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Top Ten Persistent Design Flaws
jlouderb writes "Bruce Tognazzini former human interface evangalist at Apple, and currently a principal at web design firm Neilsen Norman Group has begun cataloging the top ten design computing flaws that we just live with with, but shouldn't have to. Only seven are found at his article, and (not surprisingly) three are Mac related. My favorite: the mysteriously dimmed menu options. Why are those darned things grey anyway?"
Not adding enough coolant to prevent the web server from melting down due to the /. effect.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
AC comments get piped to
#1-Removing power from a device that maintains his information on devices run by power (i.e. RAM)
#2-Thinking that computers do "magic", or at least should do to not have design flaws
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10- Making top ten list without having 10 things to list
Design flaw #11
Using very large golden gradient shadowed GIFs each worth over 4K to represent the numbers 1 - 10 in a "Top Ten Persistent Design Flaws" webpage. It not only looks ugly, makes the website slower consuming more bandwidth, but it also takes away a good chunk of the left side of the page.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Duration: [in years]: seems like a thousand centuries ago...
Supplier: Tog
Alias: "I have no concept of the difference between objective and subjective usability complaints."
Product: Tog's parents.
Bug: Tog's perceptual abilities.
Class of error: Intellectualy density.
Principle: "My opinions are holy."
Proposed Fix: Zoloft
Discussion: Some of the things he lists as flaws in the Dock are things that I acutally like about the Dock. It's a very subjective thing. Some of the things he laments losing from Mac OS 9 were not the bee's knees he seems to imagine they were. He was just used to them, is all.
Bug first observed: Can't check the date on the original Dock whinefest because his site is slashdotted. It happened some time after Tog ceased to be relevant.
Observer: Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law
Bug reported to supplier: No. No point. You cannot argue with self-proclaimed learned wisemen.
Bug on list since: Whinefest first published.
--- Ban humanity.
My company actually does this as a marketing ploy. We add disabled items to our menus for options that don't even exist yet. When customers call to ask how to enable these options, we tell them that they need to buy a future upgrade.
It appears that everyone is guilty of having a framework. This guy, you, me, everyone. We think that what we experience in the world, and what we think about it, is all there is. We're all pretty small, even the wisest of us.
In this case, a Mac guy says the user is in charge, and thinks it's a law of nature.
Microsoft treats users as a renewable resource, to be used and reused as needed.
We Unix types, on the other hand, know that users are an unfortunate side effect.
sigs, as if you care.
To quote someone whom I can't remember:
"The nipple is the ONLY intuitive interface. After that, it's all learned"
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
hey, Italians don't even seperate spoken words with pauses when they have something to say
What keeps me going is my inertia.
Proving that no matter how simple you make something, there are still going to be dumbasses that can't figure it out. It would be interesting to see a comparative study of these nipple-impaired babies as they grow up, and whether they eventually get jobs at Microsoft.
I had the same problem once; it vexed me for two days until I just pressed the return key at the password prompt.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
"The option should just be removed from the menu altogether. Sure, that would lead to users getting confused..."
No, if you really want to confuse the user, simply create the menu dynamically, picking 6 items apparently at random to put on the menu. Microsoft can't be wrong here, they have user-interface guidelines and everything. After a few seconds, when the user has had time to read most of the menu items, change them again, this time picking 12 items at random.
If you can, use two columns, and put an animation in so that the menu takes half a second to appear.
I thought you just right cli... oh, wait. WTF is wrong with this mouse?
!hoD
On second thought, I suppose we could stop our computers by dragging the start button to the trash...