brainflak bits

UI Crimes

I’m a bit of a usability zealot. Not a rabid Nielsenesque pillar of usable virtue, but it is on my mind about 20 hours a day. Which means I see a lot of User Interface Crime around me every day. And while UI misdemeanors are too numerous to get very excited about, the UI felonies that assault me are many, too. A few recently-noticed ones:

Now, I actually keep meaning to do a whole site on DVD navigation crimes and achievements, but until I become that much of a curmudgeon, here’s one that pops up again and again.

On the screen are two choices, such as “full screen” vs. “wide screen” or “play movie” and “scene selections. Each has a button/underline, outline, glow, etc. One is white, one is gold. You use the right or left arrow button on your remote, and they switch. Which one is selected? What will happen when you click? Who in the H-E-double hockey sticks knows?? Aargh.

The driver’s and front passenger’s doors on our car each feature a little rocker switch on the inside. Same switch. But while the one on the driver’s side locks and unlocks the doors, the same switch on the passenger side raises and lowers the window. Come on, people…

The gas pump beeps when you slide your card. It beeps when it wants you to push enter. It beeps just after you push each number of your zip code. It beeps to tell you the zip code is done. It beeps to tell you to choose an octane. It beeps to tell you you have done so. It beeps to tell you to remove nozzle and begin fueling. It beeps in a slightly irregular rhythm to let you know it is pumping. It beeps to let you know it is almost done pumping. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Each beep is the same beep. Loud. Same pitch. Most are either delayed or anticipate the event to which they are presumably attached. So no matter what you do, there is a pretty much steady stream of beeps more or less evenly spaced. This is not audio feedback. It is useless. It is abuse, really. Not as bad as the klaxons that punish fast food workers for not having removed the French fries from the oil, but still pretty bad.

Once upon a time, there were some actions in a GUI that you wanted to have happen as fast as the computer could manage. Saving files. Applying edits. Scrolling the window. Processor speeds were such that scrolling the window as fast as possible, with no delay or damping, made for a nice, leisurely scroll.

It seems that 95% of desktop applications are still written this way. So as you try to select an area bigger than your viewing window in Photoshop, as soon as your cursor reaches the edge of the window it ZOOOOOMS to the edge of the document, about a parsec from where you wanted to be. You go back. You try again. Good luck. Same problem with word-processing apps. click the scroll bar buttons and the thing scrolls down to the bottom so fast that the top edge of the document breaks out through the top of your monitor and gets embedded in the acoustic ceiling tiles above.

So please add some timing code? Computers are good at time. Pretty please?

Ok, I’d better stop now. I can rant on this for days on end. No one wants that.