to turn on this application. Click it? If you chose ‘click it’, you would be wrong, because that actually does nothing.

I quickly realized that this control was intended to be a draggable switch, as it did resemble a similar switch control on my iPhone. But really? On a web page? It’s a really neat example of jQuery UI’s draggable behavior, but convoluted for something that could just as easily have been a button, leaving no ambiguity about it’s purpose.

High marks for Media Temple’s UI, but beware getting too cute with your UI components - it’s about making the app self-evident to the user, not proving how awesome your JavaScript skills are.