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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?"
...and some aren't.
Like the thing about disk removal. The only thing Windows handles being removed "gracefully" is a floppy (and I'd hardly say "gracefully", if you had a file open on the disk). And Mac OS could have done that, but the idea was to prevent the user from removing the disk until, say, its contents have been properly saved. So Windows let you remove a floppy. So what? What if you hadn't saved the file on it that you "meant" to? Then what? At least Mac OS enforced the proper order of operations, i.e., finish what you're doing with the disk first, then eject. To insinuate that Windows gracefully handles the unexpected removal of USB and/or FireWire external volumes is crap. Since Macs don't even have floppies anymore, and this argument doesn't apply to FireWire/USB volumes (though he implies that it does), this argument is somewhat moot.
And I can categorically say that his "computer not booting" story after he removed a FireWire drive is bullshit. If you remove the drive while it's asleep, yeah, it won't like that when it wakes up; usually, it will say a FireWire device has been removed before being unmounted. Worst case scenario would be rebooting the computer. But there is no way the computer just "wouldn't work" until the drive is plugged back in. That's just bollocks. Sounds like he had one bad/erratic experience that he thought was related to disk removal, and created this entire issue around it.
Other observations are kind of generic wishlists for the behavior of various features and functions. Some of them are frankly good ideas.
But when I read "Principle: The user is in charge and should be free to carry out any activity at any time without fear of reprisals" I just about lost my lunch.
http://www.asktog.com.nyud.net:8090/Bughouse/10Mos tPersistentBugs.html
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
How about combo boxes, that only show X number of items. and you have to scroll to see the last 3. Until recently, AutoCAD was one of the worst examples of this, with it's layers toolbar popup, that only showed 10 items and truncated them horizontally (even though most AutoCAD drawings have many more layers and they often have similar names, so they appear the same in the tiny list at the top of the screen).
Or how about non-resizable dialogs with a set number of items in a list which displays all of the items minus one. WTF!?!
I agree. That is one of the first things that I disable on a Win2000 box.
Right click on the Taskbar and open up Properties. Then uncheck the 'Use Personalized Menus' box to disable it.
Free XBox, PS2
Alas, this site is no longer updated, but it still serves as my very favorite "UI Hell" page...
e ring/iarchitect/index-1.htm
http://digilander.libero.it/chiediloapippo/Engine
Check out the hall of shame section, it's hilarious!
PS - this link is a mirror of the original site
This sig is in Spanish when you're not looking....
This also notably applies to Japanese and Chinese - typically the characters jusr run on and on. Any spaces added are typically a modern addition (I believe japanese newspapers space their words)
It would be trivial to have a small battery, on the DC side of the power supply instead of trying to hook up a UPS.
Trivial? Not really. Your power supply is probably at least 300 watts maximum output, right?
300 watts @ 12 volts = 25 amps. And that's assuming perfect efficiency (impossible).
You can get that from a lead acid battery, sure. You'll only quintuple the price of a power supply. Oh, and then there's the disposal issues and other environmental laws. Let's make that octuple.
Yeah, there's other batteries. No, almost none of them can be tossed, and they're all more expensive, too.
I've seen these supplies where the UPS is built in. They usually start at about $150 US...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I might point out that YYYY-MM-DD, in addition to being easier to sort, IS THE ISO STANDARD FOR DATES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
So you people who still insist on MM/DD/YY, you are OLD AND BUSTED.
YYYY-MM-DD = NEW HOTNESS.
MM/DD/YY = OLD AND BUSTED.
I don't think you understand what the "Use Personalized Menus" option does. The only thing it does is automatically hide menu items that haven't been used in an arbitrary amount of time. Each user can still have their own set of menu items -- in fact, at my workplace, the "Use Personalized Menus" option has been disabled as part of the company's domain's group policy, and the only effect is that users are no longer confused by disappearing items.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)