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When Good Interfaces Go Crufty

Posted by timothy on from the skin-deep-is-an-important-depth dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A good article over at mpt on why good interfaces go crufty." A nice read before or after a visit to the Interface Hall of Shame.

3 of 662 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why do we have to save our work by hand? by firecode · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Have you ever heared about CVS?

    (in this case it should be automized)

  2. No exit command? by z_gringo · · Score: 2, Redundant

    He goes on in point 2 to complain about the quit or exit commands in the problems, explaining that they are there because in the beginning, Operating systems didn't multitask.

    He says "We have the technology. So why do we still punish people by including "Quit" or "Exit" menu items in programs? Cruft."

    What is he trying to say? That once a program is running, it should run forever? Why shouldn't I be able to close Netscape when I'm done? How is this Cruft?

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    -- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
  3. I've played those games already by MrAndrews · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Just because something is based on getting around a technical limitation doesn't mean it's not a good idea. Examples:
    1) Save. Everyone's been burned by the Damn-I-Forgot-To-Save problem at least once, but the alternative is not always a very good option. When using large files, such as graphic documents or (shudder) video files, having your work auto-save as you go without your specifically saying so would slow you down to the point in stupidity. It needs to be the user's responsibility to save their own work, because sometimes the 'flow' you're in doesn't allow for momentary delays.
    2) Save locations. I've been doing this trick of late where I save everything I do to the Documents folder (used to the be the desktop, but that was even worse). Then I would sort through everything afterwards and move them to the right folders. Bad idea. I presently have close to 150 files flying about randomly in the documents folder, and I know I will likely never sort them properly. Forcing people to choose where their files go is a matter of, again, putting the responsiblity of a messy filesystem into the hands of the user. It's like with my receipts for taxes: if I didn't have those inboxes on my desk, I'd toss them all in the drawer, and get burned in an audit. You need that choice.
    3) Quit. I hate explaining quit to Switchers, but again the issue of larger, more complex programs defeats the argument of "just stop the program when it's not in use". If I had to wait for Photoshop to load back into memory every time I closed the last document, played in Illustrator, and then went back to Photoshop, I would likely die. Text editors can load in 2 seconds, but computers are still not in the state where they can load ALL programs that fast.

    So why not let developers put Save and Quit in the programs that need them? Because then you have a truly awful time trying to explain to users how every program works. Photoshop? Quit that one. BBEdit? It closes on its own. Inconsistency is the ultimate interface evil.

    Until all computers ARE good enough to run EVERY program flawlessly, cruft needs to be around. It may seem obnoxious to those comfortably working in the can-be-done-easily zone of computing, but to those whose fields are still in the pushing-the-envelope zone, we're not done with cruft yet.

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    The world's only surviving livewriter.