Better add "easy to use" to the list

Logitech’s updater

Have you ever dealt with the updater app for Logitech’s software? It seems to go something like this:

Logitech: I’m going to check for updates, is that OK?
Me: Yes, and don’t ask me next time, just do it.
Logitech: Great, sounds like a plan. There are no updates right now.
…
Logitech: I’m going to check for updates, is that OK?
Me: Yes, didn’t I already tell you not to ask me, just do it!
Logitech: Maybe, I forget. Oh, and there are no updates right now.
…
Logitech: I’m going to check for updates, is that OK?
Me: What the %*#@, quit asking me, just do it in the background like everyone else!
Logitech: There are no updates right now.

I haven’t quite figured out the time table, but every so often after a reboot, I get this dialog telling me Logitech is going to check for updates.

And every time I hit the configure button and verify it is set to do this automatically without prompts, yet it still asks me again. It teases me with settings to prevent this dialog, yet won’t actually obey the settings.

Then after it checks, it dutifully tells me there are no updates. Thanks Logitech!

Bill Gates Usability Rant

Pretty good email rant by Bill Gates on Windows usability is chronicled by Todd Bishop on his Microsoft Blog.

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

How many ways are there to pay?

I debated posting this dumb UI example, maybe this is a case where I’m the dumb one and not the UI.

I went to the EA Store to buy the teaser app for the forthcoming game Spore. (Which is totally awesome BTW) The checkout page had this section to fill out for the payment:

I entered my credit card info and then looked at the set of options, ClickandBuy and PayPal. I had no idea what ClickandBuy is. I know what PayPal is and I know that wasn’t how I was going to pay so ClickandBuy must be a fancy name for their payment system. I pick ClickandBuy and continue.

I get an order confirmation page, I confirmed and then got a ClickandBuy page asking me for my credit card info. Huh? What the hell? I already entered my credit card info (actually twice, maybe I’ll blog about that also)!

At this point I realized what happened, ClickandBuy must be some kind of third party payment system and I shouldn't have selected it. I try to cancel the transaction but there is no god damn way to do so without contacting EA customer service. That transaction is now stuck at awaiting payment. Doesn’t even seem to be a way to continue with ClickandBuy if I wanted to.

I add the game to my cart again and checkout again and see the screen above and see where I went wrong. The Credit Card section has a radio button followed by a sizable gap then the remaining options. Come on! Can’t you indent the credit card details to make the radio option stand out some?

I can’t believe I’m the first person to make this mistake, I wonder how often it happens. So tell me, am I the dumb guy here? Is this UI perfectly valid and I just needed to pay attention more?

When your Firefox plug-in illegally operates on you

I got this error when going to Channel 9's website:



Ok, so first of all what's with the extra whitespace where the error message should be? Is this error important enough that we need to make the message box extra tall or did some intern just build the string incorrectly?

Second of all, if I am strongly advised to restart Firefox, why don't you just force me to? What will happen if I continue? Will my computer explode? This message sounds scary but I'm given no details at all about what happened or what might happen if I continue.

Thirdly, speaking about details, what the heck is the illegal operation that my plug-in performed? I'm a programmer and I have a hard time figuring out what that could have been let alone if I was someone a little less technical like my wife or mom. Sure your code may do bad things, but I don't know what this plug-in could have done that would have been bad enough to alert me about it.

By the way, I ignored it and then went to another webpage and then Firefox crashed. I guess that's what I get for ignoring a "strongly advised" error message. And apparently, it "illegally operated" bad enough to make my next new instance of Firefox fail to load any plug-ins at all. Talk about an illegal operation...

How many kids do you have?

Just got an email from Microsoft asking me to take a survey about the Zune at zoomerang.com. This is one of the last questions in it. Can you catch the dumbness in this before I tell you?

I have two kids that are 3 or younger, so naturally I selected 2 in that category and pressed continue. I Got an error saying I didn't answer completely, what the hell? I don't have any kids kids 4-7, 8-12 and 13-17 so does it expect me select the prefer not to answer option?

After reading a little closer I discovered the button text doesn't match the number of kids! Button 1 means 0 kids, button 2 means 1 kid, button 3 means 2 kids. WTF!?! I'm going to go out on a limb here and say whoever designed this is the dumbest person doing UI work.

Don't make me do the horizontal scroll

I run my browser at about 900 pixels wide, which I can't imagine is that uncommon. I don't have a problem with any websites running with this width except one, Mint.com.

You hit the first horizontal scrollbar road block right away. I can't login without horizontal scrolling. You might argue that I can see enough of the password field to use it, then hit the enter key which will log me in and you would be right.

However, web browsing is typically an exercise with using the mouse, not the keyboard, my hands aren't on the keyboard. What is not seen in this screen shot is how Firefox remembers my name and password and auto fills it in. If the login button was visible, I could just click it and be in. But no, I have to muck with the damn scroll bar at the bottom of the browser, then go back to the top to the login button.

After getting past this hurdle I hit the second horizontal scrolling roadblock. The main mint.com interface is in no way fluid and space filling. It pretty much forces you do make your browser wider. Fortunately for them their service is good enough that I deal with this frustration.