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1. We re just glad that the filename wasn t any longer which would have prevented the user from ever gleaning the intent of the message and the meaning for the various buttons AK M ail Ea 2 Do pou really want to delete the selected folder 7 E Please enter YES to start the operation Ca Cancel Visitor Thomas Emhardt described the uniquely aggravating method taken by the shareware e mail application AK Mail to protect users from themselves When the user attempts to delete a mail folder the program requires the user to type the response YES into the text box Y will not suffice the OK button is disabled until all three letters are typed Thankfully the program does not require similar actions when deleting a message nor when deleting an address book entry in these scenarios the standard Yes No confirmation dialog is used http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 6 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Eye Candy Ea 2 Are pou sure you want to delete Aidges Jim Murphy sent in this troubling confirmation dialog he received from Eye Candy v 3 01 a collection of plug in filters for graphics programs The message was displayed in response to Jim s having inadvertently selecting the Delete button when reviewing a list of user defined filters Given no other option Jim had to resort to the infamous three finger salute CTRL ALT_DELETE to exit the application which re
2. the context menus Internet Explorer Eric often avails himself i of the Save Image As menu item to copy images from web sites Unfortunately the Set as Wallpaper menu item is located immediately below the desired menu item making it a likely inadvertent target The problem is that Set as Wallpaper acts immediately and irreversibly the application does not first prompt the user as is the case with the menu items immediately before and after it so there is no way to cancel the action If the Set as Wallpaper item is inadvertently selected the user will have to go somewhere else and perform a series of actions to undo the effects of the unintended action F http www iarchitect com new htm 11 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Open Link Open Link in New winda Seve Farget s Frint Target Showy Picture cove Picture AS oet as Wallpaper oet as Desktop Item Eut Copy Eopy Shortcut Baste Add to Favorites Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions This wonderful example of bad design was contained in the tutorial for Mosaix a customer support application popular with mega corporations gt mosaim33 File Bookmarks When vou click the button you access an extensive list of MOSATX and Campaign Director terms and definitions Do NOT click this button dwing this introductory tutorial or vou may give the program a nervous breakdown QUIT GLOSSARY PREY NEXT A competent
3. Pictures Maps Internatior aa Maps U S Miscellaneous Nature People Places Plants Science amp Medic Shapes Signs Special occasion Sports amp lesure Transportation Weather more images at a time and to select an image based on the image what an idea rather than its name The major drawback of this technique will be related to the number and complexity of the images to be displayed To minimize the delay associated with loading a large number of images it would be best to employ some organization of the images through a list of categories as shown or through a drop down box http www iarchitect com mfame htm 6 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame Select mage Recent Folders c graphics clipart Folder Files Soc graphics clipart Drive File Type Se wss 2s5x217 al caresi Sometimes a preview of the image alone does not provide enough information to make a selection In certain applications an indication of the size of the image will help the user select the appropriate image In our Puzzlit game users are provided a small preview and the actual dimensions when selecting an image for the puzzle This can be especially helpful when viewing the images in the cache of an internet browser for example that includes both thumbnail and complete versions of the same image As shown here we also allow the user to select the scale of the dimensio
4. This image is taken from the tutorial for Pirates Quest for E z EET one 5 Tutoria the seas The tutorial ignores the user s display preferences and uses hard coded colors the combination of which is reminiscent of that used in older monochromatic computer monitors We found the combination particularly hurtful on the eyes the three dimensional text is an extra bonus to make the text just all that more difficult to read A detailed review of Pirates can be found in our In Depth section B Press arrow to move pan femme toner frame gt W This is an image of the status bar used in Webforms developed by Q amp D Software Development It is intended to provide descriptive information that helps users learn how to use the application PIPE ILS ot 5s Unfortunately the choice of color and the use of a AAP Aea 5 e495 18 O40 Sil 3 D font make the information almostinpossble 10 S read By the way we re pretty sure that the text reads HTML Browse or HTML Browse Preview would have been a better choice but since you can t read it anyhow it hardly matters http www iarchitect com color htm 6 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color a A great source of information for designing with color can be found at Color Contrast and c Partial Partial Sight Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in wh
5. Aralis Developer Links The Computing Page ESB Consultancy Delphi Jim Menard s Geek Page OSU Linux Club Seattle FoxPro User Group Software Design Smorgasbord Craig Marion Miscellaneous Sites The Coalition for User s Rights The Complete Macintosh Web Site Communications for a Sustainable Future CSS Internet News Disability Internet Resources Grand Central Internaut University Lemon Law Warranties worth the paper PC Mag Article MacAddict MackiDo Microsoft Fact Fiction and Fun The MSBC Superlist of Anti Microsoft Web Sites Multimedia Cafe Tony Pittarese s Business Sense Professional Opinions About Win95 and the Future of Windows in General Software warranties Time to clean up their act PC Week Article The Support Group for People Used by Microsoft Why are Macs Better than Windows Computers Why Windows95 Sucks WordFixers YAMOO Yet Another anti Microsoft Oriented Oracle Yet Another Anti MS Page Ben Hutchings Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com links htm 4 of 4 15 02 2001 6 40 59 AM
6. M install lE 4 01 4 72 3110 0 ARCMIN EID So STINE SeOioSenoEmeemec Se space Sasduosmooorincene soseoe When you click on the Nest button the Internet Explorer 4 07 installation program Will start Installation of Internet Explorer 4 01 requires you to reboot your computer Click Next to install Internet Explorer 4 01 http www iarchitect com controls htm 2 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Grrrrr Setting aside our feelings for Microsoft s policy of requiring Internet Explorer to successfully run Visual Studio applications we found their method of indicating this requirement to be somewhat well stupid Since installing JE is a requirement why use an checkbox to indicate whether or not you want to install it You have no choice Unchecking the box has the effect of disabling the Next button preventing the installation from continuing The folks at Ryka a manufacturer of women s shoes wanted to be certain that no potential customers could be excluded Thus rather than providing option or radio buttons to indicate one s gender they decided to use checkboxes to allow the potential customer to indicate Male Female or well both and for that matter none We found this especially interesting g Female given the company motto Exclusively for women by women I Wale Inclusiveness must be in So Ace Microsoft Outlook re John Winters sent along a series of screen pri
7. This is the kind of design that gives tabbed dialogs a bad reputation http www iarchitect com tabs htm 10 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs With the release of Windows 95 Microsoft introduced what they considered a new type of tabbed dialog the Properties Dialog Each object in the operating system such as a file folder printer or disk drive has an associated Properties Dialog which describes various information and characteristics of that object The information in these dialogs always presented through the use of tabs and very often through a single tab Sounds Properties ab indows gp Asterisk Close program Critical Stop chi Default sound E sclamatior ghi Exit Windows re Say Tabs are used to provide a conceptual categorization of the information contained on the dialog A dialog consisting of a single tab is the GUI equivalent of the phrase 1 record s found The single tab implies that other categories exist when in fact they do not The tab does not provide any useful information to the user it just takes up space and adds visual noise to the dialog Microsoft maintains that tabs should always be used for these dialogs even when there is a single tab The rationale is that the tab makes it clear to the user that he or she is viewing properties and not a regular dialog box This argument is hogwash The very use of the word Properties in the command used to display
8. View Configuration Information C Est SOL Net Easy Configuration Help OF Cancel Nigel Harris sent us some images from Oracle s SOL Net Easy Configuration utility The image above illustrates the utility s main form One problem is that the Cancel button does not really cancel anything instead it dumps the user out of the application Close attention to the instructions on the form should reveal this htto www iarchitect com clarity htm 4 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology If you would like to exit SQL Net Easy Configuration at any time choose CANCEL Here s an idea how about labeling the Cancel button Exit The instructions fail to point out an alternative means of exiting the application select the Exit option then press OK If Cancel really Exits why provide the Exit option at all The truly sad part of all this is that after hitting the Cancel button a message box is displayed to indicate that you have exited the application If you had hit the Cancel button by mistake or if you had intended to Cancel your last operation you re out of the application and out of luck The confirmation message does not allow you to Cancel the exit process Hotification x Exiting SOL Met Easy Configuration The wonders of cross platform software Quick lime Uninstall x Removing Quick Time system extensions can cause applications to malfunction Chek Uninstall to rem
9. images have submenus associated with them The problem was clearly evident when one of our colleagues needed to add a power plant to his city the help file merely stated that you simply clicked on the Power toolbar button but after doing so the user found that the action only added more power lines to the city It was only after considerable trial and error and the resultant frustration that the user found that if you clicked and held the toolbar image down a submenu offering power plants became available One further problem with this design strategy is that a normal button click on the toolbar image will perform the most recent submenu option but the image provides no indication of which option that might have been The end result is that the user ends up making many inadvertent selections or learns to always wait for the submenu to appear before continuing thereby reducing the efficiency of his or her task http www iarchitect com controls htm 9 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls iy Schedule a Reminder Message x For Date 09709797 For Time jazz 40 Frequency Unce Interval i Regarding H Message E A E EI cerei Ever wonder about the sequence of building a window in a GUI application This sequence is particularly apparent in Unisyn s Automate Pro The developers apparently forgot about the concept of tab navigation among controls relying instead on the tab order generated
10. of course I want the executable removed I think I want the registry entries removed and possibly maybe I ll keep the screen saver Remove registry entries Remove shortcuts Remove program manager group Remove Screen saver r m E E r Remove executablefdata files Unfortunately while the checkboxes will accept user input the user s actions are meaningless The checkboxes are used only to indicate which of the lengthy uninstall processes have completed so far As the uninstall proceeds the program will check all of the boxes then remove the form Checkboxes are active controls they invite manipulation Using checkboxes solely for display purposes is simply playing tricks on the user htto www iarchitect com controls htm 20 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Some regard the failure to provide keyboard access to the application s controls as a mere oversight We regard it as an indication that the developer is a hunt and peck typist As the saying goes mice are nice but most experienced users have found that the keyboard is faster Touch typists on the whole hate to be required to remove their hands from the keyboard Based on the almost complete absence of keyboard access in Time amp Chaos we are convinced that not only that its developers are not touch typists but that they aren t very familiar with the Windows environment In most situations in the applicatio
11. Dialog32 Novice color mistakes Drag And File Keyboard equivalents for icons Drawing Board LT Insane installation progress indicator Dr Zeuss ABC Challenging messages for children Easy CD Creator Alarmist colors Eudora Cute but terribly unclear Someone needs to get out more Ewan 1 052 Can t see the forest through the trees Eye Candy 3 0 No way out eZip Wizard Hidden functionality Wizard enforced stupidity Flexi Magnifying Glass Metaphor FreeJava Holy Errors Batman Freeloader Trick or Treat GetRight Convoluted tab navigation GIF Animator Minor excess http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 2 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 41 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index GIF Construction Set It don t work that way anymore Long file names Better think ahead You can t get there from here Mixed signals Homesite 4 0 Unnecessarily interrupting the user HP ScanJet Help is waaaay over there IBM Aptiva Copping an attitude Communication Arbitrary Stupidity Center Novelty for novelty s sake Tab Addiction No rhyme nor reason IBM Audiostation Power metaphor Won t you be my neighbor Of Lists and Broken Rules IBM NetFinity Real estate woes IBM RealCD Macabre Design Even Pangloss would despair IBM RealPhone Tooltip Abuse A complete embarrassment InfoAccess Breeding like buttons HTML Transit Why doesn t it do anything Jaws Be careful what you ask for Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Geekspeak for the kids among us
12. Error messages are the antithesis of proper application design They are often ambiguous rude and all too often incorrect blaming the user for failures of the programmer enhance the usability of applications when properly used When improperly applied well they can leave much to be desired Metaphors can greatly We have provided a number of in depth critiques of particularly problematic applications More information on user interface design can be found in our Design Links section Check out our Visitor Feedback section to peruse others impressions of the site or share your own 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission 1s prohibited feedback 1architect com http www iarchitect com mshame htm 2 of 2 15 02 2001 6 21 23 AM Interface Hall of Shame Recommended Reading Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Recommended Reading We have compiled the following short list of books that we recommend to aspiring designers and to developers interested in learning more about the design of effective interfaces The links on this page will take you to the book s listing on amazon com where you can read the reviews of other readers for the selected book Don Norman s The Design of Everyday Things is in our view the single most DESI
13. Open submenu item while ignoring all the i i Filename irrelevant submenus and submenu items The user is then provided the dialog illustrated here and Jnames nsf Browse prompted to specify the Server the Database and the File Access is then provided when the user has selected the Open button i Etek Given the task and the metaphor this is Geekspeak at its finest This terminology underscores Lotus Notes as an application clearly designed by geeks to be used by geeks Unfortunately those responsible for purchasing Notes as a corporate e mail solution must be geeks as well Have you ever attempted to change the default internet browser in Lotus Notes Did you even know it was possible Jeanot van Belkom sent us the following summary of his attempts to perform this otherwise simple function In one of the Lotus Notes manuals I found the remark that it is possible to a choose a different Internet browser as your default Anxious the standard Notes browser doesn t even support frames I started looking for the place to set this default My first guess being a Windows user was to look under Edit Preferences but found that option non existent Not easily discouraged I went through a few menu sections and hit upon File Tools User Preferences Satisfied with myself for looking further than only the most likely solution I navigated the dialog boxes a few times I recall thinking by myself Why I am constantly overlooking
14. 24 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Some developers seem to go out of their way to make their programs difficult to read or understand Often this is in a quest to make the program appear new different or pardon the term cool Novelty has its place without it we never would have achieved graphics interfaces However when applied without the aim of enhancing the user s interaction it usually results in degradation of the interface ranging from mild hostility toward the developer s choice of colors for example to eye strain and concomitant headaches from trying to read inappropriate fonts Last updated 19 September 1999 Jim Brooking sent us a number of images from Popkin Software s System Architect Two of the images illustrate a particularly unusual and particularly bad means of providing dialog resizing capability The images are too large to include here so we ve provided a separate page to contain them If you ve ever had to struggle with how to provide resizeable dialogs be sure to check this page out so you can avoid Popkin s technique E ENEON ERI EOE aE Sofi A ALCON AT ae DERE ex te ARAE UNEAN PARAGE PE BTI PEU RAGE Aeron ine VARGEN O ene eana TE A MEEI EOGI Frere r AEDA Cre ALARE ARACE TAE PALKE DORR Ri RUDA PR ERed DCERCLAN CO EA AET GREE COLLU DPE EAE AE MECELOE c
15. Exit file manager inue Cancel a m At the risk of offending our many Linux visitors we have included this example of geekspeak sent to us by visitor Paul Winkler The message is displayed when the user attempts to exit XFM the X windows File Manager The hapless user is faced with three rather ambiguous options leading to such questions as does Continue mean continue using XFM or continue to exit Is Cancel somehow different from Abort Isn t it about time someone complained about this Actually Continue means continue to exit if you would rather not exit XFM then you are expected to select either Cancel or Abort What s the difference Apparently nothing Information our new information generally becomes etfective approximately 24 to 48 hours later Press CRe to enter a program to renew your credit card information or type hl to return to The previous mend We found this interesting dialog in CompuServe s WinCim application The dialog is presented when the user has asked to update his or her credit card information We found the last paragraph rather indicative that the programmer was more comfortable talking with computers than he or she would be talking to computer users Is it really necessary to inform the user that he or she would enter a program to renew the information or would not to renew your information suffice Given that the window is a si
16. Items Database T Save 4s Default Restore Default Interestingly aside from the menu items the application makes no reference to a Wood Database nor an Items Database These menu items refer to grids on the main form that are labeled Wood Project Parts and Other Expenses respectively just to add to the confusion the Help file refers to the latter as the Hardware Database Is it any wonder that many new users are intimidated by computers BTW Quantitys While many European users of Automate Pro will be comfortable with the 24 hour time format the program imposes most American users will resent that fact that they have to perform some mental First Launch Time fis Set Time calculations to convert times from the familiar 12 hour format to the format required by Automate Pro First Launch Date 09 09 97 Set Date Automate Pro should have respected the user s wishes and used the format specified in the user preferences section of the operating system Admittedly this would have increased the complexity of the source code but then the computer is much more adept at performing such conversions than the user http www iarchitect com clarity htm 11 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology It would appear that at least some of the designers at Microsoft believe that the G in GUI must stand for Geekspeak This image was taken from the Page Setup function
17. Metaphors The first time user may find the structure helpful but the program s rigidity will soon be regarded as tedious Users that frequently create or modify Zip files will find the structure unacceptable even the relatively simple process of adding or removing a file becomes an interrogation Wizards should only be used for infrequently used complex processes such as configuring a modem or partitioning a hard drive Otherwise they prohibit the user from controlling the application and give the appearance of treating the user as an idiot As users we don t like being treated like idiots and will likely regard the application as stupid The Wizard Metaphor discussed above is based on a linear model of interaction well demonstrated in this example of a database search provided in CompuServe s WinCim application Compuserve offers a database of frequently asked questions which can be searched via the use of keywords As shown in the example a simple search can require the user to interact with a surprisingly large number of dialogs and requires the user to remember instructions shown very early in the sequence The linear metaphor is essentially an interrogation and is regarded by many users as such In this case the task could have been easily accomplished in a single dialog rather than the six disjoint dialogs shown It is clearly evident that the programmers was considering only his or her programmatic requirements and was bli
18. New Search i Include subfolders iL The Find Applet is a truly bizarre mix of interface elements a dialog box with a menu bar This is typically regarded as a beginning programmer s mistake There s always been a rather simple rule to follow when designing a window dialog boxes don t have menus Menus indicate a document centric application such as text editors and graphics applications in which you can have multiple documents open simultaneously An Edit menu What is there to cut copy or paste View there are no icons to arrange Since this the only dialog box without a Cancel button the first menu the user is likely to use is the File menu it contains the Close command The Find window is not really a dialog box Well it is sort of until you perform a search The http www iarchitect com find95 htm 1 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet menus become relevant only after you have hit the Find Now button as opposed to Find Later and they are only relevant if the search was successful As soon as the user presses Find Now the dialog box becomes taller to display the results of the search Of course if you ve moved the form to the lower portion of the screen you might never know that your search was successful In this way the Find dialog exists as both a dialog box and a document centric application Confused So was the designer The basic problem is that the Find win
19. Read This There is no reason to have exclamation points on your command buttons They make it seem as if your application is shouting at the user The fact that it s a command button already indicates that it is going to do something The exclamation point adds nothing but perceived resentment Don t do it There we feel better now This is not a serious problem but it does illustrate that programmers view the world in a slightly different way Window ates than normal people One of the first things you learn as a Netscape Mail programmer is that all of your previous mathematical 3 Netscape News education has been wrong You don t start counting at the eo number 1 as in 1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi 3 Address Book Mississippi Programmers are taught that counting Bookmarks begins at 0 Thus if you have a single banana in front of History you it would be called Banana 0 If you had 2 bananas they would be called Banana O and Banana 1 respectively 0 Netscape Carl Gary s Visual Basic Hom w Netecape lsys Information Architects Ir 2 Netscape ang Software lmaging f Now 1f you re not a programmer this would probably be somewhat confusing In fact this retraining is perhaps the cause of most of the mistakes made by new programmers If they want to refer to the second item in a list for example they have to refer to item 1 in their code Normally this is hidden from the user The designers of Netscape Navig
20. Some users might be tempted to use the thumbnail in the scroll bar to advance the rate more rapidly and it does because the program accepts dates in the range from the year 1800 to the year 9999 each pixel movement of the thumbnail changes the date by 51 years Since birthdates cannot be in the future and there probably aren t too many computer users born in the year 1800 the range of acceptable values could probably be reduced without excluding too many people ResSched 1 1c for Windows 95 NT OF x Help Hle Bookings Resources Clients Scan Eina zi ila De ol What do you do when you can t find an appropriate menu in which to place a function One thing you don t do is to put it in a menu by itself ResSched is a shareware scheduling application Unlike the other menu titles clicking on Calendar opens the Calendar Options dialog box There 1s no Calendar menu Here s the rule the menu title bar is a collection of menu titles click on a menu title and the program will display the menu Having a special menu title that acts like a command button is not a good idea special means inconsistent and undesirable http www iarchitect com controls htm 22 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls As undesirable as the Calendar menu title button i is it is far better than the direct menu commands SQL Windows Sample sdo used frequently in the sample programs provided Insert Update Dele
21. The user that does catch the import of the message is expected to enter the file hierarchy to perform some file manipulations Save is a rather inappropriate suggestion and is likely to confuse an inexperienced user The user must move the files and or directories simply because the programmer chose to wipe out the directory rather than removing only appropriate files A further problem with the dialog is that it contains an OK and a Cancel button but the instructions refer to the ENTER and ESCAPE keys New users are unlikely to know that the ENTER key is the equivalent of selecting the default command button nor that the Escape key is the keyboard equivalent of selecting the Cancel command button Moreover if the default command button has been changed perhaps due to an inadvertent keyboard action the keyboard mappings are no longer appropriate As shown in the above image pressing the Enter key will have the effect of selecting the Cancel button A particularly insiduous problem with the JAWS uninstall procedure is that the procedure does not remove the half dozen entries the installation program created in the user s Start Menu The user is forced to navigate the Windows95 file hierarchy to clean up after the lazy programmer One is left to wonder what other items were carelessly left on the system http www iarchitect com clarity htm 3 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Alexander Lewis sent in this
22. They have certainly succeeded in their quest the application is unlike any other application running in the Windows environment Unfortunately that s the problem and the image displayed here only illustrates one very small difference Choose Recipients Unlike life in high school in graphical user interfaces looking like everyone else is a good thing When applications look and act alike users learn them much more quickly since they can transfer their knowledge of one application to the others When your application looks and behaves unlike other applications your users will require more time to learn how to use your application Novelty for novelty s sake 1s never a good thing One only need to recall the experience of sitting in a rental car trying to find where the controls are located in this particular car The auto industry has gotten much better at this in the seventies you never knew where a control might be located The use of diamond shaped rather than round option buttons only increases the likelihood that some users will be confused Even more serious the option buttons act like command buttons click on one and the program will jump to another dialog Just to add to the confusion the application intermixes the standard and custom option buttons both in terms of appearance and behavior Don t strive to be different Strive to be good http www iarchitect com controls htm 15 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interfac
23. but the choices are ambiguous This error message is displayed by ZDnet s File Finder when a keyword search has failed to locate any matches Having a AN AD Net Filefinder choice where none would seem necessary creates uncertainty There were no articles located that match your search criteria What does Proceed do The answer is the same as Cancel except that it makes the user feel more uncomfortable E fs as Field Som Ascending PP Critenta or We weren t sure how to categorize this design strategy but Microsoft s interpretation of Query by Example in Access is anything but clear and understandable It would more appropriately be labeled Query by Confusion The dialog attempts to combine too many functions into a single form without providing any guidance resulting in an interface mess that guarantees the user will have to refer to the manual to proceed The dialog provides no indication of which search functions are possible gt like in etc nor any http www iarchitect com clarity htm 21 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology guidance as to the syntax required of each If the user wanted to select the records of all publishers in MA NY CA and HI would he or she have to include 4 separate conditions for State To do so would greatly reduce the efficiency of the query Similarly does the user have to specify the sort direction of each field in
24. green The subsequent head tilt response is the expected result of using rotated text as labels Once you get beyond those characteristics of the design you may also recognize that the tabbed search dialog is itself presented within a tabbed page layout Gilad Deneboom tipped us to the fact that GetRight a popular downloading utility just doesn t get it when it comes to designing tabbed dialogs GetRight Configuration General Prov Connections Lirrits Internet Monitor Mirrors Login SaveTo When Done Look Segment Advanced Y GetRight More Advanced Configuration Protocols cons More Even More E The above image illustrates GetRight s convoluted configuration dialog The dialog offers a number of tabs to configure the program one of which is labeled Advanced Among the variety of options on the Advanced tab the user will discover a button labeled More clicking this button causes another tabbed dialog to be displayed entitled More Advanced Configuration A glance at the tabs on the More Advanced dialog reveals that the developer seems to have run out of ideas for labeling the tabs More what Even more what http www iarchitect com tabs htm 19 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Steve Brickman sent in this image from the configurations dialog of Psychedelic Screen Saver by Synthesoft Psych Y4 0 1320 Yes there are 30 tabs in the dialog M
25. menu item is enabled before a search is performed File and despite the fact that the applet will create a file on your Breate Shortcut desktop the search itself is not saved If you save your search Delete before performing a search all of your search criteria will be lost neame a orto HOPELESS Wen Wontening Toae Cave Search http www iarchitect com find95 htm 5 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet We ll let visitor Albert Walker describe this unusual interface feature I performed a search and clicked on the Save _ Results option numerous times thinking that it would prompt me to save the results of my search or at least place an icon on the desktop like it does when you select Save Search on the File menu From what I could tell all it did was place a checkmark next to the menu item Selecting it again removed the checkmark e Find All Files After having lots of fun turning the checkmark on and off for a while it suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea what was happening and I consider myself a pretty savvy Windows user It was not until visiting the Win95 help system and performing a find on find itself another area of discussion altogether that Albert learned that to save the results of a search the user must select Save Results from the Options menu and select Save Search from the File menu In other words to accomplish a single task the us
26. then disable the Options button Aside from the fact that the message even exists it should be noted that its wording is quite dubious Paint Shop Pro is an image editing application as such the term selection has a particular meaning it refers to that area of the image you have selected for editing The use of the term selection in the error message is misleading in this case it refers to the selected Fill Style Many users will not realize the developer s error Application Error We normally do not include interface examples from games but we found this particular message in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 to be particularly illustrative of a major problem with error messages Specifically this message is not intended for the user it is a message from the developer to the developer The person most likely to see it however is the user http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 10 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Let s try to determine just what happened here Is it an Application Error a Fatal Application Error and internal error or an Amnesia Error Did the developer screw up by not allocating enough memory or was there not enough memory available to be allocated Is there something the user can do to alleviate the problem apparently not and what would prevent the user from concluding that the message will reappear when the application is restarted nothing Geeks Can t live wi
27. were to spend their time in a sincere effort to improve their interfaces rather than an insincere effort to rationalize the non usability of their interfaces the direction of the wind would have been instantly known We welcome your comments Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission 1s prohibited bchayes 1architect com htto www iarchitect com realcd htm 8 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Windows95 Find Applet In Windows95 there 1s perhaps no better example of how applications should NOT be designed than the Find Applet It suffers from poor overall structure applies internally inconsistent control rules employs controls that are inconsistent with the same controls used elsewhere in Windows95 restricts the user by applying arbitrary rules and offers essentially no support While it offers several useful features in addition to those provided by the Search function in the Windows3 1 File Manager the implementation of those features is poorly realized Last updated 24 February 1999 S Find All Files File Edt View Options Help Name amp Location Date Modified Advanced Find How Mamed x Stop Look in EEREN Browse
28. wrote to us to state that the design of the options dialog was dictated by the complexity of the program We have a complex product with a LOT of configurablity so we end up with a complex configuration dialog there really isn t anyway around that Actually there is We ve put together the following animation to illustrate one alternative design http www iarchitect com tabs htm 4 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Customize Blocks Customize E diting File Compare Files Frogram Execution Projects Search Sessions Spelling Tagging User nterace VES WW eblair windowing The alternative offers a number of important advantages over the existing design Option categories are presented in a consistent order The selection of one category does not alter the order of the others User has keyboard access to switch categories The use of distracting colors has been eliminated The use of distrating images on the tab headings and on the tabs themselves have been eliminated The use of embedded tabs has been eliminated While it is our belief that the proliferation of configuration options in MultiEdit has far exceeded the point of diminishing returns the alternative design offers one important additional benefit e Additional categories can be added without impacting the design of the form or the user s ability to locate a category The result is a cleaner more parsimonious di
29. 2 illustrating a particularly Language Russian unprofessional and unhelpful ordering of items LERE One would think that the developer at some point would French Standard have looked at his creation and realized how difficult it is saudi Arabia French Canadian Serban German Standard Slovak to locate a particular language Oh well http www iarchitect com clarity htm 7 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Did you register using your ISP This message generated during the installation of a U S Robotics modem falls into the category Say what you mean If the developer wanted the buttons to mean Yes and No why didn t he or she simply label them Yes and No This image from OrderWriter one of the Big Two in sales force automation software for the foodservice industry was provided by visitor Lauren Eve Pomerantz Search For a __ Field Is an Alpha Item OrderWriter allows you to search either the description field or the product number for an alphanumeric string The box that you check to indicate that you want to search the product number is labeled Field is an Alpha Item Options C Complete Description Match C Super Search But you knew that right Value Comparison Filter Value 35 00 http www iarchitect com clarity htm 8 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology
30. 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame The Use of Color When properly applied color can greatly enrich the user interface by improving the aesthetic quality of the interface and by guiding the user s attention to points of interest The improper use of color on the other hand can seriously impair the user s ability to interact with the program Last updated 19 September 1999 Despite the fact that Windows95 allows its users to select a variety of color schemes it would appear that many developers stick to the default battleship gray standard color scheme This is particularly evident in this image from Dialog32 a shareware telephone logging application when run on a PC utilizing a color scheme other than the default Dialog32 s Pont developers hard coded certain colors in the application to J match the color scheme on their own PC s without realizing the resulting effect when run under a different color scheme The end result is well unfortunate w View Print Addr Books Let this be a warning to all Windows developers immediately change to a different color scheme and re run your programs In the course of your development periodically change your color scheme and verify that your application will not be subject to such unfortunate results While you are at it determine if changes to other display settings such as font size wil
31. 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet I fully agree with your criticism of the find applet But in the german version of ai Windows 95 Microsoft even managed to make it worse The button Browse which is used to choose another starting directory is labeled Durchsuchen which you could translate as search comb or scour The button Find now ts labelled Starten obviously translated as Start So guess how many people try to find a file by clicking on Durchsuchen It happens to me even I know about this mislabelling Arrgh Perhaps one of the most shameful aspects of the Find Applet is the fact that it does not provide on line help Sure there is a help menu but selecting that will dump you into the Windows95 general help file which contains only a Help Topics mere mention of the Find Applet There is no mention that you can search for What s This strings in files or use wildcards in File Name searches The user is left to learn about the applet through trial and error or by learning about it from some other source We received a letter from an individual using the name Spearfish which may provide some insight into Microsoft s reasoning behind the design of the Find dialog pe If Microsoft made everything perfect the first time around they would be a defunct ai company I hate to say it but the find dialog problems were probably purposefully DUMB on the part of Microsoft What be
32. 8 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 Surprisingly the Organize Favorites dialog does not allow the user to Add favorites to the list for that the user has to go somewhere else Items in the list can be reordered but no indication is provided that this is possible Further as an example of a failure to pay attention in GUI 101 the designers do not allow the user to make multiple selections in the listbox you cannot delete more than one item at a time nor move more than one item at a time Additional design inadequacies of the dialog are discussed below Those limitations aside all the designers need to do is add the ability to launch a favorite from the Organize Favorites dialog change the title of the dialog to Favorites and burn the source code for the drawer In so doing they will exponentially improve the utility and usability of the Favorites function Then after the designers complete GUI 201 they might want to provide the user the ability to organize the favorites into categories export groups of favorites to share with others add the ability to create a playlist and open a favorite in a new window When you are dealing with a computer and not a real world physical device just about anything is possible aH Pi a La ja Pl L R LUE ae EALAHCE ASS TREELE a ees ee A second interface drawer is used to hold and hide the Advanced controls These include the bala
33. As a result of the joke the employee is now a former employee and AutoDesk has sent thousands of letters of apology to its customers Who s laughing now This example of the wonders of artificial intelligence in Netscape Communicator was provided to us by visitor Simon Wilkinson comes with the Netscape 4 05 en BES and spell checker offere meee Check Spelling word CD ROM Suggestions CORON CAROM Just thought I would write in to inform you about the very unintelligent spell checker which comes with Netscape Communicator When checking the word CD ROM the spell checker offered as a suggestion to this wrong word you guessed it CD ROM For the record it s a letter O not a zero http www iarchitect com stupid htm 4 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 33 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity This image from Microsoft s Notepad was provided to us by Todd Barlow You have not entered any text to be sawed Type some test and then try again Here is my nominee for the Hall of Shame This message appears when I try to A save an empty Notepad file You may ask Why save an empty file This is the j way I work I open Notepad I think about what I m going to write I give the file a name I start writing I was able to do this in Win 3 1 Evidently my work habits need improvement and Microsoft has taken responsibility for telling me Fran ois Gouget was one of many others who also no
34. Hall of Shame Lotus Notes Once the user has figured out the operating characteristics of the main command buttons he or she is presented a new set of buttons f b EN Brien CH j with a different set of operating characteristics The command i vanities E E LEE buttons shown here operate with a single click do not take on a _ al depressed appearance and display a highlighted line to indicate which button has been clicked While many users would at first glance conclude that the arrow on the topmost button is an indicator that this is the currently selected button it is used to indicate that this is a special a k a inconsistent and undesirable type of button Clicking on the arrow causes the R to open downward to reveal a variety of folders Why the designers chose to use an arrow pointing to the right to indicate downward movement is one of the many mysteries of this program E Susan P Singer Intranet are ojx ay Move To Folder i Formvard aE Phillis 4 Cannella 10 17 97 Lloyd 5 Gieg 10 31 97 w 4 Docume 3 BE Phillis 4 Cannella 10 31797 Re Ne E Intr Lloyd Gieg 10 31 97 Re Ne Ea Syal Phyllis 4 Cannella 10 31 97 Ae Ne B Heb De Phys Cemela 11 08 57 Where ylis 4 Cannella ETE Lad Humor kd a a a ee i OO a D w This image from Notes was provided to us by visitor Susan Singer One of the most annoying aspects of Notes is its failure to provide horizontal scroll b
35. JDeveloper Failure to think ahead Linux XFM Geekspeak that would confuse the geeks themselves Lotus Notes We needed to devote an entire section for it Macintosh OS Trashing metaphors Mannesman Tally A VCR based printer Printers http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 3 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 41 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Maxis SimCity Patience is a virtue MediaBlaze 98 Gratuitous use of tabs Microsoft Access Query by Confusion Artistic Roulette Control Anorexia Functional Disorder Jumping through hoops Not enough information Teaching bad design Microsoft Access 95 Are you really sure you want to do nothing Go do it yourself A pissant speaks Microsoft Access 97 Inconsistent Distractions Microsoft Data Link Something is happenin and we don t know what it is Microsoft Developer Damned if you do Studio Microsoft Excel 5 0 Rewriting the rules The confusing options are your fault Microsoft Exchange Who needs standards anyway Dueling purposes Microsoft Explorer Exploring a cave without a light Confusing icons Hide everything or hide nothing Top Secret Features Changing the rules in the middle of the game It s a clipboard really Where do I want to go Where am I Not undoing things that can t be undone Nobody uses Help anyhow Sorted sort of Explorer s identity crisis Interface Defragmentation Guestimation Go to Where Sickeningly sweet error messag
36. Message DON T TOUCH THAT BUTTON Intrusive Unnecessary Interruptions Curiouser and Curiouset I M SHOUTING AND I DON T KNOW WHY We don t need no stinkin access keys Left click context menus An in depth review Say what you mean Can it really be trusted A particularly irrational question Scrolling withing tabs The Matched Pairs Metaphor A fork in the road http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 8 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Typograf US Robotics Install Visual Basic 5 0 Visual Forms Visual Fox Pro 3 0 Visual Labels Visual Portfolio Manager Watcom C WebEditPro Webforms Windows NT Where s Waldo What I meant was A lesson in inconsistency Way too much time on their hands Confidence inspiring messages Progressive inefficency Something s going on but what Can t we all just get along See the Invisible Man Errors 1 Feedback Hardware incompatibilities Command Non Buttons Drag from Toolbox Painful Exit Procedures Mandatory Right Click Tabs in lieu of menus Metaphors need to be apparent Mor atention needed Stop Helping Me Confusing Multi row Tabs Landscape Artistry Painting by Numbers Unreadable Status Bar Stressful Colors and Alignment Since when 1s success an error Stupid NT message http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 9 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame Prod
37. Microsoft Paint provides a good example of why it is important to make disabled controls appear disabled To add text to an image in Paint the user must first use the Text tool to define an area to receive the text The Text function however is not available when an image has been zoomed Most users are unaware of this because the Text tool gives every indication that it is indeed available In the example illustrated here the user is trying to add a line of text to a zoomed image of a sunset Notice that when the Text toolbutton is clicked it takes on a clicked appearance but Paint rapidly reverts to the previously selected control Thus in attempting to add text to the image the user inadvertently drew an irregular black line through the image After performing such an inadvertent action most users would assume that they did not click the text tool button They will try clicking it again attempt to define the text rectangle and there s that darned slash again When a tool or a command is not available do the user a favor by making it look unavailable The Text function in Microsoft Paint demonstrates another example of mixed signals Once you have defined the text area you can enlarge it but you cannot Hle Edit Miew Image Options Help make it smaller The cursor symbol shown as a line with arrows to the right and left is misleading since it does not allow you to move to the left We are at a loss to explain wh
38. all files option is selected the Find Applet will correctly locate the file moricons dll located in the Windows directory even if the user has simply entered moricons in the Named field However if the user selected the Hide files option in Explorer the Find Applet will incorrectly report that it cannot find moricons moricons or even moricons dl If the Hide files option is selected the Find Applet will only find the file is the entire filename is specified Psychologists refer to this as a Mode Error in that the behavior of the application is dependent on the selected mode not unlike the difference in word processor behavior between insert vs overstrike modes The problem is exacerbated in the Find Applet by the fact that there is no indication of the particular mode and moreso by the fact that the mode is specified in a completely separate application As a result of this design the user can never be sure of the results of the familiar wildcard search unless he or she has gone to a separate application to ascertain whether or not the correct mode has been specified Nannie Ur Anderningsdatum Weitere Optionen Starten Mame l Anhalter 2 Wat JF JIL C Suchen in uslu Durchsuchen EE MW Untergeordnete Ordner einbeziehen Alex Regenass wrote us to point out that Microsoft s translators made the German version of Find Applet even more difficult to use http www iarchitect com find95 htm 7 of
39. already familiar with them and will readily understand their purpose and rules of operation E ditor The second reason we included this particular example became evident when we Q finally realized that the navigation toolbar was scrollable WebZip provides a Quick w Start option for new users which uses a Wizard style interface to explicitly describe how the program is used Unfortunately this option is the last item in the navigation toolbar and is not visible until the user has stumbled upon the custom scroll control Here s another rule of thumb Make new user features visible and accessible Don t hide the features that make your program usable http www iarchitect com visual htm 5 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements We first noticed the menu animation feature in Visual Basic 5 0 and could only laugh at the absurdity of it Help Actually it wasn t the actual feature itself that we found T Microsoft visual Basic Help Topics absurd but the fact that Microsoft actually paid someone to Bai come up with the idea then decided to put it in all of their 2 oaks Online mainstream products e g Office97 Ei Obtaining Technical Support Since the designers seem to have a great deal of time on their Microsoft on the Web hands perhaps it would be better spent increasing the usability of Microsoft products rather than providing useless gimmicks to wow their pre teen cu
40. and Continuous labels are actually option buttons Although RealCD was designed for Windows95 the designers reasoned that using standard Windows option controls would somehow degrade the interface and that using completely unrecognizable graphic objects would somehow improve the interface So much for the design concepts of affordance and accessibility Volume Control The dark gray triangular shaped image in the lower right of the CD case is the label for the volume control The black slider against a black background is used to adjust the volume slide it to the right to increase the volume to the left to decrease volume Interestingly the keyboard equivalents for the volume control are based on the reverse dimension press Shift Up Arrow to move the slider to the right and Shift Down Arrow to move the slider to the left Scroll Controls Despite its outward appearance the list of tracks is actually a scrollable list there are actually 18 tracks on the CD pictured Unlike the standard scroll bars used in all operating systems and most notably unlike the scroll bars used in Windows95 the operating system RealCD was designed to run on IBM decided to create their own scroll controls and indicators The small green triangle represents the scroll down control its sister control the scroll up control 1s not displayed Unfortunately in creating their own scroll controls IBM left out the ability to page through the list and an indicatio
41. and your cursor behaves as a paintbrush etc T oO ce oO x The toolbox in Visual Labels is much more difficult to get the hang of 123 First forget the operating characteristics of every other toolbox you have used Then click the mouse button and hold it dragging the mouse to the drawing area being careful to keep the button pressed while moving the mouse This can be unnerving especially to users Toglz Bl 1 ES familiar with any other drawing tool H Move All One of the principles that makes GUI easy to learn is that interface features are consistent across applications Changing an established standard can only lead to confusion htto www iarchitect com controls htm 23 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Occasionally you ll come across an application that shows such complete disregard for established design principles Name SMITH JOHN Q and industry standards that you have to wonder if the developers have ever used a status Payroll G graphical user interface This image illustrates a central design idiom used in Category C PeopleSoft applications A proper critique Sequence 5 of PeopleSoft applications would require Awards megabytes of storage so for the time being we will simply focus on their novel use of scrollbars higr ID Date Amount Scrollbars in PeopleSoft applications are used as database navigation controls In the illustration clicking on t
42. are often part of the challenge of the game none of the interface features we ve listed have anything to do with playing the game they are all from the preliminary steps necessary to initiate a game Thus the complete lack of attention to the user interface cannot be excused by saying it s part of the game Rather it s simply an indication that the developer has no practical GUI experience and shouldn t be designing GUI interfaces until he or she has at least spent some time using one Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1999 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com pirates htm 5 of 5 15 02 2001 6 16 30 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame IBM s RealCD RealCD 1s an audio CD software package developed by the User Interface Architecture and Design Group at IBM The application is intended to showcase IBM s use of real world metaphors in interface design that is designing software based on objects actions and processes that people interact with in the real world As with our review of IBM s RealPhone we ll start with IBM s own description of the product IBM RealCD TM is an object oriented user interface design for listening to digital audio The real w
43. being Quinn s Human Interface Subtleties Page An interesting discussion of several subtle interface features found in Macintosh software Human Computer Interaction Sites ACM SIGCHI Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction Australian Computer Society Western Australia Branch Cognitive Recognition and Interface Design Computer Assisted Learning Pages Andrew Doherty The EPSS InfoSite ErgoWorld dotParagon Kathy Gill GNOME Style Guide Group for User Interface Research University of California at Berkely Hans de Graaff s HCI Index Human Computer Interaction Massimo Zancanaro Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Potomac Chapter Interaction personne systeme inforatis Nomos Management AB Stockholm Ergonomics Consultancy http www iarchitect com links htm 2 of 4 15 02 2001 6 40 59 AM Interface Hall of Shame Design Links Online Resources for Human Computer Interaction Usability First Usability Professionals Association Useful Resources for UTEST Subscribers useit com Jakob Nielsen s Website Louis Vroomen s Human Computer Interaction Page Sylvia s Human Computer Interaction pages Academic use of the Hall of Shame Electronic Textuality English 379C GUI Design amp Programming COEN 277 Santa Clara University Human Computer Interaction Napier University Human Computer Interaction CS 488 688 North Dakota State University Human Computer Interaction COMP3511 9511 The Univers
44. cgate e 1 recipient This theme will be repeated several times throughout the Interface Hall of Shame If something is important enough to be displayed to the user make sure that the user will be able to see it The number of recipients is clearly displayed on the screen the state of the Auto File option is clearly displayed on the screen but whether or not the user remembered to attach the file he or she intended to send is barely indicated Visual Forms is a visual editor for creating HTML forms It utilizes the now familiar drawing tools iy p metaphor but omitted some of the necessary visual clues that indicate what you are doing at a Ea pagel given point in time The most notable omission is that the program does not provide any feedback as to the drawing single Line Edit Object mode that you are in Most applications that use Name a this metaphor provide a modified cursor which indicates the selected tool in Visual Forms Prompt Size i 5 nothing appears to happen upon the selection of a drawing tool that is until you click somewhere on the design form At that point as shown in the illustration a dialog window quite unexpectedly appears rather than the image you intended to draw Additionally unlike most drawing applications the drawing mode is persistent that is after drawing one object you will always be in that mode until you select a different drawing tool The persistence
45. clicks the OK button on a window containing a list of En items to be selected in this instance the list consisted of a single x List index out of bounds item This is a rather nefarious message since only programmers would understand its meaning To most users it only conveys that they must have done something wrong There is only one reason for such a message the programmer was lazy He or she simply chose to display the error message generated by the programming environment rather than providing a message that would be meaningful Moreover the message could have been obviated simply by having a default selection in the list In most programming languages this would have taken one extra line of code Microsoft Internet Explorer Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http aan mindepring com Ebchayes visual htm The operation completed successtully One of our visitors sent us this image after an unsuccessful attempt to access our former site The message was generated by Microsoft s Internet Explorer and not surprisingly left the user in a rather confused state It would appear that the developer was in a similarly confused state when he or she composed the message http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 15 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages We came across this confidence inspiring message in several windows Help areas of Microsoft s Visual Basic 5 0 The
46. closesocket socket shutdown accept binid select Aesthetically the design reminds me of the matched pairs type of questions used in grade school Draw a line from the item on the left to its counterpart on the right On a more technical level I would have thought that a programmer sufficiently competent to develop a communications trace utility would have been sufficiently competent to know how to display checkboxes within a list but since he or she was not we can now add the Matched Pairs metaphor to our list of design strategies to be avoided Sigh Meet the animated paperclip Microsoft s woefully inept attempt to provide interactive assistance in its Office97 applications The paperclip is always on the screen shifting about to let you know he s evaluating you as you compose a business letter record your receipts in a ledger or do whatever one does with a high end productivity application When you begin to perform a significant function the paperclip jumps to life raises his eyebrows and dances about in the window When you initiate an infrequently used function the paperclip will interrupt you to ask if you want help My five year old niece loves the paperclip Printing a page produces squeals of delight as the paperclip squeezes itself through rollers to illustrate the path of the page through the printer That five year olds find the paperclip so cute should have been a clue to Microsoft that there might be
47. developer might have recognized the absurdity of the message and simply disabled the offending Glossary button The tutorial however does not appear to be the product of the Mosaix development team Rather it appears to be the product of MediaPros a company specializing in computer based tutorial design as indicated in this success story posted on the company s website With an opening message like this MediaPros may want to reconsider the tutorial as an example of their design abilities Richard Sheridan provided a couple of images illustrating some further evidence against the use of real world metaphors in interface design Both images come from AudioRack 32 a multimedia application packaged with his Hewlett Packard computer Le z TH misia AudfoRack 32 FELETI LED OE a il S TENE H eon mi DETAL AUDIO a like IBM s Real CD Audiorack actually looks like a CD Player and is hideously incongruous in the subtle soothing Windows environment like someone turning up dressed like Big Bird to a formal dinner Yet since the designers seem obsessed with the form itself let s be fussy it s odd that there is an ugly space next to the Mixer button What else I particularly like the button called Stealth Everyone else on the planet would call this Minimize and it would be placed top right hand of the form In fact the tooltip does say Enter miniature mode Then note all the cute LCD symbols on the d
48. dial button Again maybe the phones at IBM have toggle switches that modify the physical size of the phone but we ve never seen one There is no real world equivalent for this function The toggle switch like all controls in RealPhone are not labeled nor is there a visual indication of its function Only the curious would ever click on it Interface Hall of Shame RealPhone The very components of windows that IBM eschews are extremely valuable controls and visual indicators That s why they are part of every existing windows program The border indicates that the window is resizeable and provides a means to resize it The title bar provides a means to move the window and when you have several programs running at once provides the primary means of switching between applications The little boxes are very important window management controls they allow the user to quickly minimize or close the application to get to another When you take away these elements you take away valuable information and very frequently used controls The most obvious missing pieces of this Windows app are the rectangular window border and controls These items are included on nearly every existing Windows program While they give you control over the little boxes windows on your computer screen they are not really part of the task of writing a document editing an image editing a database or sending a note They also drive visual designe
49. for a long time and has grown quite fond of using the keyboard to enter data Imagine our surprise then when trying to enter the schedule time for an event First Launch Time Esk Set Time in Automate Pro we found that despite its appearance and the fact that we can select text the control ignores input from the keyboard First Launch Date 09 09 97 Set Date Rather than allowing the user to simply enter the time directly Automate Pro requires that the user click on the Set Time button and enter the time using their special Clock control If it were not for the instructions on the form few users would intuit how to use the control to specify the time We would have preferred that Automate Pro allow the user to employ either method to specify the time Gimmicks such as their clock control if necessary at all should be offered as an alternative method of entering data and the user should be allowed to choose which is most efficient for him or her Lett Mouse Button Change Minute Aight Mouse Button Change Hour Cancel http www iarchitect com controls htm 8 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Ewan is a shareware terminal emulation program File Edit thoughtfully provided to us by our Internet service provider The illustration shows the Ewan Popup Menu thank goodness the designers provided a title Session Options Help fusr bin perl on the menu otherwise we
50. go ad campaign it s a shortened version of the question where the heck do you have to go to change the default directory in Paint http www iarchitect com stupid htm 14 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Tooltips were intended to provide descriptive information to help new users learn the functions of graphical toolbar buttons g When they are used for standard command buttons they invariably elicit the following response from users Mi ndSpring Duh An As shown in this image from Mindspring s Pipeline internet Click to Connect access application rather than providing useful information to Help the user the tooltips merely convey that the designer is well let s just say intellectually challenged Here s a rule that developers should keep in mind People generally don t like to use stupid applications John wrote to describe this particularly helpful feature of Netscape Navigator which can easily be replicated by specifying Text Only toolbar buttons in the General File Edt View Go Bookmark Preferences section It certainly got a chuckle out of us Back siw Netscape Interface Hall Forward Attempting to exit Visual Labels can be a trying experience When selecting the Exit command the user is presented the following message forcing the user to 1 respond to the message i ou must first save or cancel your changes and 2 perform one of the r
51. gt lt FONT gt lt S gt and lt U gt tags 4 Flag 10 of course Nothing OK it s a trick question flags 14 20 don t do anything they are merely http www iarchitect com clarity htm 1 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology placeholders for possible future expansion Each flag controls the validation of several HTML tags the user will have to visit the help file to determine the tags related to a particular flag The existing design is merely a reflection of the programmer s model of the system which in no way helps the user The developer was concerned with making the program configurable for a variety of browsers and expandable to include changes to HTML specifications as they occur Hey here s an idea if Flag 1 represents IE Specific why not call it something like oh I don t know maybe E Specific We offer the following as an alternative design that would benefit both the user and the developer The alternative provides immediate access to the definition of the program settings and allows the developer to add additional capabilities in the future without changing the design of the form or its documentation Internet Explorer Netscape Specific Deprecation Tag Obsolete Tags General Compatibility Helpful Tips Style Search Engine META Tags More Deprecation Tags Enable Sound Update 19 September 1999 in the recently released version 4 0 of CSE HTML Validator t
52. image of a misleading error message in Microsoft s Outlook 98 Hicrosoft Outlook EZ AN Unable to display the Folder The Calendar Folder could not be Found The message is generated when a user attempts to view the calendar of another individual but does not have read permissions for that calendar The message gives the impression that there is actually something wrong with the other individual s configuration when in fact it s merely a permissions issue Once the user is granted read permission to the other Calendar the message will not appear We came across this confusing instruction when installing a demo version of TransSoft Ltd s FTP Control v 3 33 The installation program uses a Wizard approach to take the user through a series of mace How click Finish to end this setup Finish configuration screens On the last screen a portion of which is shown here the user is instructed to select the Finish button despite the fact that the dialog offers a Next button and when the Next button is indeed the default Our bet most users press the Next button in spite of the instructions only to find that doing so takes them back to the beginning of the configuration process SOL Net Easy Configuration B perform IF you would lke to est SOL Het Easy Configuration at any time choose CANCEL Y Please choose the type of SUL Net configuration you would lke to Modify Database Alias Delete Database Alias
53. image of the speaker for example to indicate that clicking on it will have some effect nor is there anything about the Apple logo to indicate that clicking on it will not have an effect Such distinctions would have interfered with the designers sense of aethetics The color scheme dictated by the designers has one additional potential consequence that should not be ignored Because of the lack of contrast between the gray symbols and gray backgrounds of the controls it can be reasonably expected that certain users will have difficulty locating a control of interest Older users and those with even slight visual difficulties will be needlessly disadvantaged when using the software Those designers that might want to emulate the buttons used on the QuickTime Player would be well advised to consider this fact of human vision the amount of light that passes through the eye of a sixty year old is only one third of that passing through the eye of a twenty year old The lack of contrast in the player controls will necessarily mean that many older users will be unable to discern the symbols As part of their effort to mimic the appearance of the hand held consumer device the designers of the QuickTime 4 0 Player employed drawer like interface elements The most notable of these and unquestionably the single biggest blunder in the design of the application other than attempting to mimic a physical device is the Favorites Drawer The Favorites Dr
54. indication of cultural arrogance Finally a significant percentage of the population has some degree of color vision deficiency the most prevalent of which is the diminished ability to distinguish between red and green Your attempts to provide unnecessary additional information will be lost on a significant portion of your users and may become a source of their resentment To be on the safe side avoid using color as a means of interpretation and be certain to avail yourself of the user s color preferences These preferences are not merely the means by which the user personalizes his or her PC but in many instances are selected to maximize the readability of the applications under specific lighting and display conditions When you avail yourself of these settings you can be certain that you will not risk the resentment of the user http www iarchitect com color htm 2 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color We were torn between placing this example here or in the Interface Stupidity section The image was provided to us by IBM s User Interface Architecture and Design Group No they didn t discover it they created it this image is taken from their self proclaimed State of the Art RealCD application Click here to put book away It would seem that Big Blue now regards black as a truly modern color so much so that the fact that users cannot distinguish a control from its background was only a small price
55. information usable Interface Hall of Shame Answers to the Playlist Quiz lL Command buttons placed at top of window rather than the bottorn 4 The Add button is the only control that has a mnemonic access Character 3 The Add button only works when the Track list has focus but is not disabled otherwise 4 3D font decreases readability S No means by which to reorder songs within the Playlist 6 Name CD function accepts more characters than it wall display then tuncates input unnecessarily 7 Add button does not become the default when clicking on Track List item to indicate the double check action Return 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited http www iarchitect com auderr htm 15 02 2001 6 34 47 AM Interface Hall of Shame Design Links Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Design Links Principles of good GUI Design James Hobart While our Interface Hall of Shame illustrates out how not to design an application our approach to how applications should be designed might be overly subtle for some visitors James Hobart s article takes a more conventional approach by describing the principles of GUI design The article is a valuable resource How to design a good User Interface An excellent overview of the interface design
56. is just rubbish the only thing that gets deleted is the shortcut button as expected Rather than as expected we would have used the phrase as requested Indeed we would expect that the message would unnecessarily frighten most users into keeping unwanted shortcuts on the toolbar Go ahead delete those shortcuts Microsoft dares you Christian Kanja sent us this useless error message he came across in Microsoft s Data Link application We are reminded of the following refrain from Bob Dylan s Ballad of a Thin Man Because something 1s happening here But you don t know what it is Do you Mister Jones Microsoft Data Link AN Unexpected Error Please investigate http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 9 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages It would seem that Netscape s Hidden Frames function generates PIPPE ape s Hidden Frame a hidden messages as well We ve come across this message in Navigator but as could be expected we have no idea what it means or why it was generated a Garry Glendown sent us these images he received while uninstalling Team Flow Server Confirm File Deletion Ea 2 Are pou gure you want to completely remove the selected application and all of ite components Flood Fill Paint Shop Pro a Carl Fink reminded us of this feature in Paint Shop Pro which illustrates a completely avoidable error message If there are no options available
57. might not have known what EWAN popup menu it was that appears upon pressing the right mouse New button when the cursor is over the main window The it Open problem as we see it is that the menu provides far too te a l e on ae Session P Save many irrelevant actions making it difficult for the user Ant ee to locate and navigate to the intended action ns ave OE nep l Given that the Popup menu is redundant with the main snow file menu and that it requires complex mouse movements Upen capture file to navigate we cannot see why a user would ever T bother with it Print For the record the version we were provided is Evit somewhat dated 17 Jan 95 in fact we are hopeful that Ewan s designers have since provided more context sensitive context menus SimCity 2000 by Maxis is undoubtedly an engaging OK addictive simulation game but it does have one unnerving feature that can really interfere with a new user s ability to learn the game Several of toolbar buttons notably not all of them quite unexpectedly have submenus aN tea ase associated with them which are available only when the user holds the Power Lines mouse button down for a period of time after clicking on the toolbar Power Plant button This feature was not immediately apparent after a quick review of the user manual and the toolbar images provide no indication that this functionality exists Nor is there any indication as to which toolbar
58. of multimedia files As a file is added to the favorites collection the application assigns an image to represent the file As we pointed out in the review the same image is used to represent all sound files and a thumbnail of the first frame of the movie is used to represent movie files The QuickTime Player s drawer may be the first example of the Box of Chocolates Metaphor based on the following quote from the movie Forest Gump Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get The task of selecting a particular sound file is not unlike that of selecting a particular chocolate from a box of chocolates since they all look alike they only way to find the file of interest is to bite into several until you find the one you wanted Selecting a particular movie follows the same process Since a movie is identified in the QuickTime 4 0 Player by its first frame and since the first frame of most movies is blank especially movies provided by Apple one cannot identify a movie from its image Instead of acknowledging this situation as a poorly designed interface the chief designer for Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player blames the content providers Movie makers should make the first frame self identifying despite the fact that copyright laws in many countries specify that the first frame be reserved for copyright information Similarly but even more absurdly producers of sound files such as WAV an
59. only guarantee that your users will often approve dialogs they didn t intend and cancel dialogs they intended to approve http www iarchitect com clarity htm 20 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology One of the most prevalent interface omissions is that developers forget to utilize mnemonic access characters to provide keyboard access to the Cancel controls in an application There are instances however when they are used needlessly This example was taken from G F Animator a shareware utility for creating animated GIF images This is not a particularly shameful practice but we felt that it was important to point out that there are two controls in Windows applications that do not have mnemonics assigned to them the OK and Cancel buttons This is admittedly an inconsistency in the Windows interface standards but the reasoning behind it is that both command buttons have built in keyboard access the OK should be the default command button thus the Enter key would provide keyboard access and the Esc key should invoke the Cancel function Just make sure that you program your application to support these standards One advantage of this inconsistency is that it frees up the characters to be used as mnemonics elsewhere in the application As the complexity of the window increases this can be very important By the way both of the letters in OK should be capitalized The message is clear and understandable
60. opens to the left so that the left hand page of the Help Book is displayed off the screen and is hence not visible to the user we re not kidding this really has to be seen to be truly appreciated The only way to see the Help Book is to physically move it into view but since IBM considers such essential GUI controls as title bars to be unnecessary clutter there is no apparent way to move the Help Book Since we had previously used IBM s Real applications we were already familiar with IBM s special technique of moving windows We started to move the app to the right so that we could see the entire Help Book and quickly learned that the Help Book is a separate application This was somewhat disconcerting but not all that bad until we stopped moving it We had the misfortune to stop dragging the Help window when it was over the RealCD window which get this closes the Help Book To successfully view the Help Book the user has to move the RealCD application to the right so that there would be enough room to display both sections of the Help Book or be certain that the cursor was not over the left pane of the CD case at the time of dropping the Help Book The User Interface and Architecture Design Group at IBM thinks this is a good thing We consider it absurdly stupid completely non intuitive and incredibly difficult to use htto www iarchitect com realcd htm 5 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD IBM di
61. option Buttons f Small Image C Text and Small Image Test amp Large Image The Interface Hall of Shame 18 an reverent collection o highlighting these problems we can help software deve Ths site is frequently updated We are constantly revi of ermuuation see the Interface Hall of Farnej and those that leave you shaking your head or pulling out your ha The web browser Opera provides a number of very useful features that greatly enhance its usability One very notable feature is the ability to quickly enlarge or reduce the web page through a drop down control or by pressing the or keys Vision impaired users late night surfers and those that are subject to web authors that have selected too small a font will find this a very welcome feature Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com mfame htm 8 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 Player unframed version Amid much fanfare Apple recently released a beta version of the QuickTime 4 0 Player Intended to showcase the technological improvements of the QuickTime 4 0 multimedia technology the QuickT
62. press the R key on the keyboard as a shortcut for the Restart button Unfortunately Danish users as well must use the R key as a shortcut for restart despite the fact that the Danish word for Restart is Genstart Chris Kostiw sent in this image taken from the Mac shareware version of Risk The image is displayed if the user attempts to quit the game without saving The Mac UI guidelines eshcew the use of Yes and No responses in dialogs here s why Apple should change the guidelines Ok to not save game a http www iarchitect com new htm 13 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions James Kibo Parry sent in this image taken from Apple s SimpleText The dialog thoughtfully provides a text box into which the user can type a search term but before he or she can use the search box it must first be unlocked by clicking the arrow button 1 Click the arrow button to begin then type one oar moire words to look for Search It would appear that the designer felt that the user must be protected from accidentally entering text in the search box This example of meaningless GeekSpeak was discovered in Adobe s ImageReady by Joanna Southerland ImageReady Could not fully start the application because 4 pointer was nil when tt should not have been Avery Lee sent in this image provided by Intel s VTune 4 0 performance tuning tool Avery discovered the message when he I t
63. reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission 1s prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com books htm 4 of 4 15 02 2001 6 27 27 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Product Symptom Adobe Acrobat Rewriting the control rules AK Mail Protecting users from themselves Apple QuickTime 4 0 An in depth review Player Cross platform terminology Life is like a box of chocolates Apple Sherlock It s a matter of apples and oranges and apples ASPack One of these tabs is not like the others AutoCad Mechanical Contempt for users Unisyn s Automate Pro Navigation Confusion Trust us our way is better A question of faith Who s job is it anyhow Banyan Vines Title Bar Geekspeak BeyondMail ccMail Enigmatic toolbars A critical non error Classified Time Wasting Calendar Control Click amp Print The Style Buddy Certificates Control confusion http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 1 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 41 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Compuserve WinCim The Third Degree I The Third Degree II Only her hairdresser knows for sure Coloring Books Eh Say again Sonny CompuServe Geekspeak Contact Master Tabbed sort order CSE HTML Validator Flag Day CuteFTP No way out Datastream s Demo Installation arrogance
64. s Developing User Interfaces for Microsoft Windows provides a great deal of practical straightforward information written specifically for Windows developers Unlike most books on GUI design this book is written by a programmer and as such may seem more accessible to other developers Highly recommended for the target audience Edward Tufte s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is the definitive reference on the presentation of data Full of examples this book will help you create elegant and professional graphics to convey your message Do not try to graphically present data to your users without having read this book Very highly recommended Edward Tufte s Envisioning Information is a companion book to The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Beautifully arranged and easy to read this book will change the way you view the presentation of information Very Ls bn Le lish I B highly recommended er ere E ae E Baki ct od _ ia a4 W Sun Microsystem s Java Look and Feel Guidelines provides essential information for anyone involved in creating cross platform applications and applets in the JavaTM programming language Highly recommended JAVA LOOK AND FEEL DESIGN GUIDELINES http www iarchitect com books htm 3 of 4 15 02 2001 6 27 27 AM Interface Hall of Shame Recommended Reading amazon com Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights
65. s no easy way to hide the menu Normally in Windows95 if you want to hide the context menu you simply click the left button Once the context menu appears in Time amp Chaos you Image width Image depth Image lett Image top Interlaced Previous Year Previous Month Today Hest Month Next Year orn Leading Trailing Dates Show Week Humber have to either hit the escape key or click somewhere else on the form which 1s likely to display another context menu The new user is likely to spend much of his or her time trying to get rid of the menus http www iarchitect com controls htm 21 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls A calendar graphic properly applied is often the best choice for entering dates Here s an example where the vour Birthday intention was there but the execution was lacking nH Ac 469 E In Classified a shareware diary program the user cannot directly type the date of birth but must use the calendar January 1363 object which appears after clicking on the drop down Sur arrow The only way to change the year is to use the E scroll arrows at the bottom one click for each month 12 E Bee cone 5 6 7 e a 1 clicks to the year Now my birthday isn t too far off from the default date shown but even then it required 112 mouse clicks to set it could the developer be related to the manager of the SSN project above a 28 29 30 31
66. similar circumstances After opening an image the menu item New Folder File Open does not become File New Image After creating a new image Close the menu item File New does not become File New New Image This message in Quicken s Turbo Tax will cause a great deal of uncertainty We found it when just after starting TurboTax we selected _ the One Click Update function from the AN Do you want to save this tile Help menu to connect to their web site and see if any updates to the program were No Cancel available Since we had no idea of which file the message referred to we cancelled the function It was only after curiousity got the better of us that we attempted the update again and said Yes save whatever file you re talking about that we learned which file the message referred to The program then presented a Save File dialog with the title Save Tax Return We found this somewhat bizarre because we had not yet started working on a tax return TurboTax uses a wizard like interface and we had not yet selected the Let s get started function As it turns out TurboTax always starts up with a tax return in the background Even if you attempt to exit the program without working on the return TurboTax will display the Save this File prompt inevitably causing new users of the program to rightfully ask Which file Shamil sent us an image from Windows Help Designer Professional edition v 2 1
67. so there is no feedback as to the number of characters typed Moreover there is no visual indication as to how to submit the password the user is expected to simply hit the Enter key upon completion of the password We didn t want to we have come to expect that when presented a dialog with a single enabled command button pressing the Enter key will select that command button If you have entered an incorrect password the program behaves as if you didn t enter a password at all no feedback is provided other than the fact that the password dialog disappears Pirates The Quest For The Seas Oe x Lan geil Yard wale Animation Information CREDITS How To Play PIRATES sa ea a a panes a PIRATES ive The main window of Pirates includes a menu bar and an array of command buttons Interestingly when the game first starts the menus are useless while they seemingly offer functions the functions themselves do nothing Of the seven menu titles shown only the last two are functional and unlike the other five these are commands not menus The menus become relevant and functional only after the user has initiated a game using the appropriate command buttons Windows users will notice that the main window does not have a system menu icon normally located in the upper left hand corner of the window and that the window close button the X in the upper right hand corner of the window has been disabled The Turn menu offers a Save a
68. such as the list of songs contained on the CD and the Help Book as IBM prefers to call it which explains how to use the application The problem is there 1s no indication from the main interface that these features exist nor does the interface provide any clue as to how the user can access them Strangely this is by design and the IBM design team is p quite proud of this fact their main goal was to reduce all amp of the clutter created by standard GUI controls The end result of their efforts to reduce clutter is an interface in which 88 of the space is devoted to a logo and the remaining 12 provides absolutely no direction to the user For the sake of clarity we have removed the logo so that our readers can concentrate more on RealCD s controls by the way this is not possible with RealCD Aside from the standard CD player controls play stop next track and previous track there are 3 additional controls on this panel The Eject button might be identified to some users through the process of elimination but became apparent to us only after we heard the CD drawer open several seconds after an inadvertent mouse click Of the two remaining controls the Exit Application control is perhaps the least intuitive control we have seen in a graphics user interface We searched in vain for it clicking on the control panel the logo right clicking in various places all to no avail It was only after making note of the fact tha
69. technical for the typical JE user http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 7 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Florian Hoornaar sent us this image of a FF a particularly meaningful message from Microsoft s hadi Access Hmmm what would you do netscape Bobby Jack sent us this image he often receives when trying to load Netscape Navigator on the university network Netscape would have had a hard time trying to fit any additional information in the message and an equally hard time being any less clear A side note to Netscape when you suggest that the user hit the Continue button you should probably include a Continue button on the dialog Visitor J Peter Mugass pointed us to the web site that displays this error message to any user who chooses to visit it wey wrhremarrnshalorg JavaScript Application pO carea This is an absolutely stupid message not just because you should never design a web site for a particular resolution but because this message is displayed to all visitors regardless of the resolution of their screens It is particularly bad because the page stops loading until the user responds to the message A question to Sungate Technolgies the web site designers and author of the message what is the functional difference between the OK and the Cancel buttons Carl Fink sent us this image of a message he received from Microsoft s Word 97 which re
70. that placing them on toolbar buttons will be more problematic than helpful We have the following concerns The characters clutter the toolbar images Toolbar images are already constrained by a limited amount of real estate Adding mnemonic characters reduces the amount of space available for the graphic image The mnemonics differ from mnemonic characters used elsewhere in that they are not underlined Users may not be aware that they are used by themselves in conjunction with the ALT key or with the CTRL key the Shift key or some other combination For example ALT M will invoke the Move operation but CTRL M will invoke the Map Network Drive operation This can cause the user to develop incorrect associations among the keys and their function Each toolbar function already has a mnemonic associated with it through the menu for example ALT F C will invoke the File Copy function Since there is only a limited set of characters to be used as mnemonics the extra mnemonics used on the toolbar buttons might better be used elsewhere in the application such as the menu titles Shortcut keys as distinct from mnemonic access characters are normally placed in the menu items Drag and File does not provide shortcut keys for the many of the toolbar functions e Toolbar functions that are removed from the toolbar through the Customize option lose the associated toolbar mnemonic For example after having learned the ALT N combinati
71. the normal way by clicking on it then as you move the cursor toward a menu item or command button the phone rings or you stop to consider which command applies If this happens with WebZip your selection will be deselected and the item under the cursor at the time you paused will be selected instead Since WebZip allows extended multiple selection your series of complex movements to select several disjoint selections could be wiped out simply by pausing to think for a second Microsoft refers to the automatic selection of list items by pausing the cursor as a Hot Cursor We were very surprised to find that the Hot Cursor Metaphor along with the EMERAC like coloring of list items is built into the Win95 operating system developers need only toggle specific settings in the control to enable these effects Our hope is that few developers would want to degrade their applications by adding such useless special effects They are distracting cause the control to operate differently from similar controls and can result in the computer s undo ing the user s actions http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 9 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors An extensive review of the user interface for Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player can be found in the In Depth section of the site One aspect of the interface was particularly troubling the Favorities Drawer which is used to collect and provide access to the user s collection
72. the dialog together with the use of the word Properties in the title of the dialog should be sufficient to make it clear to the user that he or she is viewing properties Moreover users do not make distinctions between Property Dialogs and standard dialogs The typical user upon seeing a dialog with tabs across the top sees a window with tabs in it Despite the user interface intentions expressed in their position the argument in favor of single tab dialogs is an after the fact rationalization to support the consequences of an underlying programming model The Properties Dialogs are based on functions built into the operating system that allow developers to programmatically define the tabs to be displayed in the Properties Dialog As shown in the image below the properties information for certain objects may only require a single tab whereas other objects may require additional tabs Guestop doc Properties http www iarchitect com tabs htm 11 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs The functions allow developers to display up to 24 tabs in the dialog if anyone ever sees such a dialog please send along a screen print The technique is described in a number of Microsoft publications including Creating a Property Sheet available on the Microsoft Developer Network Programmatically it s an elegant technique providing a mechanism by which developers can extend the default behavior of the operat
73. the current application Standards are for Breaking Open Pal Wordmail Advanced Find files that match these cnbera File name Text or property x Find Now Files of type fwod Documents st Last modified lary time 0 file s found At about the same time that Microsoft released Windows95 with the new Common file dialogs they also released Office95 the flagship of their software development efforts Interestingly the developers of Office95 decided against using the Common file dialogs of Windows95 Rather than allowing the user to take advantage of the benefits of Common dialogs Microsoft decided to create unique dialogs for Office95 Does anyone at Microsoft talk to each other New Search File Extension Arrogance ly gt File name ftest bch CMtest bch tst This file already exists Save as type Text Documents Replace existing tle One particularly frustrating aspect of the Win95 common dialogs is that they ignore the requests of the user As shown in the above image the user attempted to save the file with the name test and the extension bch The common dialog chose to ignore the user s extension and add one of its own resulting in a file of the name test bch txt Unbeknownst to Windows95 users may actually have a need to assign a file extension other than those that have already been registered Perhaps the user is creating data files for a particular applic
74. the dialog Cryptic indeed htto www iarchitect com stupid htm 7 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity This example of useless messages was provided to us by visitor Lin Ziyuan mircostexe from www mircscripts com Es i E I m writing in to complain about the new feature in the newest version of Microsoft s browser Internet Explorer Everytime when you download a file a Download Complete message box pops up This is particularly irritating if you ve got a lot of files to download Why does IE4 need to report that it has completed downloading anyway It doesn t it s just being stupid Despite all of their purported usability testing Microsoft did not realize that this was a problem when they released JE 4 0 The problem could be resolved by downloading a 15MB fix to JE 4 0 which among other fixes provided an option to turn off this unnecessary notification In later versions of JE the option is provided although the default is to display the message Microsoft s WordPad can be infuriatingly stupid This message was presented after the user has opened an existing text only document made some changes none of which involved formatting changes and attempted to save it The user s first response to the message is one of alarm CREMOVE ALL FORMATTING but after seeing it the first several hundred times the response becomes one of anger If I wanted to save it as a different file t
75. the following message that was sent to all members of his organization from the head of the IT department The message was sent 5 months after the company switched to Lotus Notes and to us represents yet another example of the extraordinary efforts Lotus Notes requires of the organizations that adopt it To all a_really_big_corporation com Subject Signatures in Lotus Notes Did you know the Lotus Notes letterhead that contains all of your contact information phone numbers address etc does not get sent when you send Email outside of Lotus Notes Would you like the ability to select from multiple signatures contact information and insert them into Email that you send to non Notes users When we first went live on Lotus Notes many of our users expressed concern that they no longer could use an automatic signature on their Emails This was a feature available in many other Email solutions but not in Lotus Notes Well now we have some good news for those of you who would like signature capability Winnie Pooh a fictitious name has figured out a way to create a Lotus Notes database and a Smarticon that will allow you to quickly and easily create signatures for your Emails For example you could set up a Business Signature an Internal Signature and a Personal Signature all containing different types of information Then using the signature SmartIcon you can select a Signature from your database to insert in to your Lotus Notes Emai
76. the question mark in the yellow talk balloon in the toolbar but I m not sure We re still chuckling htto www iarchitect com stupid htm 6 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity This gem in Windows95 was provided to us by visitor Roy Child Error Deleting File x Cannot delete 016 There i not enough free disk space x Delete one or more files to free disk space and then try again I came across this message when trying to delete files from a nearly full hard drive in Windows 95 This has got to be the 1 stupidest error message I have ever seen Perhaps this an indication of Microsoft s interpretation of the term Artificial Intelligence This image from Pretty Good Privacy was provided to us by visitor Emanuela Moreale What type of kep would you like to generate IF you dont krom ts recommended that you generate a Diffie Hellman DSS key pAn RSA amp the old style PGP kep Most new users of POF will be expecting a Ditte Hellmanv055 key IF you d like more information on the differences between the two kep types press the Help button below kep Far Type i Dittie Hellman D55 E E a a E lt Back Cancel While PGP s designers thoughtfully provided a Wizard to assist the user in generating an encryption key and thoughfully provided a very professional and rather pleasing graphic image they forgot to provide the Help button referred to in the text of
77. then starts the Windows95 dialer but forgets to pass it the account information just entered Account Information In a misguided attempt to add intelligence to Office95 applications Microsoft ended up demonstrating just how stupid a computer can Saves O O OO O O be and how infuriating it can be for the user ERE E My Documents After selecting the Save function in an Office95 application the Office95 uncommon dialog will be displayed with a suggested filename apparently taken from the first line of the document The problem is clearly expressed in this note we received from Chuck Layton l File name MEE If you change the file name and then navigate to a Save as type Word Document Reports PHONE 2 M different directory the file name reverts to the suggested name It drives me crazy Am I supposed to say Oh gosh http www iarchitect com stupid htm 16 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity You re right That file name makes a lot more sense now that I m saving it to a different directory Searching for a phone number in Compuserve s WinCim application makes you feel like you re sitting under a glaring light in a smoke filled room The application displays form after form after form each with a single choice to be made In addition to those shown there are two additional forms but each appears maximized so as to obscure the others Telephone Access Number
78. thing but let the user request it Here s an example where the control choice is reasonable but the units of measurement leave something to be desired To set the size of the history cache in Microsoft s Internet 1 of drive Explorer the user is provided a slider control as asked to PE yor eae COTA specify the amount of space on the hard drive to reserve for storing visited pages The problem is the cache size is set as a percentage of drive space A few years ago this would not have been an issue but as indicated in the following message we received from Ross Cormier Microsoft may want to rethink this practice Amount of disk space to use r _ When setting cache size in IE 3 0 the user is only allowed to specify a percentage of their A hard drive The smallest setting is 1 I have a 4 Gig drive and don t need 40 MB of cache thank you User control is a point worth considering http www iarchitect com controls htm 12 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Get Destination Path for PowerSearch Ea fe The setup program will copy PowerSearch files into the following directory Path C VWwIN WORDS TARTUP If your copy of Word for Windows is installed in a directory other than C AWINWORD replace CUWINWORDASTARTUP with the directory that Word for Windows 1 currently installed in followed by STARTUP Continue Back Exit Help The installation program for PowerSearch asks
79. this thing but eventually decided the option was not to be found there Since then I don t know how much time I have spent looking for this functionality but it must have been substantial In the end I was put on the right track by a collegue of mine He remembered coming across this option while configuring his laptop computer And yes after some smart deduction we found the wanted functionality just go to File Mobile Edit Current Location Of course why didn t I think of this before http www iarchitect com lotus htm 7 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes Lotus Notes Desktop Oy x File aei iew Create Window oe Notes Tips or BalaData Notes Help orn Bala otes This image from Notes was provided to us by visitor Colleen Burke The status bar at the bottom of the screen has tiny arrows that act as drop up menus But they all look disabled even when they aren t In the image you d never know that the first 3 status menus are disabled and the last 3 are enabled Markus Kassbohrer described a rather bizarre aspect of Notes You can set up Notes S to automatically display an alert when a mail comes in Choosing YOU have new mail OK will clear the alert and do nothing else well you wanted to be notified SO notified you Span wel are However if you choose OK complete what you were doing and then switch to Notes a few minutes later you ll fin
80. thought provoking It is not a practical how to guide to interface design but it will definitely change your approach to interface design Highly recommended International User Interfaces edited by Elisa del Galdo and Jakob Nielsen is an essential reference for developers documentation specialists and program managers involved in the development of software for international use Taken as a whole the book emphasizes the importance of recognizing and acknowledging cultural differences in software design and use The book has a decidedly academic approach but provides a wealth of useful information in specific articles on such topics as international usability testing the use of images and symbology designing for Arabic and Chinese fonts and the impact of design on cultural acceptance of the product Ben Shneiderman s Designing The User Interface Strategies for Effective Communication is a comprehensive textbook covering the history underlying issues and principles of user interface design The book provides practical techniques and guidelines supported by empirical research and should serve as an invaluable resource for designers and developers Highly recommended http www iarchitect com books htm 2 of 4 15 02 2001 6 27 27 AM gt mm e e TEA ABOUT FACE LLS E ETT ETE EPUL iE ee 4 i nol i e ts Cana wg TL b ALAN COOMER e Interface Hall of Shame Recommended Reading Everett McKay
81. to pay for being trendy That they had to add a label to point at the button should have been a pretty good indication that black buttons on a black background 1s probably not a good design technique This example is but one of the many problems with IBM s RealCD application For an in depth look check out our RealCD Review The color scheme dictated by the designers of Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player could have serious consequences for many users Because of the lack of contrast between the gray i symbols and gray backgrounds of the controls it can be reasonably expected that certain users will have difficulty locating a control of interest Older users and those with even slight visual difficulties will be needlessly disadvantaged when using the software The designers failed to consider this fact of human vision SS a r J bo z 7 i oo the amount of light that passes through the eye of a sixty year old is only one third of that passing through the eye of a twenty year old The only way to ensure that such users will be able to detect the symbols is to have sufficient contrast between the symbol and its background Curiously the contrast is changed after the user has clicked the buttons A detailed review of the QuickTime 4 0 Player can be found in our In Depth section http www iarchitect com color htm 3 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color CD Creation Process Untitled Recording Pha
82. us a line and help up spread the word Last updated 8 June 1999 We discovered this feature in Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player The program allows the user to indicate whether he or she should be notifed in the event that another program takes over the assignment for any of the file formats normally associated with the QuickTime Player We think this is a commendable approach to the fact that many programs simply assume file associations without notifying the user W Notify me if other applications modify these viewer associations Mark Powell sent us image is from Eudora Pro for Macintosh which provides a very useful solution for a very frequent problem Password Please enter the owner world com password Password Caps lock may interfere with passwords Since most passwords are case sensitive attempting to enter a password with the Caps Lock key on often leads to an invalid password error Thus indicating that the state of the Caps Lock key may interfere with the processing of the password is a very good idea The only changes we would suggest would be to do away with the blinking it s an unnecessary distraction and do away with the http www iarchitect com mfame htm 1 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame exclamation point such alarm really isn t necessary n Ee wae pideve lepine an Project Browse Debug Tools Options Wi application programmers rely heavily on the Find function to locat
83. will search the floppy on the next open even if the next The device is not ready open occurs weeks later If there is no floppy in the drive the error message is generated requiring the user to respond to the Lancel message before the program can proceed Such a message should only be generated when the user has specifically requested that the program look on the floppy ee ey error messages that has no right to be in an application The message is displayed You have not specified a Web Browser or in Visual Forms when the user has Web Browser specified is incorrect selected the Preview function without having first specified the browser to use to view the document Since this is likely to occur the first time the user tries to view his or her work as it happened with us why not simply display the Select Browser dialog without showing the error message Why did the developer feel it necessary to shout at the user If I had the chance I d shout back Why the heck is the button labeled Yes Can t we all just get along The registration page at Microsoft s Developer s Network web site thoughtfully provides an option to indicate that you do not wish to receive faxes The following error was found We need your fax number in order to respect Unfortunately well the image says it all your wishes not to receive faxes We found it especially interesting that the fax number is required only when you selec
84. www iarchitect com mfame htm 4 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame In addition to distinguishing among file types the Display Order list graphic can also provide important information de Customer ID in other situations as well We ve utilized the oa Lompany Name oo City technique throughout HartPro our own database reporting application In this example it 1s used to ait Let eae ales indicate the types of fields in the database Indexed fo Contact Name fields are indicated with an 1 in the field symbol user created fields are indicated with the f in the symbol and so on In other areas of the application it is used to provide additional information such as distinguishing among types of database tables and indicating sort order In line list graphics should be used whenever lists of items are displayed They are especially important whenever items of varying types are displayed together heterogenous lists and when the application displays different lists of homogeneous items such as a list of reports and a list of employees Care should be taken to keep the graphics small simple and subtle Given all the passwords each of us must keep track of these days it s all too easy to forget the password for a particular account Psssiorct or program The designers of Classified a shareware personal diary program cleverly anticipated this problem Question Who was my sixth grade When creating a new a
85. you to specify whether or not formatting labels are displayed in the forms editor In this case Formatting Labels might have been a better caption for the menu item http www iarchitect com clarity htm 13 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology This confusing array of commands is available in a tabbed dialog in OzWin IT an off line Compuserve reader Not only does the user have to resolve the differences between OK and Apply he or she must resolve the differences between Cancel and Reset Let s go to the OzWin Help file for an explanation of the distinctions Make your option selections and then click the Apply push button Items left blank or unselected or in the case of checkboxes left in a grayed state will not be updated in the selected forums Clicking the Reset pushbutton will reset all options on all notebook tabs to their original values Clicking the OK pushbutton will save your changes and close the dialog Clicking the Apply pushbutton will save your changes but will not close the dialog This allows you to apply settings to forums in a different group Clicking the Cancel pushbutton will cancel any changes made before clicking the Apply pushbutton and will close the dialog Oh now I get it Give me a break When you see commands like these in an application it s a sure sign that the developer otek onan Follback spends way too much time in front of a computer These comma
86. you to specify the directory into which it should install itself The user normally selects the default directory and the installation proceeds accordingly Unfortunately if the user wants to install the program into a different directory he or she is faced with a few problems since the dialog provides no controls to assist the user The user must either recall the directory from memory or use some other program to locate the appropriate directory In either case the user will need to type the information which only increases the likelihood that an error will occur A related aspect of this dialog would earn it a place in our Interface Stupidity section The application must be installed into the Startup directory for Word for Windows if the user selects some other directory the PowerSearch add in will not work This requires that the user know where the directory is located and because the program does not verify the accuracy of the user s selection the potential for a serious error is increased The addition of a single line of code would have made the installation program intelligent enough to determine the appropriate directory and prevent the user from making unnecessary mistakes Despite all that has been learned about human interaction with computers Microsoft still finds ways to come up controls that are basically inefficient This list 7 ATAT Certificate Services A sfersign 7 ATAT Directo Services 7 sfersign b
87. 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Another serious change in the new version is that the program no longer remembers the last file type selected Formerly if the user saved an image in GIF format the file type field in the Save dialog would default to GIF format for subsequent images In version 5 however the file type always defaults to PSP or rather Paint Shop Pro Image format Those users who do not regularly use this format are now forced to specify the file type each time they save an image Since there has been a widespread effort to incorporate recall in applications in recent years we find it particularly shameful that the makers of Paint Shop Pro decided to remove this extremely useful feature from the program The shareware program Woodworkers Estimate Helper provides a classical example of geekspeak The program is designed for File aE esse Help woodworkers and cabinet makers and Wood Database purports to assist in the process of calculating price quotes for their projects Unfortunately the program uses such esoteric programming terminology as Databases Records and if the user attempts to enter a duplicate part name presents the message Key Validation Error While we do not mean to disparage any woodworkers we can quite confidently state that the typical woodworker has essentially no practical understanding of such terms nor should they be required to E T d Wk d wood Database
88. Attach File function only works when the cursor is in the Body section of the letter If the cursor is in any other area of the letter the Attach File function while not disabled will not work and will instead cause the poorly composed generic Notes error message to be displayed The problem with attaching files is an artifact of Notes document centric design There is no Lotus Notes Desktop functional reason why the user must be in the Body of the letter to attach a file Attachments in Notes are indicated with an icon to represent the attached file As such the icons could simply be appended to the end of whatever information was included in the Body portion of the message regardless of where the thin black line of the cursor was located at the time of the attachment The recent experience of one of our clients a large financial institution provides a notable illustration of the difficulties users have with the Attach File function Just after the corporation switched to Lotus Notes their Help Desk was inundated with calls from employees specifically asking how to attach files To stem the tide of calls the organization sent a letter to each of its employees explaining the necessary steps This should go without saying but such an action really shouldn t be necessary http www iarchitect com lotus htm 3 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 06 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes A visitor wishing to remain anoymous sent us
89. CD Despite their visual appearance the track names are editable By clicking on a track name a standard textbox appears allowing the user to enter a name to associate to the track This could be very useful feature of RealCD unfortunately by hiding this feature most users might never know it exists By the way RealCD1 is not the title of the application it is the temporary name given to the CD and can be edited by the user Actually unlike the logo on the unopened case the logo on the opened case is functional although it will take some luck to discover it The left hand panel of the opened CD case contains the Help Book a design based apparently and sadly on the liner notes of actual CD cases Unfortunately after overcoming the difficulty of opening the CD case itself the user wishing to view the Help Book 1s faced with the difficulty of opening the Help Book We tried the standard Windows approach pressing the F1 function key to no avail We clicked on the right panel we clicked on the left panel we right clicked on both all to no avail It was only after inadvertently moving the cursor toward the lower right hand portion of the left panel that we noticed an animated page corner graphic indicating that something existed in the left panel of the case After clicking on the page corner the Help Book opens thereby tripling the apparent size of the application from its original size Unfortunately the Help Book also
90. E2 Exedil on Plinsfs024pps1 E2 Public on Plinsfs0245 ys W Batch on Plinsts024ppst Ea Because only partial names are visible the list could display seemingly identical names The list provides no meaningful way for the user to quickly select drive P for example without having memorized the often arbitrary drive name Perhaps Microsoft was merely trying to prevent information overload Then again perhaps not http www iarchitect com explore htm 8 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer Windows95 instructor Rik Manhaeve wrote in to point out a particularly problematic aspect of the options dialog provided by Explorer Windows 95 was designed to be used by people using a computer for the first time How should they know what MSDOS is what extensions are what a path is They dont and these options are very difficult to meaningfully describe to such users Microsoft should have made a separate section for users moving from MSDOS or Windows 3 11 and put the related issues over there First time users would see that this is not meant for them to deal with Display the full MS DOS path in the title bar if Include description bar for right and left panes Rik also pointed out another problem with the options the wording is inconsistent thereby making the meaning of a checkmark inconsistent In the first option a checkmark is positive display the path In the second opt
91. GN important book on interface design yet does not directly discuss the design of EVERYDAY software interfaces By examining the devices we use on a daily basis the author FINS lucidly describes basic principles of design in an enjoyable manner This book how will change the way you view your world A must read i i Laura Arlov s GUI Design for Dummies despite its unfortunate title is a valuable resource for the developer The book offers straightforward practical advice in an easy to read format The book provides many examples and will become a valuable reference The section on the differences between developers and users should be required reading in every programming class Very highly recommended http www iarchitect com books htm 1 of 4 15 02 2001 6 27 27 AM Interface Hall of Shame Recommended Reading Alan Cooper s The Inmates are Running the Asylum Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore the Sanity is an exceptional treatise on the deplorable state of software design Why does software suck Read the book If more developers and IT managers had there would be no need for the Interface Hall of Shame A must read for any member of the computing profession Alan Cooper s About Face is an important book for developers because it challenges the developer to view the interface from the user s perspective Some readers may find some of the recommendations controversial but the book is unquestionably
92. Isys Information Architects Inc Home Design Announcements Hall of Shame New Entries Controls Stupidity Visual Color Terminology Errors Tabs Metaphors Globalization In Depth Books Links Index Feedback Hall of Fame Contact Us Isys Information Architects Making tnformation usable Isys Information Architects Inc specializes in the design and development of robust highly usable information systems Isys focuses on ease of use recognizing that software should assist the user in the performance of some task rather than becoming a task in itself Isys was founded by Brian Hayes a former professor of Industrial Engineering and system design consultant whose clients have included AT amp T General Electric General Motors Lucent Technologies NASA Siemens the U S Air Force and the U S Army We are a full service D provider of user interface design and usability engineering services Our careful attention to the user interface can reduce system development time increase user satisfaction and reduce training costs The Interface Hall of Shame is an irreverent look at ineffective interface design The s te includes a collection of images from commercial corporate and shareware applications that illustrate how software should not be designed Our software development department specializes in the design and development of robust highly usable information systems for the Windo
93. Mac OS X Server Netinfo Error Netinfo read failed Operation succeeded The only real difference between the message on the two operating systems is that the Mac OS X server feels that it must convey a much greater sense of urgency and alarm S ren Vest found the following problem when trying to install the Microsoft Developer Network ASON Library October 1999 There iz not enough disk space to complete installation ou can change your Installation options continue installation or esit Setup Required Available Needed Options selected Install Mow Exit Setup The problem is that the display of Available Memory maxes out at 999999K even though S ren swears that there was 2 4 GB available Interestingly despite the fact that the program has concluded there is not enough memory it allows the user to proceed successfully in fact http www iarchitect com new htm 10 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions Rich Adams was understandably full of questions when trying to uninstall ICQ Perform Uninstall Performing uninstall of the ICQ Installation Wer 99b Build 2969 Press the Cancel button to cancel the uninstall process and Removing Registration Database Key Software Mirabilis SIC Bookmarks TTT TIT And order a pizza Reformat the hard drive What Eric Hartwell highlights a notable problem with the design of
94. Norton s most important failure however is not recognizing that if you make it difficult or impossible for potential customers to purchase your software potential customers will not purchase your software It shouldn t come to anyone s surprise that Peter opted not to buy the software I would have to enter an invalid postcode in order to have software that I paid for sent to the wrong address If you sell software you might want to take a moment to check your own registration methods for such foolishness http www iarchitect com global htm 5 of 6 15 02 2001 6 10 34 AM Isys Information Architects Globalization Alvaro Vicario sent in a number of images from ScanExpress fi a Contraste 20 an image scanning and retouching utility provided with Mustek scanners The application is alleged to be the Spanish version of 4 E Prescan the program but as is evident from the image the translation Gamma 1 encountered a number of problems The command button in the image also reveals a fundamental E problem when translating applications across languages some languages require much more physical space than others to convey the same meaning What appears in the image as ista prelimina is a best effort to display Vista preliminar In many areas of ScanExpress translations are often similarly truncated Tama o de la imagen appears as Tama o de and M scara de contraste is displayed as M scara de contr A qui
95. S2000 13 15 July 2000 Baltimore Maryland USA A previously announced deadline for submission of papers to IWIPS2000 has been extended to March 1 2000 The revised call for papers is available at http www acm org perlman TWIPS2000 html For details of last year s WIPS workshop visit http webctr net I WIPS99 January 17 2000 Isys Information Architects has expanded its staff Thomas Harrison Hayes shown here being welcomed by Isys President Brian Hayes was brought on board January 13 2000 with the expectation that he will eventually assume an executive position within the company During the next few months the entire staff will be devoted to Thomas transition to the company which will likely contribute to delays in site updates and the staff s ability to respond to email in a timely manner Additional images can be seen at Thomas homepage but be forewarned I m a new dad with a new digital camera and a cable modem November 27 1999 http www iarchitect com announce htm 1 of 2 14 02 2001 5 47 45 PM Interface Hall of Shame Announcements Bad GUI in the News J Peter Mugaas send in a link to a press release describing a recent lawsuit filed against America Online on behalf of the National Federation for the Blind A copy of the complaint 1s available at http www ntb org aolcompl htm The lawsuit alleges that AOL specifically designed its service and proprietary browser to be incompatible with screen ac
96. Such designs are Arkansas Maryland inefficient for the user and result in larger more sluggish C California C Massachuse applications that waste system memory and resources C Colorado C Michigan C Connecticut Minnesota C Delaware C Mississippi C Florida C Missouri Georgia Microsoft s Web Publishing Wizard is used to To select the fle or folder that pou want to publish click upload files to an Internet server As such you the appropriate button or type the full path would think that selecting files would be the most important part of the program Eile or Folder name Unfortunately it s among the most difficult C SwINDOWS DESKTOP web files The Wizard allows you to specify either a single file or a directory of files there s no W Include subfolders Browse Folders in between The Browse Files button takes you to a Win95 common file dialog that only allows you to specify a single file The Browse Folders button allows you to specify an entire folder To update 2 files for example you would have to create a temporary folder copy the files to the folder run the Wizard then delete the temporary folder Just to add a little confusion you must select the Include Subfolders option even if the folder you selected contains no subfolders Otherwise no files will be selected the Wizard will connect to the http www iarchitect com controls htm 19 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Sham
97. alog in which the user can much more rapidly locate and navigate to the information of interest http www iarchitect com tabs htm 5 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Based on the novel tabbed dialog used in Microsoft s Visual SourceSafe 5 0 1t would appear that at least some of Microsoft s developers have found multi row tab displays to be problematic Unfortunately the alternative leaves a great deal to be desired SourceSafe Options Since the SourceSafe properties dialog provides more tabs than can be displayed in a single row the developers elected to use a scrolling tab control The arrow controls on the right edge of the tabs allow the user to scroll through the tab captions Interestingly scrolling through the tab captions does not change the current tab it just allows the user to see those tabs that are otherwise hidden The notion of hiding tabs from the user has to be among the most ill advised design strategies one could possibly conceive The strategy forces the user to take actions four mouse clicks in the above illustration just to determine which types of properties are available and moreover requires another four mouse clicks to get back to the beginning after exploring the dialog Hopefully modifying the options on the last tab in the dialog will be a very infrequent process Microsoft employs this strategy in a number of its development tools and has built methods into thos
98. an awfully odd way to handle something as critical as a backup file by giving the user the impression that the file is about to be deleted instead of backed up Our guess is that very few Quickbooks users elect to backup their files By the way it s probably not all that important to point out that the user is about to delete an already existing file We don t imagine that too many users try to delete non existent files Sometimes you can carry real world metaphors too far IBM s Audiostation 1s a multimedia player that is pre packaged with some models of their PCs While Power makes sense to a stereo system component it makes little sense in a computer application Click on Power and the program ends invariably Preece eliciting an Ooops from the curious user el CHIMES way http www iarchitect com clarity htm 18 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology We were quite curious as to the function of the Mode button in IBM s Audiostation The term Mode by itself is rather ambiguous but even more problematic it was only after clicking the button several times that we realized that it referred to the playback mode which is displayed in the far right hand portion of the display At 640 x 480 resolution there is a distance of 6 inches between the Mode button and the display We assume that this design resulted from IBM s attempt to mimic the real world display of physical CD players into the de
99. and re release still has a problem with handling files greater than 32 000 bytes In this particular example Notepad allowed the user to open the file for editing but upon the first editing operation promptly displayed the message shown above The message is patently false The problem is not that the computer does not have enough available memory you could quit and remove for that matter every application on your computer and Notepad would still say you don t have enough memory The problem is that Notepad itself cannot deal with files that are above an arbitrary size due to an elementary and insufficient programming model and Microsoft s reluctance to update this very popular tool Microsoft Access Ea h Microsoft Access can t find the database file C My Documentstdbo_oesalesreps mdb Solution Make sure You entered the corect path and filename This message from Microsoft s Access 95 seems relatively benign until one considers the context in which it arises The message results when the user attempts to use the Save As Export Table function and selects the option to Save the table to an external file or database The user is then prompted to select a file type from a list of permissible file types and Access generates an appropriate name for the file So far all is as it should be If the user selects the Microsoft Excel file type from the list of permissible file types Access will create a new Excel file i
100. anslate to usable One problematic aspect of the program 1s that it gives the appearance of a multiple document interface MDI application as indicated by the File menu but also acts as a dialog box as indicated by the command buttons on the main window In all other MDI applications when the user has selected New or Open from the File menu the contents of the window will display the contents of the file In HTML Transit however selecting Open only gives the appearance of changing the title of the window and selecting New does nothing In either case the contents of the main window does not change The new user 1s likely to select New several times then after concluding that the program does not work uninstall the program The basic problem with the program is that it does not provide visual feedback that the operation was successful The user must open one of the various dialog boxes associated with the command buttons in the left column to see the information associated with the template Clicking any of the buttons in the right column will generate an error message unless the user has specified settings elsewhere in the program This is an entirely confusing structure that is likely to cause InfoAccess to lose quite a few potential customers http www iarchitect com visual htm 19 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 32 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements The Microsoft Explorer demonstrates how inconsistent use of ic
101. are becomes subject to the limitations of the real world device The green color of the PDA display is the result of a number of compromises that necessarily had to be made in order to have an inexpensive display in an extremely restricted amount of physical space Adopting these characteristics into desktop software designed to be displayed on a CRT monitor or Active Matrix display is nothing less than absurd especially when one considers that the result makes the text more difficult to read and that PDA manufacturers would kill to be able to provide the same richness that these displays allow At some point the designer of ReadPlease 2000 recognized the limitation of the visual metaphor and provided a means to change the color of the display window a feature notably missing from the PDA on which the design 1s based The green button in the lower right hand corner of the ReadPlease 2000 interface allows the user to change the background color of the display window to one of four preselected colors preselected that is by the designer There is nothing about the button to indicate its association to the background color of the display window and interestingly the button is given the incorrect tooltip Adjust Brightness One color that the interface does not provide is the standard Windows Window Text color that the user has specified to be used system wide to indicate that a window permits text entry The default display of ReadPlease 2000 toge
102. are completely incompatible with the established S ottsy metaphorical association of deleting files As a result new users express anxiety Pin T eee i Erir and dismay at the metaphor and even experienced users express reluctance to use wana the metaphor I don t want to delete the files on the diskette I just want the eal oe Tee computer to spit it out Ee cll etter fh ieee Status Bar Contents tems 4 03 am Friday Mar 04 Hode overstike Line 21 Col 19 Henu help text Watcom s C Editor provides a startling example of why metaphors are subject to basic principles of graphical interface design Most notably the metaphor must be apparent to the user and the designer must include visual clues or affordances that will indicate the function of the metaphor This window shown above is used to customize the application s status bar Through the use of the familiar drag and drop metaphor the user can specify the types of information to be displayed in the status bar and the relative locations of that information The user is expected to click on one of the boxes then drag it to the appropriate location in the status bar Unfortunately the window provides no indication that this is so The window is devoid of information making it very unlikely that users will intuit the metaphor without resorting to the help file access to which by the way is not provided from the window http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 2 o
103. ars when necessary I suppose many users don t care what s on the right side of their screens The attached bitmap shows an instance where 2 horizontal scroll bars are needed To add a horizontal scroll bar the user has to instinctively click on View then select Show then select Horizontal Scroll Bar Lotus Hotes AN Too many windows You must close one to continue This image was provided to us by visitor Ernest Pittarelli This is the most infuriating message of all WHY am I limited to only 8 windows at a time Visitor Lorenzo Marcantonio writes that this message is seen all too frequently http www iarchitect com lotus htm 2 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 06 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes when performing searches in Notes ominous help system as each search opens a new window To Bochaves iarchitect conii Spell Check CC bchavestjanchitect com desk operators Because of the Notes design model the spell checker becomes almost useless In addition to checking the body of the letter the Lotus Notes spell checker in also checks the e mail addresses invariably returning spelling errors Like most e mail readers Lotus Notes provides the ability to attach files to message Unfortunately because of the design of the application most users have a particularly difficult time with this simple function New Memo Lotus Notes Desktop The
104. ately open and close various function windows more on closing windows later until the desired function is eventually located Rather than searching through menus which have titles to describe them the user must resort to searching through cryptic toolbars and sub toolbars to find the needed function An example of this problem became immediately apparent The first task we attempted was to draw some 3D text on the screen We examined each toolbar button read the status line for each and could not find a Text function We opened the Help file searched for Text and was instructed to simply hit the Text button We then went back and examined the status message for each toolbar button again in the event that we may have skipped it in our first pass The second search was no more fruitful than the first After some reflection we hypothesized that perhaps Text is considered a Primitive object so we clicked on the Primitives button guess which button that is We were then rewarded with a secondary panel containing an additional 15 toolbar buttons one of which was the Text button By virtue of trueSpace2 s easy to use interface it required 20 minutes and reference to the Help file to locate a basic function Speaking of adding text when we finally found the text function we lost the cursor Eventually as our random mouse movements returned the cursor to the toolbar area it was visible again The problem the trueSpace2 drawing area has a
105. ation or is http www iarchitect com file95 htm 7 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs trying to manipulate the sort order of files displayed in Explorer The problem is not a question of ignorance Windows95 is perfectly capable of determining if the user specified extension is already registered e g test doc would not be renamed test doc txt nor would test htm be renamed as test htm txt It seems to be a question of arrogance if the user adds an extension that has not been registered Windows95 assumes that the user has screwed up and therefore it appends an extension that it feels 1s appropriate Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com file95 htm 8 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealPhone Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame IBM s RealPhone TM Welcome to the future one without distracting windows and menu bars The RealPhone is an experiment in user interface design for a new real world user interface Style So begins the IBM s literature on their experimental RealPhone application Once we read this we just knew we d be creating a new chapter in the Interface Hal
106. ations for potential entries into either hall to feedback iarchitect com and we ll try to add it to the collection New Entries 4 June 2000 r Selecting the wrong control for a 5 w task or changing the way controls operate can often result in an inefficient and frustrating application i i Improper design of the visual elements in an application can often result in applications that are difficult to read and difficult to use 01101 The terminology used in many 00100 applications often leads the user to 01011 feel that the interface has been written in a foreign language We provide a number of examples of these programmerisms Tabbed Dialogs can be a wonderful solution for complex design problems Here are some examples of a good idea gone bad we http www iarchitect com shame htm 1 of 2 14 02 2001 5 48 22 PM Our review of the new GUI in Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player Users of all operating systems Should be concerned Nobody likes a stupid computer However many applications interrupt the user to ask stupid questions provide meaningless information or require the user to make what should be an obvious selection The improper use color in an t application can seriously impede the usability of the application Error messages are the antithesis of proper application design They are often ambiguous rude and all too often incorrect blaming the user for failures of the program
107. ator however forgot that most people using their product are not programmers Those of you familiar with Carl amp Gary s VB site and the process of specifying mnemonic characters in Windows apps might notice a slight bug in Netscape Navigator It s not a big problem but it results in a less than professional appearance http www iarchitect com clarity htm 15 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Tom Erwich sent in this image of the High Scores dialog in the freeware game xBlock High Scores Player Score Remain 0 tommie 15006 29 1 heidi 14608 18 2 tommie 14460 30 3 tommie 14370 9 4 tommie 14200 11 Somehow I just can t envision people really aspiring to be Number O As Tom quipped It s nice to stand at the top But in this game instead of being a hero you become a zero We were exploring Netscape Navigator recently and came across this rather unusual symbology We felt that EJ Bookmarks Options Directory window the combination of the ALT SHIFT and lt keys made Back Alt lt for a rather awkward shortcut for moving to the Forward Alt gt previous page Not only unusual but unsuccessful as Home well The symbology is intended to represent the left stop Loading Esco arrow key normally represented with left or left arrow Thank you Netscape for the opportunity to laugh at our own silly interpretation of your terminology What the heck is a f
108. awer 1s intended to provide the user rapid access to his or her favorite multimedia files By that concept alone it should be a useful interface feature Unfortunately by virtue of attempting to mimic real world devices and due to a complete lack of familiarity with basic design principles the Favorites Drawer in QuickTime is a dismal failure The designers provided a smooth animation to give the appearance of the drawer opening at the bottom of the device much like one supposes a panel might open on a hand held device and very much like the phone number drawer used in IBM s RealPhone The drawer demonstrates one distinct problem of translating real world phenomena to the computer desktop real world phenomena are not subject to the constraints of screen size The extent to which the drawer can open and therefore the number of items visible in the drawer is a function of where the http www iarchitect com qtime htm 6 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 player is located in relation to the bottom of the screen If you want to hold more than a few items in the drawer you ll have to first position the player near the top of the screen If you want to hold a lot of items in the drawer you ll have to increase the resolution of your monitor If the player is positioned too close to the bottom of the screen the drawer will simply not open Similarly the current size of the player can interfere with th
109. by the programming environment The sequence of navigation among controls as the Tab key is pressed 1s illustrated above As indicated in the figure the developer first created the Regarding field then added the OK and Cancel buttons the Set Frequency button and so on Set Date Set Time Set Frequency The end result of this inattention to the user interface is that the user must press the Tab key seven times in order to move from the Regarding field to the Message field Perhaps they ll correct it in version 3 8g CD Playlist Edit Alligator Records 20th Annivers CO Tracks Plavlisk Total Tracks woo Total Time 72480 Total Tracks 5 Total Time 23 Brick Going Down to Big Mary s Pussycat Moan Brick You Don t Exist Any More Pussycat Moan Second Hand Man Blues After Hours ve Got Dreams to Remember Going Back Horne l m The Zydeco Man You Don t Know What Lowe ls Blues After Hours http www iarchitect com controls htm 10 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Consistency is one of the first rules of interface design The designers of IBM s AudioStation a CD player application were apparently unaware of the concept This image is taken from the Playlist function of the application which allows the user to select the songs and specify the order in which they are to be played well sort of The dialog provides two list controls the CD Tracks List on the left and
110. c BF acknowle rtf TPY actlst1 doc Ad010 prz BF agd10897 doc Gj Backup of NORMAL wbk Cemupdat l Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs It would appear that in time Microsoft s designers realized the problems created by combining folders and files into a single control in the Win95 common file dialog design This image was taken from the Office97 common file dialog and illustrates a woefully bad attempt to minimize the problems In the Office97 file dialogs whenever the user opens a folder the dialog skips over all the constituent folders and selects the first constituent file Thus the user can rapidly see the files contained in the folder Good idea No When the folder itself contains many folders the rapid scrolling to the right is completely disconcerting Moreover the solution now creates a great deal of overhead for the user when he or she needs to drill down through several folders Each time a folder 1s opened the user has to scroll back to the beginning of the list to open each subsequent folder In the above example the user had to click on the paging area of the scrollbar 15 times to get back to the beginning of the list of folders in the InfoSys folder The only appropriate resolution to this problem is to have separate controls one for the folders and one for the files A Lesson in Inefficiency bisd bist MMedn Hsodk Meothice Maeve The dialogs handling of long filenames fur
111. cally re open the Advanced Controls Panel to return the Player to the state it was in before opening the Information Drawer The same information provided in the Information Drawer is also provided somewhere else in the interface The Get Info menu function displays a dialog containing a repeat of that information and provides additional information as well In fact the Get Info dialog is the only place in the application where the user can discover the length of the currently selected movie without of course having to watch the movie or move to the end of the movie Not only does the Get Info dialog provide more information it does so without interfering in any way with the rest of the interface Unfortunately the Get Info dialog is a complete UI ET aberration Locating the same information as that alit60 mov a contained on the Information Drawer will require Movie Annotations z scrolling through a three item listbox which only Properties http www iarchitect com qtime htm 11 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 displays two lines at a time and selecting the various options At a minimum this will require three additional mouseclicks Locating additional mus E information such as the original size of the movie Data or its duration will require an additional two Copyright J 1998 mouseclicks each Locating the format of the video track will require an additional four m
112. can be very useful for guiding a user through an infrequent or complex process Unfortunately many designers have erroneously exploited wizards as a means of making an application easy to use when in fact they can make the application considerably more difficult to use eZip Wizard by ediSys 1s one example of the misuse of the wizard approach to interface design eZip is a utility to create modify and decompress Zip files a process most internet travelers are very familiar with Zip compression is essentially a file management process the zip file is not unlike a folder which contains one or more additional files The user needs to open the Zip file and extract one or more files from it or create a folder and add files to it or remove files from an existing folder The problem with wizards in general and with eZip in particular is that they enforce a linear arrangement on the interface the user must follow the steps the developer programmed into the application This can be useful for the first time or infrequent user but can be oppressive to the experienced user In eZip these steps are defined as a fixed series of questions e What do you want to do What options do you want What name do you want to use ctc ad nauseum The user must respond to each question before proceeding to the next application imposed step http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 4 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame
113. ccount you are asked teacher to specify the new password and in addition provide a question and answer in Answer the event that you forget your password at some later time The login window includes an I Forgot button that will prompt you with the question and await your response This is a terrific solution to a problem that has plagued sysops everywhere It is an interface feature that should be considered for every application that requires a password http www iarchitect com mfame htm 5 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame When the user is inserting a picture Microsoft Publisher employs a modified file selection dialog that previews the picture before the file is selected This is very smart and makes a lot more sense than waiting until the user is returned to the main application before displaying the image Due to the potential i delay in loading the Insert Picture File Look im E Anglhomn cam E AMMOUNCE cgm E AMOuUnCe cgm E Awardwin com File name Files of type All Pi L M Preview File Find File previews the designers thoughtfully provided an option to disable the preview function If your application uses a restricted set of images the Insert Clipart function used in Microsoft Publisher is an improvement over the Insert Picture function above in that it allows the user to view Categories
114. ce Hall of Shame Design Links The Windows 95 User Interface A Case Study in Usability Engineering Sources describing Microsoft s usability testing of the Windows 95 user interface are very difficult to locate This article is the most frequently cited source and while it does describe the testing process it is lacking in data and conclusions There were however several findings that we found interesting especially since they were apparently not corrected Beginning users were bewildered by the hierarchical file system Intermediate users could get around in the hierarchy but only just barely Beginning users and some intermediates had a lot of trouble using the mouse especially double clicking e Beginning users and many intermediates relied almost exclusively on visible cues for finding commands They relied on and found intuitive menu bars and tool bars but did not use pop up or context menus even after training Several users attempted to delete files via the Edit Cut command indicating a fundamental problem with the file clipboard metaphor sys The L U C I1 D Computing Movement In their own words The L U C I D Computing Movement has been formed to fight for software usability The word lucid means clear and easy to understand Our goal is to humanize the design of software In doing so we will save industry billions of dollars we will create new markets for computer products and increase our well
115. ce Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs J TCP IP Configuration Notebook m E E Network Routing Host Names Autostart General security SOCKS Printing lej Contgure User security User Name Com merits on Server wenam Chris Wenham Configure Configured Enabled aad SET YET Configure Mot Contiqured Disabled Copy User Access I User Access RSHD TFIPD TFTPD Authorization As Ed described the dialog Not only does it not use the standard OS 2 tabbed dialog control the layout is so poorly designed it s next to impossible to see at a glance where you are in an oversized dialog that has tabbed pages on a tabbed page To date this is the winner in our ongoing search for the definitive example of improperly designed tabbed dialogs There s still time left to submit your own candidates Sean Luke sent us a number of images from the MacOS Sherlock find utility that seem to indicate that Apple just isn t all that comfortable creating tabbed dialogs http www iarchitect com tabs htm 16 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs E Fo ee a Gerloc k A Find File Find by Content Search Internet 4 Words a a tpat Ena rpa tr manae ann a et n aa a an a atts te a nh os setae te a a a aaan a a a aan SE Tan Search ERE ry tees ees pz PE T a 7 T i ai Pi o ean sean nee ue ae eee wee Ete ti rar hel Altavista Gi Amazon com Books Gi Amazon com Music jet Apple Macint
116. cess programs used by persons with visual impairments The following features of the user interface were cited in the complaint as barriers to persons with visual impairments the use of unlabeled graphics in place of text the lack of keyboard access to controls and functionality and the use of custom controls painted on the screen instead of the use of standard operating system controls The suit alleges that as a result the information on the screen cannot be converted by screen access programs such as screen readers and refreshable Braille displays Hopefully the implications of the lawsuit will be recognizable to those developers who emphasize pretty over good design Home Design Shame Fame 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com announce htm 2 of 2 14 02 2001 5 47 45 PM Interface Hall of Shame Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame The Interface Hall of Shame is an irreverent collection of common interface design mistakes Our hope 1s that by highlighting these problems we can help developers avoid making similar mistakes We are constantly searching for examples of design practices that are worthy of extinction and those worthy of emulation see the Interface Hall of Fame Submit your own nomin
117. ck note to the developers of ScanExpress Scan and PreScan are not really words in the Spanish language Then again neither are Master User Manual User Guide nor Uninstall Additional Sources of Information Windows User Interface Guidelines for Software Design Internationalization Microsoft International Usability Testing Jakob Nielsen World Wide CHI Cultural User Interfaces A Silver Lining in Cultural Diversity Alvin Yeo International User Interfaces Edited by Elisa del Galdo and Jakob Nielsen published by John Wiley amp Sons New York NY 1996 ISBN 0 471 14965 9 hardcover Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com global htm 6 of 6 15 02 2001 6 10 34 AM Interface Hall of Shame In Depth Reviews Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame In Depth Critiques Occasionally we come across applications that are so plagued with interface design problems that they beg an in depth critique We re not sure whether the problems arise through ignorance of the principles of proper design or result from an arrogant disdain for the same principles Whatever the basis for these problems these examples provide a wealth of inf
118. d no mail The new mail is only actually collected if you choose Open Mail On the other hand if you ve got the drafts folder of your inbox open at the time you choose Open Mail nothing will happen and the new mail will not be retrieved http www iarchitect com lotus htm 8 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes Chent Profiles X Please select a Client Aqatiello Francine Allen Scott 35 Arc Place Arias Manuel 3623 oath Str Barbante Anthony Toge 59th Str Besser Frank 33 bcLaughl am Scott sent us this collection of images relating to the Notes Help system itself worthy of its own wing in the Hall of Shame Look at a Notes application have a user bring up a Picklist dialog box click on the Help button and have fun learning about how a developer created the dialog box and not how a user can actually use the darn thing You would think that clicking on this button would give help to the user about what they need to do But Noooo what they get is help on how to write the code to display a picklist Hmmm I m a developer and find this useful but not in this context Here s what Notes displays in response to the user s request for help Lotus Notes Help PickList Displays a modal window that contains ether e A VIEW You speci from which the user can select one or more documents fPickLlist retume a column value from the selected document s The A
119. d Cut again and perhaps Cut again in an attempt to understand what he or she has done wrong They ve just got to be chuckling about this one in Redmond Thanks to Steve Bliss for reminding us of this Excel feature http www iarchitect com controls htm 17 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls If you really want to frustrate your users make sure that you i Block Help use the same mnemonic access or keyboard access l characters for different functions In the GIF Construction L las Se Me Set the keyboard access keys for the Cut and Copy functions Ltl Ctra are the same The net result of this design error is that the Faste Cirie Shitt lns keyboard access commands don t work at least not as the E anner user would expect them to 5 Transition In all other applications Wide Palette GIF to Copy press ALT E C LED Sign to Cut press ALT E T In GIF Construction Set to Copy press ALT E C ENTER to Cut press ALT E ENTER or ALT E C C ENTER As further evidence of their lack of familiarity with mnemonic access characters they forgot to include them for the bottom four items on the menu By the way it s no longer necessary to display the Shift ns and other alternative shortcuts It s a good idea to support those options but continuing to display them merely confuses the new user This type of control is seen all too often in corporate applications drop down controls and lists t
120. d MIDI files should change the file format to include a representative image Further users who complained to Apple about this design were told to petition the content providers to change their file formats so that QuickTime could provide a meaningful way to identify the files One would be hard pressed to find a more definitive example of designer arrogance Additional Sources of Information Feelings Stuck in a GUI web metaphors image schemata and designing the human computer interface Tim Rohrer Do Metaphors Make Web Browsers Easier to Use Elissa Smilowitz On Magic Features in Spatial Metaphors Andreas Dieberger The Myth of Metaphor Alan Cooper Carroll J M and others Interface Metaphors and User Interface Design In Handbook of Human Computer Interaction edited by M Helander North Holland Elsevier Science Publishers B V 1988 Erickson T D Working With Interface Metaphors In The Art of Human Computer Interface Design edited by Brenda Laurel Reading MA Addison Wesley 1990 http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 10 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 11 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Isys I
121. d items or folders Eee category probably never tried the Sort function Sa tat Sikana which needlessly limits the user to only two sort S el oft Key amp fields Want to see your contacts sorted by State eno sort kepy City and Name Ain t gonna happen To Ascending C Ascending Netmanage we must ask Why Not Descending Descending Quickly sort a column with Sort Up and Sort Down in the column shortcut menu chek the right mouse button ina column cell Win95 s Explorer allows you to exclude certain file types from being displayed That s nice Unfortunately they don t allow you to chose which types can be excluded you either exclude no files or you exclude all of the files in a set predefined by Microsoft That s not nice Developers for example are often interested in Hidden Files Hidden files Hide files of these types DLL files but to have them displayed they also have to per Sarma Extension display DRV VXD SYS and 386 files all of which VED Virtual device driver are meaningless to all but the most sophisticated 30600 Mirtual device driver propeller heads MA Mevice driver Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com stupid htm 18 of 18 14 02 2001
122. d provide keyboard access to some of the features of RealCD Unfortunately they hid the description of the keyboard commands on page 12 of the Help file a small portion of which is displayed Play Press Enter here Pause Press Shitt Enter Keyboard Control One of the advantages of standard Windows controls those that the Upen CO Fress Page Up UI amp A Design group at IBM so loudly disdains is that they provide sons explicit instructions for keyboard access For example all controls Close CO Fress Page Down should have mnemonic characters the underlined letter assigned to them and menu items often have a keyboard shortcut e g CTRL P to the right of the name of the item While all users benefit from this information IBM considers it clutter and chose to hide it in the Help file thereby requiring those users lucky enough to find it to memorize the information in order to utilize it This is quite simply poor design RealCD does have one useful feature to offer the user can change the logo image Unfortunately this is accomplished not from within RealCD but 4 RealBlue Available Cover Art Preview from within its Help file PealCcD Default Let s restate the design while you can change the PE Sele title of the CD from within RealCD and you can RealCool change the names of the tracks on that CD from Realhetal within RealCD you must invoke a different application to change the cover art to be associated with t
123. d that Microsoft program managers demonstrated a technique to kill the assistant to a crowd attending a development conference As reported in the article The assistant a paper clip with expressive eyes and hyperactive eyebrows that offers user tips has been the source of wide scorn among developers who have little use for its cuteness and intrusiveness The assistant s demise triggered a hearty round of applause Microsoft Word Document Help Microsoft Visual Basic Help Topics P bai ooks Online R B Obtaining Technical Support ka Fix Edit iew Insert Format Too De mieaay d Reports fa Macros d Modules Microsoft on the web About Microsoft visual Basic http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 8 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors Whenever we are forced to used any of Microsoft s new applications we cannot help but think of the 1957 comedy Desk Set starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn Tracy played an efficiency expert with the unwelcome task of replacing the research department staff at a large corporation with a computer named EMERAC In an effort to engender maximum audience distaste for the computer EMERAC was portrayed as a wall sized panel of blinking lights alarms bells and whistles In evaluating interfaces we now use the term The EMERAC Metaphor to refer to useless features that only serve to distract the user from the pa
124. d the only usability feature of real CD cases from the application modeled on them and decided instead to hide the song list underneath a completely unnecessary cover There is a great deal more we could criticize about RealCD and many of the issues raised in our review of IBM s RealPhone are equally relevant here In that review we wondered whether IBM s unfounded criticism of established design principles and standard controls arose from ignorance or arrogance After having used their applications extensively and after having read their promotional materials we can confidently conclude that their design philosophy stems from an arrogant rejection of 20 years of research into graphical interface design and a woefully misguided belief that being different is good The User Interface Architecture and Design Group packages each of their applications with an extensive usability questionnaire surprisingly the questionnaire provided more information about available features in RealCD than the application itself We find it interesting that IBM has been htto www iarchitect com realcd htm 7 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD soliciting input from users of these apps for several years but has yet to summarize the input they have received We think the reason for their reluctance is aptly summarized in a line from a Bob Dylan tune you don t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows If IBM s designers
125. ddress dialog box displaying information from all available Hame amp Address books The user can select one or more Person group or server names and fPickList retums those names Syntax MPickList Custom Single xara i Ae lo eee Doe l ae l caa or MPickList Name Single Parameters Custom Markus Kassbohrer wrote to describe the interface inadequacies of the Address Book in Notes http www iarchitect com lotus htm 9 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes Mail Address x LucasVarty Address Book View by organization Addresses M4f GsAC PROJECT A340 TRAS Project Team ABAD Moises ABBEL Gerhard ABBOTT Sister ABERGEL Salomon ABET A Rich Abeta Tony 4 Pati mas J L J Copy to Local Address Book Remove Remove All cael Hee F would consider Notes Address Book an example of how to make the user s F job as hard as possible everything that would help you get the task done quickly does not work You can not drag and drop recipients from the list to the message headers Double clicking on a name has no effect at all since the difference between to and cc in practical terms is nil and bcc is used only in special circumstances the software wouldn t have to be particularly intelligent to guess at what you want to do Selecting a name and pressing enter not only does not put that name into any header field it also th
126. des Master of None Another problem with the Windows 95 common file dialogs 1s that by using a single control to display folders and files the user may have to perform several actions to determine if the folder contains the desired file or 1f it contains any files at all When a folder contains a large number of subfolders the user may have to scroll to the right simply to determine if the folder contains any files at all http www iarchitect com file95 htm 2 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs E3 Windows Desktop Favorites Look irr Fonts Forms Help history Maremote sts HetHood maoo The Windows 3 1 common file dialog in stark contrast explicitly separates files from folders As you navigate among the directories in the directory control the files contained in the selected directory are File name instantly displayed in the files list File name blackt 1 bmp bluen 1_bmp bubbles bmp carved 1_bmp circles bmp hounds 1_bmp ibmwall bmp netsca 1 bmp Hey maybe they re on to something Folders ci LWwindows a windows caere caeres command contig S Weissd J Woodard CYL oes i pdmast_ doc custom dic temalug dot P wtismema dot tnormal dot F rask doc 4 http www iarchitect com file95 htm 3 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM 10685100 F521 po0 doc TF Aaaa dac BF acknow do
127. developers had ever looked at the message The most insidious aspect of the dialog is that it does not provide a clear way out I would have appreciated a clear confirmation message You ve been downloading this file for more than 2 hours Are you really sure you want to throw all that time away Yes No it was a mistake Instead CuteFTP merely offers an OK button No it s definitely NOT OK and a Help button that does nothing A word of warning Do not hit the OK button If you want to tell CuteFTP that you didn t really intend to cancel the download you are expected to hit the little X button in the title bar BTW the dialog title should raise an eyebrow Dialog This is supposed to be meaningful how I have long held the belief that poorly designed development tools and training are among the primary contributors of poorly designed user interfaces The help file for Microsoft s Access provides such an example In the discussion of formatted message boxes Microsoft suggests that the developer enter the following in the message argument Wrong button That button does not work Try another The direct result is as follows Hicrosoft Access The indirect result is that would be developers are taught that tossing such messages at the user is an appropriate design strategy It is not http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 3 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 37 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Micr
128. does not appear to be based on any meaningful construct Visually the additional rows of tabs contributes to a cluttered appearancee Instead of a single tab object there are now three tab objects each consuming real estate with unnecessary visual distractions The most important problem 1s that clicking on a tab in any of the back rows causes a disconcerting rearrangement of the tabs The selected tab jumps to the front but the cursor is left pointing at an unrelated tab drawing the user s attention away from the tab of interest In her book GUI Design for Dummies Laura Arlov presents some important advice One row of tabs is enough Again One row is enough And once more One row is enough Many developers seized upon Microsoft s use of multi row tabbed dialogs believing Microsoft does it so it must be OK Some took this mistaken approach and found a way to make it even less usable as indicated in this illustration from Webforms by Q amp D Software Development Because the number of tabs per row varies clicking on one of the tabs from other than the front row causes a major reorganization of the entire set of tabs Tabs switch positions not only front to back but also left to right leaving the user in a state of utter confusion http www iarchitect com tabs htm 3 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs In Zoc a communications program from EmTech Innovative Software the developers took th
129. dow attempts to simultaneously display the contents of what should be displayed in two separate windows There should be an initial Find dialog for the user to enter their criteria and a separate results window This would avoid confusing the user with controls that have no relevance to the separate purposes and allows the design of a window optimized for its distinct purpose Viewing the results of the search can often involve a considerable amount of screen management Find only leaves enough room to display 4 files so you ll often want to resize the screen so that more files are listed If you make extensive use of long file names you ll probably want to increase the width of the name column If you are interested in the file s location you ll probably want to increase the width of the Folder column Interested in the file dates You ll either have to scroll to the right or increase the width of the window to see them Now that you have the display arranged according to your needs don t exit the Find Applet if you do you ll just have to reset them the next time you perform a search Find has no memory between sessions and no means to specify your display preferences Interface designers refer to all this management as excise it represents all the piddly stuff you have to do just to get to the real purpose of your task In Find this excise is part of the price the user has to pay because the designer decided to combine the criteria and
130. dows Starhwway 2 Utopia Error se The Microsoft Sound waw 4 Utopia Excl EEE Te Meot sandnev Gup Eckl The designers of CoolEdit95 have taken the MRU concept further exponentially improving the efficiency of locating files within the complex file hierarchy CoolEdit95 is a very good shareware Windows sound file editor The designers modified the Windows95 standard file dialog to include a most recently used directory control The control maintains a list of the last 8 directories used across sessions with the program Thus rather than having to navigate through the complex hierarchy of folders on the hard drive the user can get to the one of the recently used folders with 2 mouse clicks This greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to locate a desired file This is a truly efficient strategy that we hope more applications will exploit http www iarchitect com mfame htm 3 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame New Existing Recent DHSSTIPMINDEX2 Ds SSTIPVINDEX2 OLD Es yvbS samples P Guide Biblio E ivbSisamples i PGuide MDI When Microsoft s Visual Basic 5 0 first starts it thoughtfully provides a tabbed dialog that quickly allows you to start a new project open an existing project or open a recently used project The dialog provides a nice starting point for a new user and is a welcome change from previous versions of the product that always started by loading a skeleton framework for a new pr
131. drive scroll arrows then 2 double click on the drive name The Tab key can be used to navigate among controls but the navigation order of the controls http www iarchitect com pirates htm 4 of 5 15 02 2001 6 16 30 AM Interface Hall of Shame Pirates In Depth is random each list object is actually two controls the list and the scrollbar thus requiring two Tab presses to move to another control and since only the command buttons indicate that they have the focus you rarely know which control you have landed on PIRATES File Navigator Bine beari Joe Piaper some here OAL ei pe Cone Prepare to Work the plank maitepsi ff ti FEHMAN sra lass February 7 1999 E E Viewer Perhaps it was the designer s intention of presenting a visually balanced dialog but we considered the inclusion of non command buttons to be particularly unbalanced Apparently when there are commands that apply in certain contexts but not to the current context their labels are hidden from the user and a placeholder for the button is left In a typical Windows application the button is given a disabled appearance not unlike that of the Exit Profile Viewer button which despite its appearance is the only selectable button Here s a question for the developer is the dialog a File Navigator or a Profile Viewer Needless to say this is about as far as we ventured into the game While we hold the position that game interfaces
132. e http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 4 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 41 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index MS Explorer Find Applet Microsoft Internet Explorer Microsoft File Manager Microsoft Media Player Microsoft Notepad Microsoft ODK Microsoft Office 4 2 Microsoft Office95 Microsoft Office 97 Microsoft Outlook An in depth review Improperly tabbed dialog A Toolbar Thingy Sort of Adequate Control Inefficient Scrolling Character Based Interface Design An alternative definition of success Needless interruptions Silly Toolbar Design Missing Information Control Impotence Make mine a Chivas Whaddaya expect me to do with it And now for somthing completely different We are wrong but most users won t know Needlessly changing the rules That s for me to know and you to find out You want me to do What Do as I say not as I do Do as I say sometimes Suggest THIS Sickeningly Cute Show and tell Unncecessary Distractions Dissention among the ranks A misguided file dialog fix Microsoft s Triple Dog Dare Too stupid to describe Hiding what the user needs to see Misleading conclusions So what s the question Useless progress meters http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 5 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 41 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Microsoft Paint The last place you d look Toolbar games Mixed signals Blind Man s Bluff Microsoft Visual C C
133. e Controls Web site then ask you to specify which of the non existent list of files you want as your initial page Notice anything missing After connecting to PEPETA ge x the web site the Web Publishing Wizard asks you to indicate which of the files should be Please pick which file you rhafeb files used as the main page for the site would like to set as your Sere Unfortunately it requires that you upload the default page or home page sara lin main page every time you make a change to controls Atm your site even if the main page hasn t changed design htm Errornsq htm ideo htr Indes git If you forgot to include the main page in the list of pages to be uploaded you re out of luck there s no way to go backwards to add the forgotten file or to cancel the upload You mfame htm must select one of the files in the list even mehame htm though you know it s the wrong file You might ie Lat xl try the Close box on the window s title bar but that merely closes the window the application will still Gncorrectly advance to the upload process You might be tempted to ask Where s the OK button Te er E Well that s not the problem The image displayed here is the progress window displayed when uninstalling Freeloader an off line internet browser When the window is first displayed the user typically believes that it is providing options as to which components should be removed and clicks each of them thinking
134. e It merely represents the latest failure in a sporadic attempt to make computer software look more like real world analogues We have attempted to explain in this review and in our earlier reviews of IBM s RealPhone and RealCD why such attempts are misguided While we acknowledge that Apple s use of a hand held electronic device as a model is more appropriate than IBMs attempt to model a CD player application on a plastic CD case we cannot ignore the fact that designing a multimedia viewer to look like a hand held device is no less inappropriate than designing a personal information management application to look like a hand held PDA The model necessarily restricts the utility of the software Additionally we hope to have explained why the effort is particularly doomed to failure when the designer is either unfamiliar with the basic concepts relating to human computer interaction or chooses to ignore those concepts We find this trend toward consumer interfaces to be particularly disturbing The design places a premium on aesthetics over usability The emphasis is on creating a flashy product and not on creating a useful and usable product Rather than asking How can we make this look more like a real thing the designers would do their users a far more important service by asking How can we make this operate better than the real thing To use the QuickTime 4 0 Player as an example the designers spent far too much time making the soft
135. e tabbed dialog approach added multiple rows and varied the number of tabs per row Modem 2 F Macros F Macros 2 AuhoM acros AuboM acros 2 Buttons Buttons 2 AutoR eply AutoR eply 2 Window Window Safety Device Device 2 Terminal Logging Emulation Transfer Transter 2 Modem The design is compromised even further by the fact that there are multiple tabs for each of several functions e g Device and Device 2 Window and Window 2 etc The fact that some of these tab groups are split onto different rows is particularly disconcerting e g Modem and Modem 2 To see why this arrangement is so ill advised try to count the tab pairs in the above image Then try counting them again Our bet is that it will take several tries before you can confidently state the number of tab pairs Innovative indeed Customize x O Tagging F me senor O E Customize k les E Blocks I I E Paul sent us this image of the Options dialog from MultiEdit 8 0 To date we consider this the definitive example of how not to design a tabbed dialog The sheer number of tabs combined with the use of iconic labels and the gratuitous use of graphics on the tabs themselves results in a veritable visual assault Once your eyes recover from the initial assault you may be able to spot another problem the use of nested tabs note that two separate tabs on the dialog are highlighted Multikdit s creator Todd Johnson
136. e Hall of Shame Controls Link to con path l Previous page Po Browse Gallery Next page Po Browse Gallery Top of page Po Browse Gallery TOC Po Browse Gallery Index Po Browse Gallery Previous item Po Browse Gallery l Next item Po Browse Gallery l Specific page Po Browse Gallery The designers of HTML Transit have an obvious affinity toward command buttons Buttons are repeated everywhere giving rise to visions of a rabbit farm On one particular window there were 15 Color buttons The window displayed here is used to specify the various images to be used for navigation buttons on a web page The Browse buttons all of them allow the user to specify a filename for the selected function The Gallery buttons all of them are used to select an image from the program s ClipArt gallery We shouldn t have to say this but when you have to devote more than say 25 of your window s real estate to command buttons you probably have too many buttons You should never have to duplicate a command button more than once on the same window never mind 9 times and certainly not 15 times File Help WAE 25 S le al This command i not available because a document window i not active One of the basic rules of GUI design is that controls that are disabled should appear to be disabled One can normally tell at a glance whether or not a particu
137. e Player Hide Others Show All EA Eudora Light Finder F QuickTime Player 1 pict a JPEGView QuickTime Player Picture 1 hil ba Y Y The QuickTime 4 0 Player contains many examples of how the software must adopt the limitations of the physical device it is based on but the first PA af example the user is likely to discover is the volume control Since a 3 real world hand held electronic device typically employs a thumbwheel to es control the volume the designers concluded that it would work just as well in a software application What the designers failed to realize is that a thumbwheel is designed to be operated by a thumb not a mouse Watching new users try to adjust the volume can be a painful experience The user invariably tries to carefully place the cursor at the bottom of the exposed portion of the control then drags it to the top of the control and releases then carefully positions the cursor again at the bottom of the control drags upward and well you get the picture The thumbwheel is the control of choice for physical hand held devices for a variety of reasons it functions in direct relation to the potentiometer used to vary the electrical signal it 1s inexpensive it is unobtrusive and unlikely to get snagged on other objects and it responds well to a simple move of the thumb None of these reasons relate to the interaction between a user and an image on the screen It was selected mere
138. e Preferences submenu of the Edit menu The fact that the program offers two separate options dialogs can possibly be attributed to the product s beta status Hopefully the QuickTime design team will place a call to someone in Apple s interface design group for a consultation on how the two dialogs can be combined into a single properly designed and easily accessed dialog Perhaps one of the most shameful aspects of the program is that it does not come with its own help facility Users in search of elementary help on the program such as learning mim which combinations of keys must be selected to perform Brine QuickTime PI ayer Help basic functions or to learn which file types are supported Check for QuickTime Updates will first have to log onto the internet and access Apple s Arete aime iain Site website Once there the user will have to learn how to navigate the web pages of the site based on whatever About Quick Time Player navigation methodology might be in place on that particular day Depending upon the user s internet connection it might take several minutes simply to access the web page In contrast if the program had been properly supplied with its own help facility the user by leveraging his or her existing knowledge of how to use help could locate the information much more efficiently While we can recognize that the software company might realize certain economic benefits by utilizing on line help in lieu of l
139. e TH 410 555 1212 34212 Koko Taplor Hemphis TH 321 100 9099 43422 Albert Collins Hew Orleans LA 609 555 1712 62000 Professor Longhair Chicago IL 603 555 1212 http www iarchitect com tabs htm 8 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs The selection of any tab in the dialog will cause the list of records to be sorted according to values in the associated column Moreover the arrangement of the columns will change such that the sort column is always placed in the first column The inconsistent application of the tab metaphor is noted in the application s help file which offers the following definition for the term tab emphasis added A common navigational tool used in Contact Master is the tab Tabs allow you to instantly change the display order of data in a list box or access multiple pages on a form Tabs are a navigational aid they help to organize information and provide rapid access to that information By imbuing tab controls with magical powers Bytemasters has created inconsistencies not only within the application but between tab controls in Contact Master and tab controls in every other application Not surprisingly the misapplication of the tab metaphor unnecessarily restricts the utility of the application Specifically the user is only allowed to sort records on a single field and further the tab sort method provides no means for the user to change the column order of the field
140. e bar menu bar and toolbar are placed at the bottom of the screen If you have your Windows95 taskbar set to Auto Hide you will likely find yourself constantly triggering the taskbar which then overlays the trueSpace2 menu bar You have to move the cursor away from the taskbar wait for it to hide then very carefully try to click on the menu title without triggering the taskbar again One does not have to examine the title bar very closely to notice some additional differences between it and the standard windows title bar The trueSpace2 title bar is actually a condensation of the title bar menu bar and toolbar into a single apparent object Everything is squished together except the window management buttons close minimize maximize the latter are split between the left and right portions of the new title bar not all are visible in this image Further exploration of the interface reveals that the status bar used to display context specific help in not placed at the bottom of the window as it would normally be located but between the title bar and the toolbar This placement makes it difficult to read the status information since it is effectively camouflaged by its surrounding objects trueSpace2 does provide the option of locating the title bar at the top of the window but this option labeled TopMenu also moves the status bar to the top as well These are the various toolbar buttons used in trueSpace2 we ve grouped them t
141. e controls the general data type Number Text Currency etc and the specific number type Long Binary Integer Double etc This wouldn t be too much of a problem if the controls were in some proximity to each other but Access designers placed the specific number type control at the bottom of the form did not assign a mnemonic access character to it and did not place it in the tab order of the form Basically you can only get to it by clicking on it One can use the F6 function key to switch to the lower pane but there is no indication that this functionality exists on the design window in the menus nor in the table design help sections of the help file For text fields the user must also specify the maximum length of the field Field Size in the image above Like the problem with numeric fields this wouldn t be much of a problem if the Field Size control was somewhere near the Data Type control Unfortunately like the number type control it 1s located at the bottom of the form not in the control navigation path of the form and without a http www iarchitect com clarity htm 12 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology mnemonic access character In both cases you cannot get to the control that you would most likely use next The problem with the dialog is that Access did not place the necessary control in the grid as with Name and Type The final column in the grid is Description w
142. e developers decided to make them that way The developers of Microsoft s Wordpad on the other hand decided that having to write an extra line or two of code was not too high a price to pay for making the user s life a little easier How many bitmap files do you keep in your Windows directory Every time you start Microsoft Paint and attempt to open pak ir E Windows a file the starting directory is always the Windows directory For most users this _ Caere directory contains more folders and files J Caere32 than any other directory As such it is probably the last place you would look for a bitmap file Desktop Favorites Most users keep their bitmap and graphic files together in one of a few separate directories on their computers A smart program would be able to remember the last directory selected by the user Unfortunately Paint s developers took the easy way out making your computer dumber in the process Writing a smart program can sometimes require a little extra effort In this case it would have required very little extra effort While it is possible to specify the starting directory to be used this is accomplished not from within Paint but by going somewhere else open Explorer locate the shortcut to the MS Paint application right click on it select Properties select the ShortCut tab and directly type in the desired directory This is how we believe Microsoft came up with the Where do you want to
143. e ever seen We were admittedly curious so we went to Caligari s web site to investigate Once there we found the following claims a pleasure to use and easy to learn its so easy to use it becomes second nature the first time you use it the most advanced user interface of any 3D graphics and animation program on Windows easier to use than most 2D drawing programs Conflicts between the opinions of users and the claims of marketeers are not unusual but rarely are they this divergent In our quest to learn more we downloaded the 6 MB demo and installed it What we discovered is a remarkable example of the differences between useful applications and usable applications There is no doubt that truespace2 is a useful application It offers tremendous graphical power and features that allow you to create some truly inspiring graphics However this power comes at a great cost the user interface will absolutely confound experienced Windows users You will quickly find yourself stumbling over the interface and struggling to understand its idiosyncracies To be able to use truespace2 effectively you have to forget that you have ever used a Windows application before Last updated 13 Mar 1997 http www iarchitect com truesp htm 1 of 6 15 02 2001 6 21 11 AM Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 File Edit Groups Help The first thing one notices about trueSpace2 is that the application is upside down The titl
144. e guessed that we could manipulate Explorer s display by changing the display of the operating system itself Rather than attempting to Options http www iarchitect com explore htm 6 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer change Explorer s settings in Explorer we found through considerable trial and error we might add that the font characteristics of the filenames in Explorer are set by changing the characteristics of of all things the desktop icons Now maybe this makes sense to the folks in Redmond but it is not without considerable confidence that we can conclude that few users would ever intuitively realize the connection This is one of the significant problems with Explorer it has the appearance of a distinct application not unlike File Manager but because it pervades all of Windows95 it is an ill defined application pieces of which are spread throughout the operating system The user can for example decide against displaying DLL files in the Control Panel which cannot display DLL files anyway and none of the other Explorer windows will indicate that they contain DLL files Changing the sort order of files in a particular folder will cause the sort order of files in all folders to be changed Windows95 gives the appearance that a particular file association can be set for a particular folder but after associating a particular file type in one particular folder you will find tha
145. e message Word s conversion utility seems to be asking I think it s a Word 97 document but it might be one of these other types What do you think How the amp would I know This is the result of a confirmation happy programmer The conversion utility knows exactly what type of file it is the raw file contains two explicit references to the type of file yet the program wants the user to confirm the program s ability to read these references The user on the other hand unless he or she created the file has absolutely no knowledge of the file type By needlessly asking the user the program needlessly creates uncertainty and an opportunity for the user to cause an error Opt Out Confirmed You should receive no further eMail from Parsons Technology A confirmation eMail will be sent to your eMail address Undo Continue Mark McIntyre sent us this image of a message he received after unsubscribing from an unwanted mailing list As Mark noted I couldn t help but laugh out loud at the complete idiocy of the message Neither could we http www iarchitect com stupid htm 2 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 33 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Diff Merge x P The objects being compared are identical be you want to continue the comparison Kate Adams sent us this example of interface stupidity from ClearCase a source code control system from Rational Software Given the result the question strikes us as rather i
146. e specific text within the often lengthy programs LEEEKRERRREEEREREREREEEREREREREREREREH Recognizing this the locAndLockHem HANDLE hChunk We developers of Microsoft s C not only provided easy access to the Find function they gave GlobalAlloc GMEM_FIZED wSize it a memory so that the programmer can quickly resubmit a previous search The Find function is provided through a drop down control in the toolbar of the main window The programmer can either type in a new keyword or can recall a previous keyword from the list To move to the next occurrence of the keyword click on the Find Next icon located to the right of the drop down The developer has instant access to the Find function without having to open a separate window to perform a search In engineering terms we consider this a very elegant solution NewsFerret by Vironix Software Labs is a useful shareware utility that performs off line searches of Usenet news servers Depending upon your search criteria this can be a very time consuming process Rather than simply displaying an hourglass cursor on the screen the designers opted to use an animated control to keep the user informed that the New Search program is still working We think it represents an appropriate use of graphics which provides an informative yet subtle and non instrusive message to the user atna Ta beats Stop A status bar in the lower left corner of the window indicates which newsgroup is currentl
147. e that the PDA border consumes so he or she decided to utilize it The border provided a convenient place for the designer to needlessly repeat the title of the application to needlessly provide the name of the software publisher and to needlessly provide the time of day to the nearest second None of these provisions adds value to the text to speech application they are merely attempts to fill the space that exists only because of the designer s adherence to the PDA metaphor The main interface of ReadPlease 2000 allows the user to directly change various settings of the player A slider control for example was appropriately chosen to allow the user to change the volume Additionally a slider control 1s provided to allow the user to change the font size of the text contained in the display area of the interface Unfortunately whereas the volume control responds immediately to the user s input the font size slider has a built in lag time often lasting several seconds before the control responds to user input This lag appears to be due to some complex programming manipulations necessitated by the program s non standard graphical architecture While waiting for the slider thumb to catch up to the user s input the entire interface can be clearly seen to be redrawn perhaps several times The appearance of the menu titles for example change to disabled then return to enabled appearance In addition all of the text in the display area of the i
148. e to view the files in detail mode sorted by LA ni Modification Date the dialog will have forgotten these details the next time it J Magellan is opened reverting instead to the default mode and requiring the user to re specify his or her preferences Attention Deficit Disorder An application uses the common Open File dialog simply to allow you to specify the file to be worked on Why is it then that the Open File dialog i allows you to rename files delete files create new folders send files to the Open printer send a fax save a file to a floppy disk try to convert a bitmap file to an Print Excel spreadsheet edit a file with a different application create an e mail cancel message and so on all while the calling application is waiting for the name of Quick view the file you want it to work on This 1s bizarre Convert To While you could do all these things and more from the Open File dialog who Add to Zip would want to The availability of these functions from this location could only be of extremely limited value to the most experienced of users at the cost send To of easily confusing the new user These functions are not mere distractions Cut they could lead the user on a convoluted path through the operating system r j taking them further and further away from the initial task aad Fortunately by violating their own standards Microsoft has inadvertently ciala aeia protected some new users from the confusion these func
149. e tools for developers to add it to their own applications This will undoubtedly cause the proliferation of this truly shameful design strategy one which would never have survived even the most casual usability testing The purpose of tabbed dialogs is to present related information in an organized manner One advantage of the tabbed dialog is that it provides the user an overview of the contents of the dialog Thus it is important that the categories or tabs be somewhat related to each other dd Remove Programs This is not always the case The following dialog is presented in response to the user s having selected Add Remove Programs from the Windows 95 Control Panel Add Remove Programs Properties Ei Ei E nee Of the three tabs only Install Uninstall seems relevant to the function one has to wonder why http www iarchitect com tabs htm 6 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Microsoft did not use the terms Add Remove for this tab While Windows Setup technically involves the installation and removal of programs the phrase seems to imply the setting of system configuration parameters it does not appear to be conceptually related to the process of adding and removing programs Finally there is no arguable relationship between creating a Startup Disk and the installation and removal of software As with Windows Setup the user would never think to look for this func
150. e user s ability to access items in the Favorites Drawer if the size of the player is increased there is less screen real estate into which the drawer can open and therefore fewer items in the drawer are accessible These problems would not exist if the designers had employed a standard pop up window to contain the user s favorites These problems are the direct expected results of dogmatic adherence to a faulty design philosophy By restricting themselves to the real world metaphor and not availing themselves of the dynamic features that computers provide the designers needlessly restricted the utility and usability of the software A look at the arrangement of items in the drawers demonstrates another fundamental problem with the translation of physical devices to software The favorites are arranged in a matrix the number of elements of which is limited by the size of the screen A physical item 1s limited by its physical size A virtual item such as a list of phone numbers or favorites is limited only by the amount of computer memory If the designers had provided a standard list box there would be virtually no limit to the number of favorites that a user could maintain Furthermore by availing themselves of other standard GUI elements the designers could have provided a great deal of additional functionality such as organizing favorites by whatever constructs the user wishes to employ or creating a PlayList of items to be played successiv
151. e would have been a good place to provide this information but the developers chose to parse the full directory path and display only the lowest level To determine where he or she is in the hierarchical structure the user will have to use the mouse to scroll back to the left By improperly sizing the folder display the designers created a great deal of overhead for the user http www iarchitect com controls htm 7 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Default Signature Brian Hayes HM Jlsys Information Architects Inc M Jhttp isys ho Here s a classic example of selecting the wrong tool for the job and the extraordinary measures users are required to use to overcome the control mismatch OzWin II is an off line reader for the Compuserve Information Service One nice feature of the reader is that it allows you to specify a signature to be appended to your e mail messages such as Brian Hayes Isys Information Architects Inc http Aisys home ml org Unfortunately OzWin provides a single line textbox to enter this information To add a line break in your signature you need to embed the OzWin specific commands M J in the text This of course requires that you first read the help file to determine a line breaks are permissible and b how this can be accomplished A far more appropriate and intuitive approach would have been to use a multi line textbox Each of us has been using computers
152. ealing Interface Hall of Shame RealPhone RealPhone can do more than a real telephone without breaking the visual metaphor It has a built in drawer for holding your most used telephone numbers The drawer works like a physical object it slides in and out Also the body of the phone can be extended or shortened with a toggle switch http www iarchitect com phone htm 4 of 6 15 02 2001 6 20 44 AM By modeling it after a real phone IBM has unnecessarily limited its functionality For example the number of speed dial numbers on areal phone is limited by the size of the phone and economics Virtual phones have no such limit Why only 10 speed numbers Why not 20 50 or 100 They could simply have listed the names and let the user click on the desired name to call IBM decided against utilizing the greatest asset of computers unlike a real phone computers are smart A computer could very easily for example provide several sets of speed dial buttons that correspond to categories of numbers Clients Employees Friends etc Unfortunately the real world metaphor would not support such categorization so IBM left it out of the application Maybe the phones at IBM have drawers underneath them but not one of the phones we ve ever used had a drawer So much for the real world metaphor The resultant problem is that the user is provided no indication of how to add a name to the database nor how to configure a speed
153. eated folders for each of several projects Project A and Project B Each folder contains several common subfolders for example Contacts Notes and Reports We could represent this as follows ProjectA http www iarchitect com file95 htm 1 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs O Contacts O Notes O Reports ProjectB O Contacts O Notes O Reports Given this scenario consider which of the following images provides the necessary navigation information Folders coiproyectsprojectainotes Look in 2 Notes z Ecs 5 projects mon A lowercase i is a lousy choice for the ect mnemonic character why they didn t choose i I projecta O 00O the L is beyond us eo notes The Windows 95 dialog provides no indication of which Notes folder you are in The only way to verify that you are in the appropriate Notes folder is to click on the Look in combo box and scroll upwards In contrast the Windows 3 1 common file dialogs explicitly displays the hierarchical directory graphically in the directories control and verbally in the label above the directory control The user is instantly aware of which Notes folder he or she is currently in The extra information provided in the Windows 3 1 file dialog reduces uncertainty makes it less likely that an incorrect file will be selected and reduces the manipulations the user has to make to select the appropriate file Jack of all Tra
154. econdary means in the drawer itself such as tooltips balloon help or a message in a status bar to distinguish various titles This is not a result of the inappropriate application of a real world metaphor this is simply pitiful design Balloon Help would certainly help the user but it would still require the user to pass the cursor over each image until the desired target could be located Since Balloon Help requires intervention of the user to be effective it should be regarded as little more than a quick fix and not a substitute for an appropriate design of the Favorites function The lack of meaningful descriptions for the items forces the user to rely on the physical position of the item in the matrix Unfortunately if the user resizes the player window the number of images in each row of the drawer may or may not change The end result is that the user can no longer rely on image position as an aid to identification An item that was the third row from the bottom might after resizing appear in the second row Because of the lack of labels and reliable positioning information selecting a particular movie or sound file from the favorites drawer is not unlike trying to find a caramel filled chocolate from a sampler box of chocolates As expressed by Forest Gump in the movie bearing his name Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get The only reliable means of finding a particular type of c
155. ect the arrow keys to do while the up and down arrow keys scroll one page up and one page down like you d expect the page up down keys to do This is your brain on dope Frimary Second Third We found this bizarre design while reviewing the ad Sort Sort Sort hoc reporting capabilities of an application Uption Option Option developed in house at a better left unnamed corporation The dialog is intended to allow the user to specify the fields on which to sort the data in a report As can be inferred from the image and not without considerable difficulty the user can specify sorting on three fields Actually the user must specify the sorting on three fields since there 1s no way to indicate that you want to sort on any less As indicated in the image sorting the results by Part ID then by Part ID and then by Part ID would be just hunky dory in the mind of the developer Part ID g g C Description C Vendor ID e Vendor Number Location Class ID User det 1 User det 2 User def 3 BTW is anyone else reminded of pegboard climbing exercises from junior high school gym Installation Wizard for isual Studio 6 0 Enterprise Edition The Installation Wizard has detected an out of date version of Internet Explorer Wisual Studio comes with the latest version of Intermet Explorer 401 This updated version of Internet Explorer 4 01 iz an essential component of Visual Studia 6 0 Enterprise Edition and installation i required
156. ed It displays numbers as they are typed but because there is no control to receive the focus there is no indication that you can type at all Furthermore while the interface provides command buttons for Redial and Flash it does not provide a command button to initiate the call once the number has been entered The user has to click on the handset which is so non intuitive that few users would ever consider trying it In order to compensate for the non intuitiveness of the interface RealPhone relies on extremely lengthy tooltips to provide instructions Many of the tips are so long they cannot be read in the display time for the tooltips less than 3 seconds Surprisingly as part of their modernization of the interface when IBM removed the control labels they also removed essential interface components such as mnemonic access characters While RealPhone does provide accelerator keys for the speed dial numbers they are based on their numerical position in the list to dial the first speed dial number press ALT 1 for the second press ALT 2 for the tenth ALT 0 Unfortunately the speed dial numbers do not have index numbers associated with them so the user would have to count the speed dial positions to determine the numerical value to press Appeal is in the eye of the beholder We would prefer that it look and act more like a computer application In particular we find RealPhone s lack of intelligence to be most unapp
157. ed outside of the set of tabs the user would correctly consider those buttons as controlling the entire set of tabs as shown in the Properties dialog from the Windows 95 version of Microsoft Word Print Release doc Properties http www iarchitect com tabs htm 1 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Microsoft adopted this new button placement strategy throughout Windows 95 but unfortunately chose not to correct the known problems in its Office Suite of applications For example aside from minor cosmetic changes the Font dialog in the Windows 95 version of Word 1s essentially no different from the earlier version Fort Character Spacing Font Font Style Size Times New Roman Tp Tabestry Motes Tp Tahoma Fp Tamburo p Theatre Antoine oy Bold Italic 11 Times New Roman Cancel Default ceea Tabbed dialogs can also make it difficult for the user to know when their changes will take effect Most tabbed dialogs follow the rule employed with standard dialogs changes take place when the user selects the OK button The Options dialog of Microsoft s Word 6 0 sporadically follows this rule several options were specifically programmed to take effect when the user switches to a different tab Normal Wiew Options Field Codes Wrap to Window Bookmarks Picture Placeholders Field Shading When Selected For example in the group of Sho
158. een real estate The funny thing is though the same thought wasn t applied to the Look In field at the top of the window Sent To The practice of using command buttons as field labels represents particularly bad interface design By using a single control for multiple purposes you confuse the user and make it difficult for him or http www iarchitect com visual htm 17 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 32 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements her to develop associations between the graphical objects and their functions One additional problem is that you make keyboard access difficult since by placing the mnemonic on the command button there is no way to access the field it serves as a label for without invoking the command button itself How installing files please wait Writing E DRAWLT SAMPLES 5 06 27 LM Press Esc To Abort This example was taken from the installation of Drawing Board LT a shareware CAD program During the course of the installation several hundred files are copied to your hard drive Rather than indicate the progress of the entire installation the authors decided that it was more important to indicate the installation progress of each file The end result of this design descision is that the user has absolutely no idea as to the state of the installation Most of the files are small less than 10KB causing the filename to be overwritten with such rapidity that
159. een the users and developers of the application We can help you attain the highest user satisfaction with your products by providing User interface design specifications for new or legacy applications e Evaluation of existing or proposed interface designs Analysis of existing task procedures and workflow Assistance with eliciting requirements from intended users Prioritization of user requirements Rapid and iterative prototyping of user requirements Usability evaluations and laboratory testing Tools and techniques for assessing usability Seminars in user interface design and usability engineering Isys Information Architects is a full service provider of user interface design and usability engineering services We will tailor our services to meet your specific needs Contact us for further information or to arrange a consultation to discuss your needs Home Design Develop Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission 1s prohibited feedback 1architect com http www iarchitect com mdesign htm 2 of 2 14 02 2001 5 44 12 PM Interface Hall of Shame Announcements Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Announcements February 3 2000 CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Second International Workshop on Internationalisation of Products and Systems IWIP
160. elp window is to select the Windows close button in the upper right hand corner and it should be noted that this is one of the very few windows in the program in which this button is enabled The Print button would have been a very helpful addition The help is quite lengthy and is displayed in a restricted and unchangeable window size We have no doubt that many users would have preferred to learn about the game at their leisure away from the computer rather than be limited to the display method programmed into the application http www iarchitect com pirates htm 3 of 5 15 02 2001 6 16 30 AM Interface Hall of Shame Pirates In Depth SSS E E E T As an alternative to the Pirates help the user could turn to the Pirates Tutorial which in all fairness provides detailed sT oeta assistance in how to play the game The tutorial however is JEAiGRANRE E i Een AEE not without serious design problems Hit ylund thi First like all of the dialogs in the program the tutorial ignores the user s display preferences and uses hard coded MRR EFim colors Interestingly we see this particular color combination jg im masses not infrequently Yellow text on a green screen seems to be SSS See cmos the combination of choice for programmers that are used to older monochromatic computer monitors and is a very good indication that the programmer has little GUI experience The three dimensional text chosen for Pirates is an extra pee P
161. ely Computer software is the ideal platform on which to offer such functionality but because of their adherence to the physical device the designers of the QuickTime 4 0 Player like other RealThings apologists have made their software woefully inept in an area in which it should greatly excel The images in the Favorites Drawer despite their appearance are not entirely meaningless The QuickTime 4 0 Player assigns an image to those items that represent sound files All sound files however will be assigned the same image and the program provides no means by which the user can substitute a meaningful image On the other hand the image used to represent a given movie is a thumbnail image of the first frame of the movie On the surface this may seem appropriate until one looks at a collection of movies most of the movies we downloaded especially those from Apple begin with a blank black screen The first frame of the http www iarchitect com qtime htm 7 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 remainining movies constituted a copyright notice which is especially unrecognizeable when reduced to thumbnail size What were they thinking The images in the drawer indicate little more than the fact that the drawer contains items For some completely inexplicable reason the designers did not feel that it was important to display a title or other description of the item itself nor did the designers provide any s
162. equired functions Information Fa Upon selecting Cancel as directed by the previous error message the user is then hit with the following message sure to raise the blood pressure of any user l l 2 Exit program This process could be handled much more smoothly without requiring the user to jump through the programmer s hoops xit http www iarchitect com stupid htm 15 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Microsoft s Web Publishing FileUpload Upload Wizard 1s used to manage Web suena niati site files At one point in the The following file ig curenti on the host but was not listed in your file process the Web Wizard obtains list Do you want to remove this file from the host a list of the existing files on your site then asks you one file at a anata 05g Nov 08 1996 16 20 time whether or not you want to delete the file If we wanted to delete the file zderr gif for example we would have to respond No to each of the nearly 600 filenames that precede it Computers can t get much dumber than this es toa Ho No to All Cancel If the program is smart enough to get the list of files why can t it be smart enough to display the list rather than showing them one at a time Wizard might be asking too much i Web Publishing Wizard Before connecting to the internet server Microsoft s Web Wizard asks for the user s ID and password The Wizard
163. er must select two menu items from two different menus We find it interesting that all that usability testing that Microsoft claimed to have performed did not find this to be awkward One notable feature of a well designed GUI is that it provides the user a variety of ways to perform an action For example in addition to clicking on the control of choice the user can also chose a keyboard shortcut or can use the Tab key to navigate to the control The designer of the Find Applet took this feature one step too far in addition to clicking on the Include subfolders checkbox the user can also set it by clicking on any of the other tabs in the dialog then return to the Name amp Location tab M Include subfolders To see this for yourself uncheck the checkbox using any of the standard GUI techniques click on the Advanced tab then go back to the Name amp Location tab You will find that the Include subfolders checkbox has been magically selected for you The Date Modified tab of Find Applet provides spin buttons to allow the user to specify the number of days or f during the previous ja day s months since a file was last modified Given the size of the up and down buttons provided by the control we would consider the use of spin buttons to be a dubious choice even in the hands of a competent developer In the case of the developer of the Find Applet on the other hand the implementation of the buttons is particularly po
164. erely indicates to the program as opposed to the user that the message should be sent to the trash folder when the user closes the message The likelihood that someone would want to continue reading a message after saying trash it seems particularly remote thus building such functionality into the program strikes us as a misguided effort that 1s likely to confuse the user To make the program understand that you really do want to trash a message you must select the Delete button on the same toolbar which in fact does close the message and send it to the trash folder The Delete button however is at the extreme right hand edge of the toolbar and is only http www iarchitect com lotus htm 5 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 06 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes visible if the application is maximized at a resolution of at least 800x640 Lotus Notes also provides Trash and Delete buttons from the in box itself unfortunately the actions of these buttons are in direct contradiction to the same buttons provided when reading a letter Whereas the Delete button from the letter window causes the message to be immediately sent to the Trash folder the same button in the in box window merely toggles whether the selected letter should be sent to the Trash folder at some later time Similarly whereas the Trash button from the letter window marks the letter as one to be sent to the Trash folder at some later time the Trash button in
165. erestingly both methods were employed within the same form The problem of course is that the first method Spin ComboBox requires much more intervention on the part of the user and requires much more of his or her attention to make the appropriate selection than the simple ComboBox method The simple ComboBox method takes advantage of our human ability to rapidly scan information thereby more rapidly locating the item of interest pun not necessarily unintended The decision to use the first method may have been due to the fact that certain browsers do not 2D Drafting Detailing handle large lists well Netscape for Unix comes 3D Design to mind but we feel that a more appropriate Architecture compromise would have been to use a standard ListBox as shown here which allows the author Assembly Modeling Aviation Modeling es l Building Design to limit the number of items displayed at one Civil Engineering time Canctrictian We found it even more interesting that the Spin ComboBox method was set so that multiple selections could be made We challenge you to try then compare it to multiple selections in the ListBox method Which do you feel is more straightforward In their misguided attempt to make their program look a different the developers of IBM s Individual lt Address Book Aptiva Communications Center lt Group lt Speed Dial decided to forego the use of standard Windows controls and instead develop their own
166. es additional problems for the user We could envision one Confirm File Delete additional button on the above confirmation message I Don t Know As is indicated by the tiny little arrow 1n the icon for A Very Important Program the icon represents a shortcut to the program The confirmation message however provides no indication that the user is about to delete merely the shortcut in fact notice the title of the message Many new Windows95 users we suspect and not a few experienced users might feel that they are about to delete the program itself resulting in an icon left on the desktop that the user was afraid to remove Are You sure You want to delete A Yem Important Progra As can be gleaned from this critique we essentially avoid using Explorer altogether Therefore we are grateful to nian Michael Schmitt for providing an image which encapsulates a Ele Edt iew Tools Help handful of interface design problems with Explorer s Go To Jeg Had dekl Hard disk C Folder control E2 Mechmitt on Plinsts024D ate a BY Exploring Hard disk C k pm etc after the name amp Groups on PlinsfsO5 D ata and therefore are often not visible E Se on Plinsfs07 Datal Lise The list is sorted by the drive letter which is not visible Maildata on Plinsfs02 D ata e The control is not wide enough to fully display the drive EP Everyone on Plinsts05 D at names E2 Splpc on Plinsfs024ppe1
167. eserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com target htm 3 of 3 15 02 2001 6 11 45 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 IBM introduced a CD player application designed to look like a plastic CD case Apple introduced a multimedia player application designed to look like a handheld electronic device Now MoneyTree Software introduces ReadPlease 2000 the latest in the gratuitous application of inappropriate metaphors a text to speech application designed to look like a Palm Pilot What the heck is happening to the software industry ReadPlease 2000 which can be downloaded from http readplease com is an application designed to convert written text to human like speech As such it could probably be a very useful application Unfortunately the utility of the application is likely to be lost due to MoneyTree s slavish adherence to a meaningless metaphor We invite your feedback Comments on this review can be sent to readplease iarchitect com Inducted I1 July 1999 http www iarchitect com readplease htm 1 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 Sigh In theory an interface designer adopts a metaphor as a means of making the application easier to learn Th
168. esign WebZip has unfortunately borrowed many of the EMERAC like features of Office97 including the very inappropriate use of dynamic toolbar buttons buttons that are not buttons until the cursor passes overhead in dialogs rather than toolbars 2 ip Filename Create or open an existing zip tile The lower illustration demonstrates the basic problem with dynamic buttons one cannot tell at a glance that a control is indeed a control and conversely one cannot tell that an incidental image is not a control without passing the cursor above it The upper two images in the illustration are incidental images in WebZip they provide no Task Name functionality Of course given the fact that the application 7 P tansfurmation make extensive use of dynamic buttons the new user once he or she has learned that images can become buttons by passing the cursor overhead will certainly attempt the same with the incidental images http www iarchitect com visual htm 4 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements The lower images in the illustration also suggest a further problem with dynamic controls static images that are in fact controls may not be regarded as controls because there is no dynamic action when the cursor passes over them The Scroll Down button does not pop up nor does the cursor change to a hand as it does in other places in WebZip and the Download Now button represented by t
169. ess E al Toolbar mdo CTRL C to obtain the same result This was a good way of letting a Status Bar All Folders Tools Help the user know that a shortcut existed E Large Icons The designers of Explorer decided against displaying most of the Small Icons shortcuts so that most users might never know the shortcuts Dal existed The only reason we can arrive at to explain this is that Microsoft wanted to give the many authors of Windows95 Secrets type books something to write about as if they didn t have enough already Details Arrange loons P ime up cans For those users who haven t discovered these features from some f Refresh other source we offer the following 3 F1 Open the Help File 7 Rename the currently selected file Open the Find applet Uptioris F4 Cause the Drives drop down to drop down ALT F4 Exit the application E5 Refresh the display F6 Move focus to other control same as Tab FIO Set focus to menu bar CTRL F10 Same as F10 SHIFT F10 Display context window for the current pane CTRL F Open the Find applet CTRL G Open the GoTo Folder dialog CTRL U Undo the last Edit operation For Microsoft to have forgotten to include these shortcuts on the menu items they represent is especially shameful since they led the way in creating this standard Here s the rule if you provide shortcuts in your application let people know about them D
170. etized list of functions would have worked much better o2 f 44 2007 ALBERT COLLI HE 018 43 5385 CLIFTON CHENIER 012 34 5678 JAMES COTTON 325 84 8422 TINSLEY ELLIS 0539 78 3033 DETROIT JUNIOR 3412 56 4321 DELBERT MCCLINTON 1953 21 0884 CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE We found this unusual metaphor in Flexi an accounting package for medium sized businesses We refer to it as the Magnifying Glass Metaphor since the listbox displays a magnified image of the selected item Our guess is that the designers wanted to increase the likelihood that the user would be able to detect which item has been selected but we would have thought that the bold blue border would have been sufficient for this purpose The magnification is not only unnecessary it makes the information more difficult to read http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 6 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors Dan Weinlader sent in this image of a dialog from Socket Spy 32 a winsock trace utility The dialog allows the user to set breakpoints to interrupt the program flow so that the user can better monitor the process WinSock API breakpoints Enabled Breakpoint Description T TVET TT BREAK ON AFI CALL BREAK ON APE CALL BREAK ON API CALL BREAK ON AFI CALL BREAK ON APT CALL BREAK OM APT CALL BREAK ON APT CALL BREAK ON AFI CALL BREAK ON APT CALL Modify Cancel connect send recy
171. etting in the Recycle Bin does not apply to the Recycle Bin dragging a file to the Recycle Bin will not display the message regardless of the setting Further when you decide to empty the Recycling Bin it will still ask you whether you are sure you want to delete the file s regardless of the setting We also found the wording of the message to be problematic The message uses the phrase send to yet the Send To submenu in Explorer s context menu does not provide a Recycle Bin option If one right clicks on a file then selects Delete from the context menu the confirmation message refers to http www iarchitect com explore htm 7 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer sending the file to the Recycle Bin To actually delete a file that is skip the Recycle Bin altogether one must press the Shift key and select the Delete context menu option Performing this latter operation will provide an accurately worded confirmation message Are you sure you want to delete filename ext regardless of the setting of the file delete confirmation in the Recycle Bin The end result of this fragmentation and inconsistency 1s that it is very difficult for the user to develop an appropriate mental model of the process of deleting a file and without a means of predicting the operating system s behavior is left with the uncomfortable feeling of being at the mercy of it Deleting a file from the desktop provid
172. f 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors Close Date Fase mmddyy Desired Payment Date mmddyy Total Settlement Estimated settlement One of our visitors send us a collection of images illustrating the use of a Stoplight Metaphor as it was being used in an application at his company He wanted to know if we considered it material for the Interface Hall of Fame or the Interface Hall of Shame Well here we are The stoplights are displayed in the lower right corner of the window Their purpose is to indicate the user s progress while entering information in a complicated tabbed dialog box Stoplight 1 relates to the first tab Stoplight 2 relates to the second tab and so on anyone see a problem here The stoplight can be any of three colors Yellow Some information has been entered on the tab Red Not all required information has been entered Green All required information has been entered While we found a number of problems with the general design of the form there are some significant problems specifically related to the stoplight metaphor 1 Too much information The stoplight metaphor requires the user to learn the meanings of three states when only one is necessary The only important indication to the user 1s that required information on a particular tab is missing Thus the interface is unnecessarily cluttered with three distracting colors when only one is necessary 2 Conflict
173. f 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions with mice and keyboards e Industrial designers try to produce designs that are pleasing to the eye interface designers try to product designs that make the user s task easier Just say No to real world metaphors February 28 2000 Zing Zing Awungshi Shishak suggested that I take a look at Yamaha s Sound VQ player as a potential candidate for the Interface Hall of Shame I didn t bother to look much farther than their Open File dialog a portion of which is displayed here Have any of the SoundVQ developers ever seen a Windows application Tom Campbell received the following message while trying to check out and edit a file in Revision Master Renson Masher EZ Failed to check out file An eror occured while accessing the library N The eror was Mo eror occured Try again As Tom quipped In an odd way such a self contradicting message is conceptually artistic There is tension between the two different spellings of occurred And an error message stating there s no error has a zen symmetry that s at once perplexing and graceful http www iarchitect com new htm 9 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions Jean Marc Orliaguet provided evidence that messages warning of success are not restricted to the Windows operating system The following message was generated by the Net nfo configuration program running on the
174. f a torn soiled sweatshirt http www iarchitect com visual htm 15 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 32 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Visual Labels is a useful as distinct from usable little application that similarly indicates a disturbing trend File Label Grd Help away from direct manipulation The labels Save and Cancel are indeed controls Given their names it s a good bet that the users will understand that clicking them will perform the respective function but otherwise there is no other indication that they are controls the cursor does not change when over the labels and when clicked there is no visual change to the label to indicate that it has been clicked Fortunately there are only a few commands available otherwise the command bar would require a lot of space Current label description untitled label S HFE Can i el Undoubtedly the popularity of the Internet has contributed to this trend What developers need to realize is that basic technology of the Internet is a huge step backwards HTML the language of the Internet offers the designer extremely limited control over the interface Rather than making our desktop applications look and act like Internet Web sites we should be trying to make the Internet more like our desktop applications Here s another example of truly bad internet features making their way into desktop applications The image is from Typograf a shareware font management a
175. f one does not already exist for the specified name and path However if the user selects the Microsoft Access file type from the list and if a file by that name does not exist rather than creating the file Access displays the message shown here telling you to go do it yourself even when you used the file name that Access itself generated This is not as it should be Interestingly Access does not allow the user to create a new database while keeping the existing database open For the message to be truly correct it should instruct the user to close the current database create a new database close the new database open the previous database and only then attempt to export the table to the new database This is usability at its best http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 13 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Microsoft Excel EJ Ci Do you want to save the changes you made bo Booki Dan Sneddon sent us this image of a message generated by Microsoft Excel We not sure which is more shameful the confusing options or the fact that Microsoft s technical support claimed it was due to an improper installation Here s an example of a completely unnecessary error message provided by Paint Shop Pro 5 0 The program correctly remembers the last directory from which the last image was AN is not accessible opened but if that directory happened to be the floppy drive the i program
176. f the message is to alert the user that the batteries are nearly depleted but somehow that message doesn t entirely come across to the user Battery Empty Warning x The battery is detected will be run out in several minutes or not present IF battery is not plugged n now you can disable the battery diagnosis in lt Batten gt page of Configure Notification Please click the tray icon and select lt Diagnosis Report mente Abbagail Winters send along this image from BatchIt Pro Despite the designer s attempts to organize the dialog that organization may be entirely meaningless Batch It Pro File Help Control Center Configuration FileName Changer HTHIL Wizard HTWIL Wizard Cont Resizing Seti Resizing Method E M Keep Dimension Ratio Width o Image Orientation z Reverse Width with Height if Encounter Fotrai Oe 0 Caption Alienment z I Caption in Border V Transparent Te http www iarchitect com new htm 1 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 26 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions From the Batchit Pro help file emphasis added The Configuration screen is made up of 4 sections They include Resizing Settings Text Caption Watermark and the Saving Option Although this has nothing to do with Resizing the Image Orientation option allows to do a mass rotation of all the images Owen Rudge sent in this bizarre message from Microsoft s Outlook Express 5 0 Deleted Ite
177. face Hall of Shame We consider it among the worst interfaces we have ever come across Click here for more information Taea aE EEA GAD Software Development Order Desk oo For Heading appears a G amp D Sotware Development Order Desk This image from Webforms simply hurts the eyes Labels are not aligned to the fields they are associated with causing the eyes to zig zag around the screen as the user attempts to locate a field of interest The choice of color to distinguish labels from editable fields further adds to the headache Further placing help information will not appear on WHAT in the labels just adds to the mess Given that their status bar is too difficult to read they probably decided that this was probably the next best place for it http www iarchitect com visual htm 13 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Advanced FAS Settings Fine Maximum transmit tate 14400 bps Paper size Letter 8 x 11 inj FE Use custom adikor xe C Phoenia lax_inst wir If you really want to make things difficult for your users just slap a screen together without regard for order or organization This image is taken from IBM s Aptiva Communication Center and demonstrates to us at least that the developers simply wanted to get the settings on the screen rather than make it easy for people to adjust the settings There is no flow to the screen your eyes just jump aro
178. face design has abandoned its twenty year effort to champion interface standards As with IBM s RealThings it would seem that appearance has taken precedence to the basic principles of graphical interface design In an effort to achieve what some consider to be a more modern appearance Apple has removed the very interface clues and subtleties that allowed us to learn how to use GUI in the first place Window borders title bars window management controls meaningful control labels state indicators focus indicators default control indicators and discernible keyboard access mechanisms are all gone According to IBM s RealThings and apparently to Apple such items and the meaningful information they provide are merely visual noise and clutter While the graphical designer may be pleased with the result the user is left in a state of confusion unable to determine which objects are controls which are available at any point in the interaction how they are activated where they may be located and how basic functions can be performed The QuickTime 4 0 Player sports a consumer interface designed so that it looks like a physical consumer product Apologists for this design philosophy maintain that users will more readily be able to transfer their knowledge of real world objects to the software Unfortunately the apologists fail to recognize that there are two likely consequences of this approach 1 the user is unable to transfer his or
179. face design problems Applications List Should be designed to utilize the user s a sesessnssessanssesnsnnennennsnesnneenseeeesneneennene preferred color scheme to prevent problems SUSU tenetan n nn that might arise when the user s color Only Users scheme is different than that of the developer The developers of Microsoft Access improperly hard coded some of the colors in the application resulting in the image shown here To be consistent with the user s preferred color scheme the window s background should be the same color as the command buttons as shown below To be fair this is an easily overlooked aspect of interface design and requires that you specifically check your design under a variety of non standard acm None color schemes If forgotten important color information in your application might be hidden or the resultant color mixture could be so unappealing that your users will not want to interact with your program Oop nly Groups Just as your application should be independent of the user s preferred color scheme your documentation should also be color independent Under the standard color scheme controls with a gray background are read only However under a non standard color scheme none of the labels will have a gray background ME QUOTES 2 The improper use of color can really detract from the aesthetic quality of an application The toolbar used in Compuserve s WinCim 2 0 application remind
180. fers a Search File Edit menu in all of their other applications the Find function is placed in the Edit menu Inevitably when we try to find something in Notepad the system beeps at us since it cannot resolve the ALT E F keyboard equivalent that works in every other application Find Hest F We were also disappointed to find that the new version of Notepad failed to provide a Search and Replace function Given all the operating system releases and upgrades you would have thought they would have fixed Notepad by now More information on the Find command can be found in the Interface Stupidity section http www iarchitect com clarity htm 17 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology E Are you sure you want to delete the already existing file i CAOUICKEEN W SUB ILS T_FOR QEB The Backup function in Quickbooks 4 0 provides a message that has no apparent relation to the function and has the effect of completely confusing the user The user is first asked to select the file to be backed up and is then provided the message above The problem is concisely identified in this message sent to us from Richard Lucey When I first attempted to backup I wasn t quite sure that the selected file was going to al be backed up I answered No to the message and was brought out of the back up screen I finally got brave enough to answer Yes and then I noticed that the back up was proceeding Seems like
181. fficient design illustrated thoughout the entire Hall of Shame site What follows is an introductory collection of some of the myriad of problems with the application As we fortunately no longer use Notes we encourage you to let us know which aspects of Lotus Notes have caused you difficulty Of course we recognize that some visitors may disagree with our assessment of particular features of the application and we invite your feedback Comments can be sent to feedback iarchitect com GX Feedback from Notes users TE Feedback from Notes developers Last updated 28 July 1999 The command buttons shown here are the main entry point to the application Unlike all other command buttons A however these buttons require a double click to operate o 5373 The new user of course is unaware of this feature and Brian C Haves Notes Help clicks on the desired button then waits for something to on Imit p happen The only thing that happens unfortunately is that the button takes on a depressed appearance The user will wait some period of time believing perhaps that the application is processing his or her request then likely conclude that the button doesn t work and clicks a different button It is only after a considerable amount of time clicking all of the buttons and some divine insight that the user attempts a double click S p http www iarchitect com lotus htm 1 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 06 AM Interface
182. file left to your own devices to decide what it is you need help with and how to find it 2 Explorer provides you the ability to sort the list of files by size date type and name well sort of Explorer does not T os best LT tet utilize true ASCII sorting and tends to ignore certain test tet test Ue tat characters when sorting the list resulting in a list that is test 01 tet test Cat not appropriately sorted testl2 bat testi txt The illustration to the right shows two views of the same folder both sorted by filename The Explorer list is shown on the left and the same folder as displayed by File Manager is shown on the right How is it that two applications from the same software company no less yield two completely different sets of results only one of which is correct As indicated in the illustration Explorer actually ignores the hyphen character when sorting the filenames For many users this may not be an issue but as indicated in a recent note from Jerry Foster this feature can be quite problematic for some users Hyphens are used extensively as a naming convention in our development environment Its incredibly frustrating to be unable to locate files due to this feature Apparently Microsoft figures its users to be idiots and unable to alphabetize properly I have a hard time trusting an operating system that ignores all those silly ASCII standards Sorta makes ya wonder Perhaps this is
183. first time it appeared we took a chance and hit the OK button which only had the effect of displaying the same message again Clicking the Cancel x button cleared the message and the program proceeded apparently as it should We came across this gem in one of Compuserve s programming forums We ve reproduced it here not so much as an indictment against the programmer who should have been more careful but as an illustration of the awesome respect some users have for computers and why it is so important to be careful as to how we communicate with them This Really Happened amp AN Type mismatch Yesterday a young secretary called our helpline saying she s following the instructions on screen but when she types in the word mismatch nothing happens A bit puzzled I asked what it is she s actually trying to do and she says she s hit File Save and now a message has appeared saying Type mismatch very embarrassing for three of us her me and our tester who ll be on short rations all next week Steve For those who may not be familiar with the phrase Type Mismatch it is an error message generated by the programming environment and indicates that the programmer has tried to set a variable to a value of the wrong data type such as setting a number variable equal to a word as in TotalSalary Massachusetts Steve should have been checking to make sure that the error did not occur and if it did prov
184. g ambiguous iconic labels and meaningful textual labels Your own ability to interpret the various labels should clearly indicate which type should be used A further illustration of why iconic labels should not be used is provided in this dialog from the newly redesigned Lotus Notes 5 0 Database Title Server Local The dialog is no less puzzling than Myst Follow along with this computer professional as he attempts to discern the meanings of the various icons from left to right Information about books Information about things other than books A printer OK that seems pretty obvious Drafting tools OK something to do with layout or construction Oh that s easy setting the parameters for the space shuttle I will assume this is the Find tab Options for geeks perhaps But would non geeks get the meaning Of the seven tabs there are only two that I feel reasonably confident that I have interpreted correctly but then I ve only been using computers for some twenty five years Perhaps if the dialog had a title I might have some idea as to what the categories are related to and that alone might have increased the number of understandable icons to three Ed Deans provided this image from the TCP IP configuration dialog in JBM OS 2 Warp Server for e business the height of the image has been reduced by one half to reduce bandwidth http www iarchitect com tabs htm 15 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interfa
185. g the thumb indentation on the player the Advanced Controls Panel is opened by single clicking the button that looks like a shirt button there s a real world metaphor for you The image on the button has no resemblence to its function nor to the functions contained on the panel Furthermore since QuickTime like IBM s RealCD does not provide tooltips or balloon help for any of its controls the interface provides no indication that the functions exist BALANCE While the Advanced Controls Panel is aesthetically clean and appealing the arrangement of controls is likely to lead to mistakes in their operation Because the designers balanced three sets of video controls directly above three sets of audio controls because all of the video controls resemble arrows and because the video buttons are several times larger than the audio buttons it is reasonable to expect that some users will click on a video control in an attempt to change the setting of the audio display directly beneath it While the consequences of such errors are minimal for a multimedia player in terms of design principles this would not be a http www iarchitect com qtime htm 10 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 desirable arrangement to follow for software in which such errors could lead to more serious consequences While hiding these controls on a panel does result in a leaner cleaner interface for the main player it is li
186. ge file CAPAPRPORTSOATASTEST POS A note to all application developers make sure your messages are correct Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 18 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Tabbed dialogs are great They allow the designer to organize information and provide an intuitive means of navigating that information In the hands of a misinformed or mis intentioned designer however the tabbed dialog design strategy can make it all too easy to create inefficient and confusing dialogs Last updated 4 April 2000 F Tabestry Notes tt Tahoma Ft Tamburo Fp Theatre Antoine Times New Homan This Font dialog in Microsoft Word 6 0 illustrates one of the earliest criticisms of tabbed dialogs By placing the command buttons on the tabs themselves the user was often confused as to the consequence of selecting the buttons The placement of the buttons seems to indicate to the user that he or she must click the OK button after making changes to any tab before moving on to the next tab In time designers recognized that if the command buttons were plac
187. gning a name and telephone number to a speed dial position 1 Open the drawer Type in name and number Click on the Add Name button Click on the Set Speed Dial button Click on the desired Speed Dial button Mm A U N http www iarchitect com phone htm 5 of 6 15 02 2001 6 20 44 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealPhone 6 Close the drawer Of course this assumes the user somehow figured out this process which can be difficult since RealPhone does not provide any instructions If you made a typographical error while entering the name or typed a name longer than 15 characters the display limit on the speed dial labels you ll have to 1 Open the drawer Scroll to the name in the list Click on the Delete button Type in the corrected name and number Click on the Add Name button Click on the Set Speed Dial button Click on the desired Speed Dial button 8 Close the drawer NY AMUA BW WN Be careful not to hit the Enter key when entering a new name and number While anyone experienced with other Windows based applications would expect the Enter key to be an equivalent to clicking the Add Name button Enter will begin dialing whatever number is selected 1n the list of numbers not the number being typed If the user did not select a number in the list RealPhone selects the first number in the list even if the number is not visible RealPhone s designers must have felt that default command buttons were simp
188. gram s failure to the user Gary Walker received the following message after accidentally deleting several lines in Microsoft s SQL Server 6 5 Enterprise Manager Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager The delete operation involves more than 20 lines Are you sure You wish to save the deleted test in the Undo butter Responding to No will clear the Undo buffer If you select more than 20 lines of text from the query window and then accidentally hit delete you get this apparently helpful error message so that if you change you mind you can hit No to avoid the delete However closer inspection of the message reveals a glaring inconsistency Hitting No actually causes the Delete operation to continue but destroys the Undo buffer in the process leaving no means of canceling an accidental delete http www iarchitect com new htm 5 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 26 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions S ren Erland Vest sent in this image he received from the otherwise excellent freeware hex editor A X E S ren received the message upon accidentally saving via CTRL S a document he had opened but not edited Beyond the fact that the dialog providers no means for the user to convey No it s not OK one has to wonder why the message exists at all When installing Office 2000 recently David Nottage discovered that Microsoft s developers still haven t learned how to write a meaningful error message The
189. grammers included would consider such a method as anything less than completely unacceptable All data can be organized in some meaningful way that will allow the user to more rapidly access the specific information he or she is interested in Files are organized into folders or directories for htto www iarchitect com controls htm 18 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 19 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls example Employees are often categorized by department job title or salary grade Designing the interface to exploit the appropriate organization will allow the user to more rapidly locate the desired information while at the same time ensuring data integrity Based on concern over the typing ability of some of the 400 000 Enter your Social Securty Number corporate users the project manager of this particular application insisted that po mio 9 i o io ello drop down controls be used to collect information wherever possible Fortunately he was transferred to a different project The programmer of this corporate application had apparently not yet read the chapter on the use of drop down controls Select your State Makes you wonder how the user is asked to specify his or Alabama Kanzas her country C Alaska C Kentucky Designs like this often result when the programmer not only g m w on lacks knowledge of proper interface design but also lacks 7 O experience with the Windows environment
190. hame Win95 File Dialogs menus find that they are really quite useful We agree but then again we have been using computers for a long time as have the persons who find the context menus most useful We ve maintained our position based on our observations of new users and recently based on circumstantial evidence provided to us from Microsoft The Arrange Favorites dialog from Microsoft s Internet Explorer is pictured below Notice that it is clearly based on the Windows95 common file dialogs and most likely utilizes the same code A cursory review of the image will demonstrate rather important differences between this dialog and the common file dialogs Specifically the most frequently used context menu commands have been explicitly located on the dialog Furthermore Microsoft added instructions for the functions on the dialog itself Organize Favorites Folder E3 Favorites Art Museums Az SiteBuilder Home L Computer and Software Companies AE The Internet Link Exchange Protile Good Web Design Aa web Fages That suck Lesson 1 HCI Sites A WinFrame Demo Room E mported Bookmarks Organize Move Rename Delete Select one or more fles from the list above then C click one of the Buttons to organize ther 0e Click the E button above to create a new folder What we find most interesting 1s the timing of this change Internet Explorer was released long after Windows95 Now we could be mi
191. har ACRAEA NE PARAGE B ie fae eta We ve come up with a new rule for program developers You must at least LOOK at your designs before inflicting them onto your users This image was taken from a tutorial released to members of a very large organization to instruct them in the use of a new software management system As is clearly evident in the image the choice of font color and background have made the tutorial almost completely unreadable and therefore http www iarchitect com visual htm 1 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements absolutely useless Try to read the text in the image and note the intense effort required The only excuse for such a pitiful combination of screen characteristics is that the developer never looked at his or her creation as such there 1s no excuse Berco Beute sent us this image of a dialog in Microsoft s Outlook Express Newsreader 4 Pick Newsgroups on news zwolle nl net Type name or Select from List inetexplorer ie Newsgroups to post to microsoft public netexplorer je5beta a microsoft public metesplorer e5beta b haat era Remove microsoft public metesplorer e5beta 1 microsoft public inetesplorer ie5beta The dialog is presented when the user wants to send a message to more than one newsgroup There is one not insubstantial problem however there is not enough space in the windows to show the full na
192. hat contain thousands of entries Programmers who mistakenly use it generally get a hint that it might be Employee inappropriate when they find out that it takes an extraordinarily long Bates John time to load the form The following message posted in a Visual Basic Bates John M od Bates John w programmers forum on December 11 1996 is typical Bates Kevin I want to fill a list box with 2000 items This takes incredibly Bates Louls long over 20 minutes Any ideas Bates Margie l l Bates Mathew E And another posted on December 16th 1996 is somewhat less typical Bates Mathew I m looking for a list box control that can hold large numbers of entries 20 000 The excuse for such unwieldy controls is often a misguided interpretation of the almighty call to arms We must ensure data integrity The programmers want to make sure that the user specifies a valid entry in their view the best way to do this is to force the user to select from a list That would be fine if you had say 20 60 or maybe even 100 items in the list Beyond that number the fact that the user can only scroll a handful of items at a time causes the control to become unwieldy Imagine if you didn t have folders and directories on your hard drive Whenever you needed to specify a file you were presented with a drop down control containing the name of every file on your hard drive and asked to select the one you wanted to open Few people pro
193. have displayed them in all uppercase Avoiding uppercase is one of the first rules of netiquette because it is universally interpreted as shouting and immediately indicates that the writer is either a pyramid marketer GET RICH REALLY QUICK or a first time user HOW DO I SEND A MESSAGE In perceptual terms the use of all uppercase makes the information inherently difficult to read DON T USE IT http www iarchitect com visual htm 11 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements eS all tracks on this channel File Options Help Song Position i E EA ED E A gt s gt 2 gt gt S 32 2 3 2 2 2 The designers of Midi Orchestrator decided to buck the industry standard of placing status messages and context sensitive help in a status bar in the lower left corner of the screen and decided to place them in the title bar instead As the cursor moves over a control a description of the control is displayed in the title bar Midi Orchestrator is an otherwise excellent product but it has an extremely complex display there are 161 controls on the main window Move the cursor more than 2 or 3 pixels and a different message will be displayed Make a sweeping movement with the mouse and the title bar of this otherwise wonderful application becomes a strobe light This type of information is best displayed using Tooltips which have a built in delay such that
194. he developers took a bad idea and made it far worse Now rather than having to struggle with 20 flags the user must contend with 60 Program Flag wi Waa kai fw a 5S ME M7 ME MI Mil Oe Sid l2 Mia Iw 14 fe 15 fe 16 Mi Iw 18 M1 Iw 20 fw 2 fw 22 fw 25 fw 2d Ie 25 fe 2h Wa Ma fe Ao fe GO fe So fw Se fe So fw G4 wa ow GSB Iw GF fw SE fw So fw 40 fw 4 fw 42 Ma My wA fv 46 fw 4 fw 46 Iw 49 fe SO fw 51 fw 52 fw 5S fw bt fe SE fw SR fw SF fw 5G fw 59 fv BO An additional change in the new version was to employ an HTML based help file with a navigation structure that makes it even more difficult to find explanations for the flags http www iarchitect com clarity htm 2 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Installation Program Message gt This message was generated when uninstalling JAWS an otherwise very useful screen reading program This simple dialog however demonstrates a number of significant problems Users have unfortunately become conditioned to confirmation dialogs This particular confirmation dialog however requires that the user pay particular attention When uninstalling JAWS the contents of its directory and any subdirectory contained in that directory are removed whether or not the files are associated with JAWS This is an unnecessarily dangerous operation the consequences of which will be overlooked by the many users that have come to casually dismiss confirmation dialogs
195. he CD The Cover Art function is described on page 14 of the Help Book and the controls to perform the function are provided on page 15 While most designers might have provided a simple command button on the application to perform such a function the user centered designers at IBM decided it was more usable to require the user to 1 Open the CD Case 2 Drag the Help Book into a viewable area 3 Flip and search through 14 pages of irrelevant information 4 Interact with a graphic image that provides no visual indication that it 1s interactive This is a good thing Hello htto www iarchitect com realcd htm 6 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD Continuing the design strategy introduced with the Cover Art function IBM s designers provided some additional useful functionality in the GD AutoPlay Help Book The user can specify whether or not RealCD should start Random Playback automatically whenever a CD 1s loaded into the CD drive p E adoi Paa Unfortunately this setting is only available from page 17 in the Help G Continuous Playback Book Apparently in their attempt to reduce the interface clutter RealCD s designers felt that the Help Book represented a welcome repository into which they could dump otherwise useful functions and controls While most conscientious designers are trying to make Help files unnecessary IBM seems bent on making them required reading If RealCD were just another share
196. he encircled triangle does not change in response to cursor movements In addition to the problems related to the use of dynamic buttons there 1s also the very serious limitation related to non mouse input Meaningful keyboard access keys cannot be assigned to such controls and they do not support voice input Moreover we find the use of cryptic graphic images in lieu of meaningfully captioned buttons e g New and Open in the upper image and the Download Now button in the lower image to be particularly shameful design Our advice to the designers of WebZip Start paying attention to the U in GUI WebZip utilizes a navigation toolbar much like that used in this particular Web site While we can see the need for such a toolbar on a complex Web site we think the idea is misplaced in a relatively simple desktop application in our opinion they were simply trying to imitate the look of a Web site but that s another discussion altogether Schedule a ee We included this example because it illustrates two visual problems The first is that the navigation toolbar is scrollable but the designers essentially hid this fact from the user The designers opted to eschew the standard scrollbar and utilized one of their own design one which few users would be familiar with Here s a good rule of thumb to follow when designing your own controls o Don t 2 Use the controls that are provided by the operating system The user is
197. he outer scrollbar would display the next category of awards and clicking on the inner scroll bar would display the next award in the current category Keep in mind the frames do not scroll up and down the information in each is simply replaced PeopleSoft often nests scrollbars 3 or 4 deep such that the user becomes absolutely dumbfounded not only as to how the information is arranged but also as to how to navigate within a window Scrollable forms are a sure sign of inexperience in graphical user interface lirst Mame Lest Mame Middle design These often result from the OO conversion of legacy applications to the pee ae Windows platform or in the development 7 of applications based on paper forms Piast remit LF ree S Cit Gian Gl Scrolling forms hide important as CE information from the user hide Pen Nale baal tien Maen lca navigational aids and controls and require more user inputs to get to the desired information iE Unfortunately visit any programming support forum and you ll see an ever increasing number of new programmers asking how to create scrollable forms The only appropriate answer is You don t Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com controls htm
198. her existing knowledge of computer interaction and 2 the software becomes needlessly subject to the limitations of the physical device The decision to eschew the existing interface controls provided by the operating system creates a variety of problems The decision not to provide a title bar for example resulted in the loss of the standard window management controls Windows users will find the the player offers no visual indication as to how to move minimize or maximize the player window Similarly Mac users will find that the loss of the title bar necessarily means that they have lost the ability to use the Mac s WindowShade and Zoom features with the player Because the player does not utlize the operating system s standard means of managing windows the designers had to develop their own as a consequence the user cannot rely on the established system conventions to determine for example the active player window A further consequence is that third party software that relies on the standard window management functions of the operating system will not function appropriately with the QuickTime 4 0 Player App Windows for example a Mac control panel that creates a navigation menu based on the titles of applications and any child windows each contains cannot extract the names of open QuickTime Player windows http www iarchitect com qtime htm 2 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 20 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 Hide Quicklim
199. hese records In this context No is no more meaningful than Ham Perhaps recognizing this the developer chose not to mention the No button in the instructions He or she should have since the record 1s visually deleted before the message appears selecting No would indeed seem to undo the action thereby revealing the error of the error message A much more grammatically correct less arrogant and far more understandable method would have been to simply ask a straightforward question Are you sure you want to delete this record and provide straightforward options Yes and No CAINTERNE TAWEBSITE4dispquiz htm x oe Like Access 95 Windows95 has a tendency to create problems where there are none The above message 1s generated when the user cancels a Print command from any of Explorer s many incarnations Explorer the uncommon file dialogs and the Find Applet Upon selecting Print a progress dialog is displayed which offers a Cancel button to cancel the print If you hit the Cancel button intending to perhaps Cancel the print Windows95 reports that a problem has occurred http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 12 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages N Not enough memor avaiable to complete this operation Quit one or more applications to increase available memory and then try agan Microsoft s Notepad even after some oh about 7 years of development
200. hich most developers ignore Had they placed Number Type and Field Size in the grid creating a table would have been a much more efficient process Although this image was taken from version 2 of Access the design remains the same in Access 97 Icons are certainly a means of communicating to the user well some of the time This collection of icons represents some of the many toolbar icons available in ccMail and represents from our view perhaps the least intuitive collection of images intended for general use that we have yet come across While some of the images are immediately recognizeable e g the printer and the trashcan the functions of many of the images are completely unclear We had to struggle to find the Send button and arrived at it only by a process of elimination To make matters worse ccMail does not provide ToolTips bubble help for the toolbar images nor does it provide a status line description of the images Users are justifiably hesitant to explore the toolbar since they are afraid of initiating an unwanted action Not surprisingly many of the ccMail users we ve spoken with choose to skip the toolbar altogether relying instead on the menus the toolbars were intended to augment Is it just us or does something seem odd about this particular menu option in Visual Forms It strikes us as Ey Visual bik Forms 1 00 akin to See the Invisible Man Tools In Visual Forms this menu option allows
201. hocolate is to either bite into each or at least press your thumb into the bottom of each and hope that nobody notices later Similarly the only reliable means with which the user can identify a file of choice in the favorites drawer is to open several until he or she happens upon the file of interest If the designers had been concerned with the users objectives at this point of the interaction with the QuickTime 4 0 Player specifically the ability to rapidly locate and open a particular file of interest the favorites drawer would never have seen the light of day Unfortunately the designers were far more interested in form over function where looking good is considered more important than working well The application does provide additional means to determine the names of one s favorite media ESOS ills files but the user must go somewhere else The a i160 application s menu bar offers a function labelled ae ony Organize Favorites which when selected steamraller mos provides a standard listbox containing the picasso240 mov names of the favorites The listbox allows the Roller Coaster mov Washington mow user to rename favorites delete favorites from Sia Wars hoa the list and reorder items in the list these functions are notably unavailable from the Favorites Drawer itself The Organize Favorites Delete Rename Done dialog is not without its own design problems http www iarchitect com qtime htm
202. http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 7 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors some problems with the design five year olds do not purchase 500 00 application suites adults do and most adults quickly tire of cute The notion of interactive assistance is not the problem Isys founder was conducting research on interactive assistance as a graduate student nearly 15 years ago The problem is that Microsoft s implementaion is intensely intrusive the paperclip is incessantly animated swaying about moving its eyes and even jotting down notes When it speaks you cannot help but listen The user can turn it off but only temporarily the next time he or she tries to access the Help file the paperclip again comes to life It would seem that the designers enthusiasm for finally implementing interactive assistance clouded their ability to distinguish between the short term Wow first impressions and the more important extended use reactions Then again this hypothesis is based on the dubious assumption that the marketing department even allowed testing to be performed A side note to Microsoft a shifty eyed character does not inspire much confidence and trust Perhaps the Puppy agent would have been a better choice as the default Update 26 October 1998 We are grateful to a visitor for pointing us to a recent article posted on CNN Interactive In Microsoft Assistant Killed in Denver it was reporte
203. iate a particular file type with an application In this example there are 133 entries in the list clicking the page portion of the scrollbar will display the files 2 at a time We are at a loss to explain why the developer didn t use more of the available space on the form to make the list larger or why he or she didn t just make the form larger The end result of the developer s lack of thought is a control that is essentially useless for the task at hand Just when you thought it couldn t get any worse Microsoft found a way to further reduce the efficiency of listbox controls The user centered designers of Visual Basic 5 0 decided to eschew the obviously more appropriate ComboBox or drop down control and chose a 2 line listbox instead version Information Type Samms Mame gt i We first came across this example of the inappropriate choice of controls for a task in a form at a web site and have since seen the technique inappropriately employed in certain desktop applications as well Eas We have discovered that some browsers may Please indicate your area of interest not display the control as we had found it Here is a static image of the same control go ahead and try it Mone How did you hear about our site Now imagine trying to scroll through a list of 30 items one item at a time http www iarchitect com controls htm 14 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Int
204. icult to locate the desired property One would have thought that they would have realized that this is a problem given that this is the fifth major version of the product One of the features of PowerBuilder is that it allows the user to specify his or her own events based on operating system messages These messages are presented to the developer through a list from which he or she selects the message of interest The drawback 1s that there are hundreds of messages each of which PowerBuilder unnecessarily attaches its own pbm_ prefix to Because of this prefix the user cannot jump through the list by pressing the first character of the desired message but instead must physically scroll through the list using the scroll bar The user ends up wasting a great deal of time searching through the list when a few keystrokes could have made the process much more efficient Paste Event ID porn achyateapp por askcbhormatnane porn Grigetcheck porn brigetstate porn brgetcheck porn brnisetstate porn broisetstyle http www iarchitect com stupid htm 11 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity l Database Tools d Gq Datastream_ The Leader in Maintenance Software as Datastream Dema E A Document Tools d E Based on their decision to post an advertisement on their users Start Menus the Start Menu folder for Datastream s Demo would be more appropriately entitled The Leader in Arroga
205. ide a meaningful message rather than relying on the system error messages This completely ambiguous message appears in a sample SQL Windows Ea program provided to developers using Gupta s SQL Windows development system It appears in response to a prompt for a l Check In Date in a hotel desk sample application The Invalid date value 8 22 93 message provides no indication of the correct format of the date The message would be unnecessary if the program defaulted the date to the current date This message is generated by the SOL Windows development environment It arises when the developer has typed an incorrect statement while writing a program The available responses are xX This tem doesnt belong here meaningless what does Yes do retain the incorrect statement Ho Cancel The really unfortunate aspect of these error messages is that programmers learn primarily through example When the programming environment itself generates poor messages and the sample programs contain poor messages is it any wonder that the programmers will tend to write poor messages in their future applications http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 16 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Microsoft Office i The path you specified contains too many subdirectories Delete one or more directories or Clear the Include Subdirectories check box Paul Adams wrote to us to point out a
206. ie To a web savvy individual that would be a meaningful statement but I would bet that a large percentage of Win95 users would have preferred an alternative command button I Don t Know What s a Cookie When the user clicks the Cancel button while performing a spelling laf zj check in Allaire s HomeSite 4 0 the program thoughtfully displays a modal message to inform the user that the spell check was c pell check cancelled cancelled Ci http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 5 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Veikko Punkka sent us this image he received from Lotus cc Mail cc Mail for Windows Fatal Eror EH AN Mail Engine No Error In Veikko s own words My favorite error message is the delightful No Error occasionally encountered with cc Mail While having No Error sounds like a good thing it is labeled as a fatal error which sounds like a bad thing When the user clicks on the OK button cc Mail terminates which seems to indicate that having No Error is a serious error in cc Mail Then again maybe using cc Mail was the error in which case exiting the program just corrects the error with the result of there being no error Mathew King sent us this poorly composed error message he received from JDeveloper JDeveloper X 2 Archive Output File already exists CiProgram FilesiOracled Developer 2 0imyclassesidoMothingEJeidoMothing jar OF to owerwrit
207. ied under the Options menu If you forget about this hidden function you might never get the results you expect Options Since there was plenty of room left on the Tab we can only surmise that Microsoft placed it in the Options menu only so that the Options menu would have more than one menu item under it By the way Find ignores the case sensitivity setting when performing a File Name search e g COPY even though Explorer displays files with case Case sensitivity only applies when searching for a particular string within a file therefore it should only be enabled when a string has been specified When specifying where the search can be conducted Find provides a drop down control with the label Look in Unfortunately the Find Look in control operates differently E My Computer than all other Look in controls in Windows95 Look m ERER E aA T C The Find dialog Look in control only displays the physical drives available for searching The Look in control used elsewhere in Explorer displays the drives Network Neighborhood and the desktop folders To search a desktop folder the user would have to click on Browse then navigate through the hierarchy until C WINDOWS DESKTOP folder is specified There can be no rational reason why the Find Look in should operate any differently than any other Look in http www iarchitect com find95 htm 4 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Sha
208. igner including tips on how to spot a GUI designed by someone without GUI design experience IBM s RealCD represents a new philosophy in interface design We invite you to try it out share your impressions and see whether or not it represents the state of the art as IBM claims OK the fact that it s in this category might be a clue S4 Find All Files In Windows95 there 1s perhaps no better example of how applications should not be designed than the Find Applet Its combination of confusing structure inconsistency both within itself and with the Named rest of Windows95 and overall disorganization highlight it as a true Look m W 95us1u Browse embarrassment to Microsoft File Edt View Options Help Name amp Location Date Modified Advanced PT Exploring windows File Edt Wiew Tools Help We were more than a little curious when the early Windows reviews of Windows95 referred to the Explorer All Folders Lontents of window essentially as something you will eventually get 0 Command E used to Since Explorer is one of the core A Contig 2 Command components of Windows95 we felt it was important Config to identify some of the many interface problems associated with it Cookies fl Desktop Cursors i Favorites Desktop http www iarchitect com target htm 2 of 3 15 02 2001 6 11 45 AM Interface Hall of Shame In Depth Reviews Open Look irr Caeredz Comma
209. ile specification error Sure System Error z we know but we ve been using computers for a long time The new user however most likely has no idea N Action aborted due to file specification error If you need to say that the program cannot find a particular file simply state that the program cannot find the file http www iarchitect com clarity htm 16 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Why is it that programmers cannot grasp the fact that most users typically do not understand the RGB hexadecimal translation of color Backgound Color It would make far more sense to display a selected color by showing the Color selected Of course this design might be appropriate if users of Webforms thought in terms of Hey the background 1s a bit too rich maybe I should use FF2ACC instead Sometimes applications give the appearance that the developers must have a dog eared Fetch Sag Beene Lassie thesaurus next to their computers Each of these terms was used in various areas of the same Filter Psttern Match corporate application Microsoft has reported that the term Find was most readily understood by new users Search or Find just be consistent within the application Despite the findings of their usability labs Microsoft failed to retrofit the release of NotePad packaged with Windows95 It is the Untitled Notepad only Microsoft application we have found that of
210. ill inadvertently Undo something he or she had not intended Since Explorer keeps track of the last undoable action until Windows95 is rebooted it is quite possible to undo an operation you completed hours or even days before The only way to be sure of what will happen when dragging a file is to perform a right click and drag in that case Explorer will ask you what you want to do after dragging The only problem with that is that the right click and drag is perhaps the least intuitive operation ever conceived in interface design Not only is it physically awkward it simply would never occur to anyone to even try it Move Here Copy Here Create Shortcut s Here Cancel One of the biggest obstacles to new users of Explorer is its inappropriate application of the clipboard metaphor to file management Given enough db ES E an experience with them users that have become accustomed the eccentricities of Explorer s implementation of the functions find them to be quite useful The problem is it takes a considerable amount of practice to get used to them The basic problem is that the commands do not operate the same manner as the same commands in all other applications For example select an amount of text in a text editor and select Cut the selected text 1s removed from the document On the other hand select a file in Explorer and select Cut the file is still there The operation has no effect until you select Paste at some la
211. ime 4 0 Player sports a completely redesigned user interface The new interface represents an almost violent departure from the long established standards that have been the hallmark of Apple software Ease of Use has always been paramount to Apple but after exploring the QuickTime 4 0 Player the rationale behind Apple s recent Think Different advertising campaign is now clear While there are some who would conclude that the revised interface represents innovative thinking at Apple we would have to conclude otherwise There is nothing innovative about the user interface of the QuickTime 4 0 Player the developers adopted the same misguided principles employed in IBM s RealThings copied some of the same features we critiqued in our reviews of IBM s RealPhone and RealCD and added a few new follies of their own We recognize that some visitors may disagree with our assessment of particular features of the application and we invite your feedback Comments can be sent to quicktime iarchitect com For the sake of accuracy it should be noted that the following is a review of the user interface of the QuickTime 4 0 Player not the QuickTime technology itself Inducted 25 May 1999 Related Articles http www iarchitect com qtime htm 1 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 20 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 One look at QuickTime 4 0 Player and one must wonder whether Apple arguably the most zealous defender of consistency in user inter
212. important objective for the designer Instead the designer was only interested in the aesthetic appearance of the interface If that meant that the user had to wait 10 seconds for a menu to be displayed or if the user would be confused by the controls or the application architecture then so be it Hopefully more designers will recognize that the importance of the interface does not rest in its appearance but in the ease with which users can accomplish their goals Sadly the emphasis on making it look kewl to individuals without visual impairments makes the application almost completely unusable by those individuals who could most benefit from its underlying technology Home Design Develop Shame Fame 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com readplease htm 9 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes We wish we found IBM s Lotus Notes a long time ago This single application could have formed the basis for the entire site The interface 1s so problematic one might reasonably conclude that the designers had previously visited this site and misread Hall of Shame as Hall of Fame Lotus Notes 4 6 contains almost every example of ine
213. in Microsoft s Internet Explorer The function allows the user to specify formatting to be applied to the headers and footers of pages printed from the browser In the example illustrated Lower left it should be clear to all viewers that the user has specified that the g window title should be displayed in the upper left portion of the page and that the date in short format should be placed in the lower left corner of the page But you knew that right not likely Upper left pe Despite nearly 20 years of research into graphical user interfaces the designers of Internet Explorer decided that it was more efficient for them to require the user to either memorize a set of meaningless codes or refer to the help file when interacting with their product Here s a good rule of thumb for designing your own interfaces if your users cannot utilize your design without referring to the help file then your design probably needs work W Table Tablet Field Hame Data Type Humber 2 Field Properties Field Size AL Format Creating a new table in a Microsoft Access table can be a trying experience Typically when one creates a table one needs to specify the name of the field the datatype Integer Long Boolean etc and for Text fields the maximum number of characters Access however makes this simple task exceedingly difficult For numeric fields Access requires the user to specify settings in two separat
214. ing systems should be concerned th Selecting the wrong Nobody likes a stupid ii control for a task or computer However many changing the way applications interrupt the controls operate can often resultinan user to ask stupid questions provide inefficient and frustrating application meaningless information or require the user to make what should be an obvious selection Improper design of the visual The improper use color in u elements in an application t an application can seriously can often result in applications that impede the usability of the are difficult to read and difficult to application use http www iarchitect com mshame htm 1 of 2 15 02 2001 6 21 23 AM Interface Hall of Shame 01101 The terminology used in 00100 many applications often 01011 leads the user to feel that the interface has been written in a foreign language We provide a number of examples of these programmerisms Tabbed Dialogs can be a wonderful solution for complex design problems Here are some examples of a good idea gone bad TE The globalization of applications provides fertile ground for discovering important user interface problems We have assembled a short list of Recommended Books for those visitors who wish to delve more deeply into user interface design es Our Product Index lists all products mentioned in the Hall of Shame and provides links to the specific problems discussed
215. ing messages Notice in the image above that the Post and Send button 1s currently enabled even though the stoplights indicate that required information has not been entered Our guess is that the stoplight metaphor was developed to provide additional information above that provided by simply disabling the button specifically to indicate which tab required completion before the information could be sent In the current implementation the user is being simultaneously told that the form can and cannot be submitted 3 Labeling and Placement of the stoplights The stoplights are labeled 1 through 6 yet the tabs are not numerically labeled This will require the user to either physically or mentally determine the tab indicated by the number Furthermore the stoplights are located distant from http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 3 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors the tabs they represent the form is much larger than the image shown here thereby increasing the cognitive burden on the user We would suggest the following as an alternative which provides a single Required Information Needed indicator physically proximate to the tab requiring information _ T T T T T A Claimants E Crops 4pplication M Settlement E e ip Wizard Evaluation Copy What would you like to do f Unzip an existing ZIF file C Create anew ZIF file C Update an existing ZIF file Cancel The Wizard Metaphor
216. ing system The problem however is that the model is based on a single tab and the appearance of the single tab leads other developers to conclude that a single tab dialog is perfectly acceptable It is not and any attempt to justify such dialogs on a user interface basis is at best insincere The influence of the Property Sheet programmatic model can be clearly seen in this illustration of the Options dialog in ClipTrakker from Silicon Prairie Software Property Sheet The term Property Sheet is a programmatic term that is meaningless to the user It is especially meaningless when one considers that access to this dialog is provided by a menu item with the label Options Further since the Property Sheet programmatic model states that property sheets have tabs the developers of ClipTrakker provided a tab despite the obvious fact that such a tab is unnecessary In this case the tab structure should be removed from the dialog and the title should be changed to Options The installation program for Lotus ScreenCam demonstrates the absurdity of single tab tabbed dialogs Customize Click a tab to display additional sets of features Screenlam Select the features you want to instal Screenlam Program Files 10729 K The developer thoughtfully provided an instruction to assist the user Unfortunately since the dialog contains only a single tab the instruction only serves to confuse the user Given the often biza
217. iob set stesrbrt ot mst tent AasiT http www iarchitect com controls htm 11 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Normally we consider providing context sensitive help to be a good thing eae oue WebEditPro however proves that there is a limit Show Jri Et to the usefulness of that help On the positive M Document f 20 side WebEditPro provides tooltips based help M Menu for almost all controls and for some rou non controls in the application On the negative mts pauses briefly over a control a lengthy explanation of the control is provided to the user While at first glance this may seem beneficial it can result in an infuriating experience in practice The tooltips are subject to frequent inadvertent display interfere with the user s ability to peruse the dialogs and cause the user to conscientiously position the cursor away from the current dialog in an effort to defeat the help side this help is provided automatically and what Toolbars should be visible some toolbars there is no way to disable it Any time the cursor will only be visible when at least one document 1 opened One of the basic tenets of interface design is that the user should feel that he or she is in control WebEditPro removes this aspect of control from the user and as a result becomes distracting and annoying Nobody likes a know it all especially when his or her input was unsolicited Providing help is a very good
218. ion on the other hand a checkmark is negative hide the extensions Iain Marshall pointed out a rather amazing example of computer stupidity in Windows 95 Explorer Jain examined the contents of a floppy disk then deciding to format the disk yes 1t is possible to format a drive with Explorer but you have to search around for the means to do so His attempt was met with the following message 1 Exploring 3 Floppy A Format 3 Floppy 4 It might be worth noting that the only application that is using the drive is Explorer itself In order to format the disk the user must display the contents of some other drive then right click on the floppy drive and select Format http www iarchitect com explore htm 9 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer Visitor Luke Tomasello sent in this image of a message he received from Windows95 when attempting to delete some files from a disk that happened to be write protected Error Deleting File x The write protected clause in the message is appropriate but the suggestion to use another disk seems rather curious since the files to be deleted happen to be on this disk Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com expl
219. is theory is based on the premise that the user will be able to transfer his or her knowledge of a familiar object structure to the new application In practice however an interface designer often adopts a metaphor as a means of expressing his or her model of how the system is organized That the metaphor might make the application easier to use is often an after the fact and unsubstantiated rationalization of the design This is certainly the case with ReadPlease 2000 The designer took great pains to make the interface look like a hand held PDA Personal Data Assistant Even the green color typical of the LED screens used in PDA s was adopted despite the fact that the resulting color combination makes the text more difficult to read The only PDA characteristic missing from the design is the effect of glare on the screen All of this attention to the design of a PDA then begs the obvious question what is it about the design of hand held PDA s that would make it easier for computer users to use a text to speech synthesizer application The answer is of course nothing The typical PDA user was already a highly experienced computer user before he or she first picked up a PDA The typical computer user on the other hand has never picked up a PDA Thus there is no knowledge to be transferred to the interface of one to the other We can therefore rule out usability as a reason for adopting the PDA metaphor in this particular application The only reas
220. isplay the shortcut to the right of the menu item it represents Interesting note one of the most useful features of Explorer the Up one Level function which takes you to the next higher level in the hierarchy can only be accessed by the toolbar icon not only does it not have a shortcut it has no menu or keyboard equivalent Well that s not entirely true you can use the following sequence of keyboard commands TAB Down Up Enter The http www iarchitect com explore htm 4 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer responsible party in Redmond was apparently asleep during the design review David Dameo wrote us to let us know that the Up One Level function can be accessed through the use of the Backspace key We are grateful to him for pointing out a function which we were unaware of despite the fact that we ve been using Windows95 for 18 months Thanks for the correction David At first we regarded the practice as being entirely non intuitive but a recent letter from Katy Mulvey succinctly describes the problem I always get a little nervous when I use the up one level shortcut the backspace key is just too closely associated with erase this to be entirely comfortable Of course as is typical in Windows95 getting help for Explorer can be difficult Microsoft decided against providing a Help file for Explorer Upon selecting Help you will be placed in the Windows95 general help
221. isplay panel Any idea what they mean Who cares http www iarchitect com new htm 12 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions The second image was even more revealing AudioRack 32 used its own custom Rack Control to allow the user to scroll through additional controls that are as yet hidden from the user Rack Effect Control nat OG CORR SP ye MIXER Volume Fnntral lia i Click the left and right handle to scroll controls Tr z 1 mi Record uf T p Eent SRewer PTh 305 As Richard noted the Rack Control seems specifically designed by very artistic people to prevent easy usage Richard had no idea that other controls were available he discovered the feature when he accidentally left the mouse cursor over one of the handles February 3 2000 Martin Jay Sundstr m sent in a couple of images indicating localization problems with the Danish version of the MacOS 8 6 operating system CyberDrive Arkiverer kommentar ftormations induer The OS wanted to say Arkiverer kommentarer 1 informationsvinduer Saving comments in info windows but by not providing adequate space the designer of the window gagged the OS before the message could be completed When attempting to restart the OS Danish users are presented with the following message SKkal computeren virkelig lukkes ned nu Vageblus Ciukned_ In English language versions of the OS the user can
222. it is impossible to read the name of the file That s not too much of a problem since Well Who cares about the names of the files as they are installed The more shameful aspect of the installation 1s that the fluorescent green progress meter becomes a completely useless distraction It flickers with such rapidity that you are forced to turn your eyes away or better yet leave the room before installing the software Here s one of those interface features that most TET ax users wish had never been invented MsgBox E MsgBox Mayhem BE Bale orbs ale lL Mayhem is a programmer s utility to help design Icon Type l lie 9 E those nasty error messages Selecting an icon for ICON 2 N J x the message causes the icon to blink forever Here s a good rule of thumb to follow people hate blinking It is extremely distracting and should only be used to draw the user s attention to the most severe conditions such as Your computer is on fire http www iarchitect com visual htm 18 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 32 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements wie HTML Transit Template E cil Help ine etal ane seen mn T a Pe mra ma AITE EN KI ar i HTML Transit is an award winning very useful application that converts a number of file formats to HTML for use in web sites When first loaded it presents a visually pleasing interface Unfortunately useful and visually pleasing do not necessarily tr
223. ither the OK or Cancel buttons Actually different things can occur depending on the number of files you have attempted to copy According to Microsoft If one file is selected Word cancels the function in response to either OK or Cancel If multiple files are selected Word cancels the function for one file at a time when you choose OK If you choose Cancel Word cancels the entire operation for all selected files Clear enough You might have expected that the Help button would supply this information Nope we had to search Microsoft s web site to find it If you press the Help button in response to this message all it tells you is that You tried to create a copy of a file that uses the same filename and location as the original file You cannot copy a file to itself To correct this problem Type anew filename or path Gee thanks for the insight http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 17 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Ambiguity in action This unclear message resulted after the user mistyped a filename something a user should never be required to do Most operating systems have built in file AN Action aborted due to file specification error selection dialogs that programmers can easily use in their programs The file selection dialogs make it impossible to mistype a filename Not using them is an indication of laziness and an invitation to mistakes Messages similar t
224. ity of New South Wales Human Factors BAE360 Royal Military College of Canada Human Factors in I T GIT2141 Nottingham Trent University Internet for Educators Home Page Introduction to Health Care Informatics Indiana State University School of Nursing Introduction to Visual Basic 5 0 Programming Napier University Multimedia Information Systems CA414 Dublin City University Psychology of Human Computer Interaction HUC302 Loughborough University Systems Design CIS 331 Georgia State University Usability Engineering CS491 Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology User Interface Design Prototyping and Evaluation CS 160 University of California at Berkeley The Visualization of Information Structures Rutgers University Visual Representation of Information CUIN7317 University of Houston Technical Writing Sites Internet Resources for Technical Communicators TechComm the technical communicators discussion list The Role of the Technical Writer in User Interface Design LeRoy L Miller Web Sites of Interest for Technical Communicators Visual Basic Sites Carl amp Gary s Visual Basic Home Page the mother of all VB sites The Development Exchange Dr VBs Question Page Jose s World of Visual Basic Visual Basic Online Magazine http www iarchitect com links htm 3 of 4 15 02 2001 6 40 59 AM Interface Hall of Shame Design Links Visual Basic Q amp A Tips amp Techniques Other Programming Sites
225. kely that some users would prefer that the controls always be present and available The video controls in particular are after all standard multimedia controls and hiding such basic controls as fast forward and reverse for the sake of a clean player interface strikes us as a mistaken design priority One solution would have been to allow the user to indicate that the Advanced Controls Panel be kept open unfortunately the program offers no such option nor does it remember the state of the panel between sessions Ali Think Different Copuright GUO 1998 Apple Computer Ine The interface offers a third drawer opening into the same location as the others The Information Drawer contains some information for the currently loaded movie Like the Advanced Controls Panel the user s access to the Information Drawer is restricted by the location and size of the player If the player is positioned too low on the screen if the user 1s currently viewing a large movie or 1f the user has resized the player to a large size the Information Drawer cannot be accessed In a true example of the nature of competing screen real estate if the user accesses the Information Drawer while the Advanced Controls Panel is open the player will close the Advanced Controls Panel before opening the Information Drawer The net result of this competition for real estate 1s that the user cannot have both panels open at the same time Moreover the user will have to specifi
226. l before sending The signatures are restricted to 256 characters they do not support tabs or fonts and they must be text only that is all that gets sent outside of Notes anyway If this feature is something you could use please send an email request directly to Winnie Pooh She will send you a small Lotus Notes database a Smarticon and installation instructions that will allow you to create multiple signatures This is really a great innovation on Winnie s part and I m sure that everyone who wants to use a signature on their emails will appreciate his persistence in developing this solution http www iarchitect com lotus htm 4 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 06 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes The simple act of sending a reply to a letter is no less convoluted Selecting Reply does not append the original message to the reply the most likely means of replying to a message To attach the original message the user must select the dubiously worded Reply With History function A adress ie Reply To All A Save As Draft El Send Hj Send And sd To L John Smith abe 1 Dana Scullyabettabe Fox Mulder abe Walter Skinner abe E p bec Upon selecting either the Reply or the more likely Reply With History button a new window is opened containing the Notes fields By default Notes includes only the sender as a recipient To send the reply to all recipients the user must select the Reply To All bu
227. l impact on your designs http www iarchitect com color htm 1 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color Sometimes the best intentions of the developer go S Delete All Records Es unrealized This image was borrowed from one particular application that hard coded the colors of the D Are you sure you want to delete text in the command buttons such that all affirmative all records from the database buttons OK Yes Open have green colored text and all negative buttons Cancel No Close have red colored text Unfortunately doing so can cause a __Yes __No number of problems In the first place the background color of the button is determined by the Windows color preferences As shown above hard coding the color of the text can make it difficult and in some cases impossible to read Secondly as shown in this example Green Red Affirmative Negative distinction may be inconsistent with a particular task In western society users may interpret the green label as indicating the good or proper response As shown in this example however deleting all records is more than likely not a good thing to do Additionally enforcing your particular color associations on your users may create some incompatibilities with cultural interpretations of color In certain eastern societies for example red is considered an affirmative or positive color Subjecting these users to your color associations 1s an
228. l of Shame Real world metaphors have been attempted in the past and have almost always met with failure In this section we take an in depth look at the new interface and attempt to illustrate why real world metaphors rarely live up to their expectations Last updated 21 January 1997 http www iarchitect com phone htm 1 of 6 15 02 2001 6 20 44 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealPhone Welcome to the future one without distracting windows and menu bars You will not need to guess about what the RealPhone is supposed to do If you can use a telephone you can use this software http www iarchitect com phone htm 2 of 6 15 02 2001 6 20 44 AM A Windows based application without windows Windows are used to separate tasks into manageable sections You might have a word processor running in one window and a spreadsheet application in another A windows based application without windows is analogous to a paper based task without paper Similarly we ve found that menus are a valuable learning tool for new users They organize the many functions of an application into distinct categories thus serving as the primary means by which new users learn complex applications If you remove the menus you had better provide some other means of providing this valuable information Unfortunately RealPhone does not Put a telephone type keypad on any application and the user will pretty rapidly guess that it s a tele
229. lar menu item command button list or drop down control is available Why is it then that Microsoft chose not to provide a disabled appearance for their toolbar buttons in certain applications This image is taken from the Office95 version of Microsoft Word but the violation is apparent in all of the Office95 applications htto www iarchitect com controls htm 16 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls We know that Microsoft s developers are certainly capable of dynamically changing the appearance of toolbar images it s not all that different than changing the appearance of a standard command button Our only guess is that the graphics artists at Microsoft simply didn t like the look of disabled toolbar buttons regardless of the extra information the disabled appearance provides to the user Unfortunately for the user interface design at Microsoft is now the responsibility of graphics artists rather than interface designers It should come as no surprise then that Microsoft is far and away the most frequent contributor to the Interface Hall of Shame The PowerBuilder programming environment provides tooltips for its toolbar icons That s good It also provides status bar descriptions for the toolbar icons That s also good The tooltips presentation is delayed as it should be such that the user must pause the cursor over the button for a period of time before the tooltip is displayed The problem is that the stat
230. le at the RealNetworks Werte Technical Support Website I have been involved in a number of debates over the years with command line interface advocates who argue that graphic user interfaces are merely dumbing down the interface After receiving images of such informative messages as these in recent Microsoft products my confidence in the alternative position has been considerably decreased Kirill Manucharov sent in this image from Microsoft s Outlook Express Outlook Express E3 AN There was an eror opening this message 4n eror has occured Sebastian Sorri sent in this image from Microsoft s Outlook 98 Microsoft Outlook x AN The operation Failed An object could not be Found Then again sometimes Microsoft might be providing more information than they intended Andrew Chappell swears that he received the following message immediately after booting Windows95 http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 2 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 37 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Performance Warning A new MS DOS resident program named WIN may decrease your system s performance Would you like to see more information about this problem I discovered the following message at a most unfortunate time More than halfway through the download of a 400MB file I accidentally hit the Windows close button in CuteFTP Fortunately the application displayed a confirmation message Unfortunately none of the
231. left clicked but will display a properties panel when right clicked The lack of consistency in the operation of the various buttons makes learning the application very difficult After the toolbar Panels are the next most significant interface objects in trueSpace2 The z Properties panel is shown at the right All of the Dynapick TopMenu Scene Detail panels are modeless meaning they remain on the x OrthoHay X Titles E screen until you specifically dismiss them although X LoadScene X SaveState Default Lights this is not always true selection of certain toolbar Trod r buttons will close the panels opened by certain other Troel 1000 Tabtet toolbar buttons preferences Because the panels are modeless the user spends much of his or her time closing windows that are no longer needed Unfortunately the experienced _ Dynapiie Windows user will initially have some difficulty x OrthoHav closing these panels since the standard window A LoadSce management controls have been removed from the panel s title bar According to the Help file the panel may be closed by right clicking on either a blank area on the panel if one can be found or on a button on the panel then dragging the cursor outside of the panel s border The effect as shown here is laughable Releasing the right button will close the panel An alternative means not described in the Help file is to click on the system menu button in
232. like most graphics packages uses pixel measurement throughout the rest of the application The actual size of the sunset image shown in the preview window above is 299 pixels wide by 186 pixels tall approximately 4 inches by 2 5 inches To print the image at its actual size the user would either have to guess as to the approximate size of the image or convert the pixel dimensions of the image to the scale of measurement used on the Page Setup window Unfortunately as is the nature of computer images any difference in the dimensions of the image will degrade the quality of the printed image A much more useable solution would have been to a default to the actual size and or b provide Actual Size and Fit to Page options One additional problem is that the user cannot change the page orientation from the Page Setup dialog The user would have to close the Page Setup dialog open the Print Setup dialog make the change then return to the Page Setup dialog That seems like a lot of unnecessary wandering about the application Aside from these problems Paint Shop Pro is an excellent program and is one of the best shareware programs available This image comes from NoteBook a handy shareware note organizing application They have reversed the order of the Cancel dialog buttons relative to the Windows standard throughout the application except when it relies on the common Windows dialogs Please do not follow their example It can
233. litating the transfer of existing knowledge Some of the better known interface metaphors include VisiCalc s ledger metaphor the Desktop Metaphor first employed by Xerox and Quicken s checkbook metaphor Improperly applied metaphors on the other hand can detract from the usability of the application as shown in the following examples Gat Additional Sources of Information Last updated 15 December 1999 Manhaeve Hendrik sent us this image of the Mannesman Tally printer dialog It is the first such dialog we ve seen to utilize a VCR metaphor to control a printer Hopefully it will be the last such dialog we see The Stop and Pause buttons while not defensible are at least somewhat understandable but a Rewind button As Manhaeve quipped What does this do rewind the paper and erase what was already printed ae SAS S ISLAIPT http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 1 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors As a means of deleting files and documents the Macintosh trashcan is a perfectly ee ee intuitive metaphor Unfortunately the designers decided to extend the trashcan metaphor to include the completely counterintuitive function of ejecting diskettes peau Vig drag an image of the diskette to the trashcan to eject it from the computer Aien ia att ce Transfer Disk i The Macintosh simply took the trashcan metaphor too far They imbued the Ee et ae AA trashcan with magical powers that
234. lity 214 360 7470 exists These functions are accessed not by ao0 edisy2 Toll Free clicking one of the seven command buttons on 414 368 7636 Fax the form but by clicking on the URL or e mail Interet Hite Awa edisys com address themselves There is no visual emal sales medisys com indication that these functions exists The designer decided to emulate the look and functionality of web based hypertext links but he or she forgot to include the primary affordance used in hypertext links the cursor changes when passed over links The cursor does not change when passed over the addresses on this form Many programmers admit to this problem in their early GUI applications In this image the developer has chosen to give the section labels a raised appearance That s one way of ensuring that the user doesn t confuse them with the editable fields but does it come as any surprise that users try to click on them Subscriber Account H Doo Status Contact Cancel Then again some arguably experienced developers designers continue to make a variant Look in Inbox Folder of the same problem This image has been taken Find items containin J E from the Find function of Microsoft s Exchange e a Windows95 mail application In this case the From labels really are command buttons the designer must have figured that using the command button as both a button and a label would conserve scr
235. lity of the file searching function Sherlock does not for example allow the user to search for all files whose name contains model that contain the phrase programmatic model In fact content cannot be combined with any other file characteristic This is a severe limitation that further underscores the lack of cohesiveness of the tabs in the dialog despite their appearance in a single dialog Find Files is a completely separate function than Find by Content By placing these function in a single dialog the user is led to believe that the functions can be combined when in fact they cannot By including the Search Internet tab on a dialog that 1s otherwise concerned with file searching the designers have implied that the two functions are somehow related or similar Internet search engines are based on page structure keywords embedded tags and word stemming searches for thought can also return matches with think and thinking File searches are based on string literal comparisons only those files containing the exact same sequence of characters will be matched Similarly wildcard characters can be used in file searches but cannot be used in Internet searches http www iarchitect com tabs htm 17 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Sherlock allows the user can restrict the file search to name or date whereas the same restrictions are not permitted with Sherlock s Internet searches al
236. ly another distraction in Windows applications If you hit the Delete button by mistake you ll have to re enter the information there s no confirmation message to prevent inadvertent deletions and there s no means to Undo an accidental delete Beyond the inappropriate application of the metaphor RealPhone 1s replete with interface design problems violating nearly every aspect of proper interface design We found it so poorly designed that we almost decided against including it in the Hall of Shame IBM s hype of the design can only lead to further disdain for the phrase easy to use and we feel embarrasses the entire interface design profession IBM is currently offering an evaluation copy of RealPhone from their web site at http www ibm com ibm hci exhibits 3d realphone html Download a copy and judge for yourself Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com phone htm 6 of 6 15 02 2001 6 20 44 AM Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 In Depth We received the following note from Devin Knutscon have you had occasion to look at True Space 2 0 Undoubtedly one of the worst all around interfaces I hav
237. ly to mimic the appearance of the physical device and in this case was a poor selection for the human computer interface At some point the designers realized their error and therefore added other means by which to adjust the volume The user can click the player just about anywhere near the thumbwheel and drag the mouse in any direction to control the volume Unfortunately there is no visual indication that this 1s possible thus it will be learned only through accidental discovery or by learning it from somewhere other than the interface The designers could just as well have placed a star anywhere on the interface and included a statement in the documentation to the effect Click and drag anywhere near the star to change the volume The user is expected to make linear movements to operate a rotary control This is the reason that most properly designed applications utilize linear slide controls for similar functions http www iarchitect com qtime htm 3 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 20 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 alib0 mou Z Another example of the inappropriateness of applying characteristics of physical devices to the design of software is the very size of the player The image above illustrates the size of the player as it appears using the default size of the movie window for the selected movie As seen in the image the QuickTime 4 0 Player appears as though it might fit very comfortably in one s hand That would p
238. m in a list is selected the failure to allow the user to cancel changes in certain dialogs the lack of keyboard navigation among controls on a dialog the inconsistent application of standard controls rules and the use of convoluted and inconsistent navigation paths through the application i Quick T iimeFPlaper Of x File Movie Favorites Window Help Unda bol Eut Cirle Eopy Etri HE Paste etre General Connection Speed Steaming Pow p Registration http www iarchitect com qtime htm 12 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 The user quickly discovers such problems when attempting to specify options within the player The QuickTime Settings dialog which is accessed by selecting of all things either Connection Speed Streaming Proxy or Registration from the Preferences submenu of the Edit menu is particularly problematic Each option takes the user to the same dialog which offers a drop down control containing many other categories of settings While selection of most of the items in the drop down control will cause the options related to that category to be displayed in the dialog selecting one in particular causes an additional dialog to be opened A separate preferences dialog General Preferences offers additional options and suffers fewer UI problems The General Preferences dialog is accessed through the more straightforward means of selecting General from th
239. m or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com qtime htm 15 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Interface Stupidity Despite remarkable advances in technology many computer applications still appear to have the I Q of a toaster Many computer applications interrupt the user with silly questions require the user to explicitly specify obvious selections fail to remember even the simplest of things and make inane unnecessary statements Here are a few examples Last updated 19 September 1999 ae Tuas Windows Media Player Show Clip Chris Gumprich sent us this image from Microsoft s Windows Media Player It would seem that the developer wanted to be certain that he or she provided a tooltip for every control regardless of whether or not the message was needed or helpful OK make mine a Chivas on the rocks http www iarchitect com stupid htm 1 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 33 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Convert File Word for MS DOS 6 0 Word for Macintosh 4 0 Word for Macintosh 5 0 Word for Macintosh 5 1 RFT DCA Windows Write 3 1 Windows Write 3 0 Hicrosoft Excel Worksheet word 37 create O O OOOO O O OA Microsoft Word 6 0 when asked to open a document from an unknown version of Word displays the abov
240. m such terminology Similarly the application makes dubious distinctions among the various functions in the program As shown in the image forwarding a letter is considered an Action and by virtue of its grouping is somehow considered related to Emptying the Trash whereas replying to a letter is considered a Creation and not unlike the act of entering an appointment in the calendar The terminology employed in Notes can baffle computer professionals It doesn t require much http www iarchitect com lotus htm 6 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes generalization to conclude that it could utterly defeat the casual computer user As an illustration of the difficulties inflicted upon the user by the terminology employed in Lotus Notes one merely needs to look at the task of Server mone accessing the address book An address book is a central concept in nearly every e mail application Help it is a clearly recognized metaphor for a collection Database of names and addresses While Lotus Notes does g Favorites Open include an address book it is buried under so much Haves s Address Book system structure and jargon that the very powerful gt Journal Add Icon metaphor is made irrelevant and impotent g Notes Help Lite ge Notes Log Brian Hayes ge Personal eb Navigator About The address book in Notes is accessed by selecting the File menu the Database submenu and the doc
241. mages without specified dimensions O Dont filter objects that are located within 7 the same path the same domain For non commercial OK Freeware 398 only x Cancel Apply to The truly sad aspect to this design is that tab controls were developed in large part to allow designers to get a lot of information on the screen without scrolling By having chosen the scrolling controls model the designers of WebWasher have effectively hidden controls from the user removed keyboard access from those controls and require the user to use the mouse to determine what controls and options are available http www iarchitect com tabs htm 18 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs An anonymous visitor pointed out a truly awful use of tabs on the website for the Ottawa Carleton Real Estate Board We ve reproduced a portion of the behemoth here F T F ia SEARCH OPEN HOUSES FIND REP FARM COMM WMFAM RENT CONDO LOT Low Price 2 Price z Regional Municipality Alroort Alfred Twp Alta Vista RENFREW 5 E C W Every individual that I have observed as he or she initially looked at the page first threw his or her head back in surprise then tilted it left and right in an attempt to discern the labels on the tabs along the left and right The initial surprise is undoubtedly in response to the predominant use of electric blue or at least to its combination with purple and Geek
242. me Win95 Find Applet One potentially nice feature of the Find Applet is that you can save your search criteria for use at some other time Unfortunately Microsoft s implementation of this feature leaves much to be desired When the user selects Save Search from the File menu Find creates an icon on the desktop with a name assigned by Find The user cannot specify the name nor the location of the saved search from the Find Applet To change the name or location you have to use a different application A related problem occurs when trying to run a previously saved search The Find dialog provides no means of Opening a previous search You would have to open the search file from the Explorer or perform a Find to locate the search file before running it This quite simply is bizarre and is completely contrary to the principles of MDI design that Find is poorly attempting to implement Notice that the name that Find assigned to the desktop icon above The actual search saved was the ini search shown previously on this page Due to Windows95 s own file naming rules the asterisk is an invalid character in filenames thus a different character is substituted We would have to wonder how many users re open such searches to see if they had mistyped the in the critera Unfortunately the Find Applet s ability to save a search is dependent on when you decide to save it Despite the fact that the 2s Find All Files Save Search
243. medium gray background and the text cursor has a medium gray background one shade darker This can be seen by close inspection of the image here but is even less clear when one is working with a maximized window Of course there might be a way to change the default color of the workspace but we sure couldn t find it http www iarchitect com truesp htm 3 of 6 15 02 2001 6 21 11 AM Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 The toolbar is the main feature of the trueSpace2 interface but it is also perhaps the most difficult aspect of the application to understand Depending upon the button the user may be required to left click right click or click and hold on the button There is no apparent indication on the button to signify how it should be operated and because of this omission the user cannot anticipate what is required of him or her nor what will happen as a result of a particular action Most of the toolbar buttons will display a Panel actually a modeless mini dialog box that usually contains a number of additional toolbar like buttons in response to a left click Others such as the Deform Object button shown here will display a Panel upon a left click but will also display a sub toolbar if the user holds the mouse button down for a short period of time Others such as the Axes button will toggle a change in the display when left clicked and some like the Toggle Grid Mode will have no apparent effect when
244. mehow mask the sound of keypresses at the keyboard all this programming effort might be worth something Who cares This is not the login window for a weapons targeting system it 1s an e mail application We wish the designers had spent their time improving the usability of the application itself rather than wasting it on useless diversions Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited feedback 1architect com http www iarchitect com lotus htm 13 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Pirates In Depth Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Pirates In Depth We received a message from visitor Jovan Milosevic asking that we look at the popular shareware game Pirates The Quest for the Seas Normally we re not too interested in games and game interfaces since gamers seem particularly tolerant of the interfaces they are required to use in many cases overcoming the difficulties of the interface 1s part of the challenge of the game However the screenshots Jovan included with his message very much caught our attention prompting us to suggest a different name for the program Pirates What happens when a GUI is designed by someone who has never used a GUI We can offer no opinion as to Pirates
245. meone iv jemandem Ehre machen bend in ie Biegung die Kurve vi eine Kurve machen sich beugen biegen The image reveals a number of interface problems related to the program s failure to adopt the MacOS interface design guidelines but one in particular is worthy of special mention The purpose of the dialog is to display a list of matches for a given word yet despite the number of matches 101 in this case the program does not display a scroll bar Instead the program employs a custom control comprised of Up and Down buttons and a tiny speck to indicate the user s relative position in the list When one considers the amount of functionality provided by a standard scroll bar the decision to replace it with a far less functional custom control is particularly shameful In addition to being able to scroll up and down a line at a time a standard scroll bar also allows the user to page up and down and to grab the scroll indicator and drag it to the desired position Further the standard scroll indicator is far more visible and indicative than what appears to be nothing more than a few misplaced pixels April 2 2000 It would appear that Microsoft s Artificial Intelligence Division has been at it again Pierre sent in this image of the web page he received when he visited http www microsoft com ie B AT Product T Micrsoft Technologies Intern t Windows Home Pages Download Support Inte
246. mer usability of applications when properly used When improperly applied well they can leave much to be desired Metaphors can greatly enhance the Interface Hall of Shame The globalization of applications provides fertile ground for discovering important user interface problems We have assembled a short list of Recommended Books for those visitors who wish to delve more deeply into user interface design Our Product Index lists all products mentioned in the Hall of Shame and provides links to the specific problems discussed We have provided a number of in depth critiques of particularly problematic applications More information on user interface design can be found in our Design Links section Check out our Visitor Feedback section to peruse others impressions of the site or share your own 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited feedback 1architect com http www iarchitect com shame htm 2 of 2 14 02 2001 5 48 22 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions June 4 2000 Frans de Haan sent in this image of a message provided my MTC Diag a power management application that is provided with Saxum 8004 notebook computers The intent o
247. mes of the newsgroups A horizontal scrollbar is provided but as is evident in the image the scrollbar is useless And in typical Microsoft design style the dialog is not resizable The designer screwed up the quality assurance department screwed up and apparently Microsoft s usability testing division screwed up by not finding such an obvious fault Leif Almberg sent us a screenshot from IBM s 5p ce i Acton Editor Par NetFinity an application for supervising networks and remote computers The screenshot was itself a Bind To Options huge mess of framed controls taking up the entire Alert Conditions screen Because of their desire to fit everything into a single dialog IBM s designers had to make some Alert Type sacrifices One notable example is that the designers T Any Alert Type sacrificed the user s ability to read some of the controls such as the list of potential alert conditions SMA Monitored situation g shown here The user can scroll through the list one Resolved due to service alert at a time and will have to scroll both left and right to view the items IBM would be hard pressed to make this control any less efficient http www iarchitect com visual htm 2 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Appearance samples Positive 23 456 769 000 Negative G 73 456 769 000 Currency symbol No of digits atter decimal The Regional Prefere
248. message is entirely unhelpful giving no indication of what the error is what to do to solve it or even the location of an error log if one existed Welcome to Windows David Steve Dieke sent in this image illustrating the Minimalist school of tab design used in Novell GroupWise 5 1 E Groupwise Guides OFX Groupwise Guides FS Return to This Menu D GroupWise Basics Find out what is new in GroupWise Lean the basics of messaging and scheduling In addition to the disconcerting lack of Gestault the design suffers from a number of other important http www iarchitect com new htm 6 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions problems Most notably the pictures on the tabs make little sense Recognizing this the developers felt compelled to add a glossary tab shown merely to provide an explantion of the images Unfortunately if you have moved off of the glossary tab you lose the explanations While tooltips should not be considered an appropriate solution to the use of unclear icons they certainly would have helped here if Novell had thought to provide them Better yet textual labels would have negated the need for a glossary and tooltips Timothy Tan discovered the following catch 22 in Microsoft s Word 97 When doing a spell check for a document set with the language as English British the spell check informed him that the word worldwide is not in the dictionary and offered t
249. minated this particular Notepad feature Fran ois also pointed out that the operating system itself has no problems creating empty text files did you notice that notepad will not let you save an empty file But using the New Text Document contextual menu in Explorer will create an empty 0 bytes text file that notepad will then open without any problem So why have this arbitrary restriction Microsoft Access Well actually no I do not want to update the records that wouldn t be updated anyway Duh This informative message is provided by Microsoft s Access 95 in response to the user s having executed a query that has no effect on the data http www iarchitect com stupid htm 5 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity This interesting feature in Microsoft s NT Operating System was provided to us by visitor Jerry Albro Copy Profile Error x x The operation completed successtully The message was generated after Jerry copied his NT user profile in System Properties dialog Since when is success an error This feature in Microsoft s Outlook 98 was provided to us by visitor James Jarrett a E mail o gt ismithe _ I ran across this when I right clicked on a bitmap in the Contact Editor in Outlook 98 a Notice that it tells you that the bitmap doesn t do anything and then refers you to a question mark in a gray box that doesn t exist I think they are trying to refer you to
250. minded us of the old MouseTrap board game from Milton Bradley http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 8 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Microsoft ford x The spelling check is complete 4 Text set to no proofing was skipped To find no proofing text click Edit Replace click More click Format click Language and choose no proofing The message arises when you elect to spell check a document that contains text that you had earlier indicated that you did not want to perform spell checking on no proofing The message is certainly informative but requires that the user either have an exceptional memory or have pen and paper handy to write down the Rube Goldberg steps that it refers to We would like to thank Ludwig Alberter for informing us about an absolutely frightening warning message generated by Microsoft s Office 97 Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar Are you sure you want to delete the buttons listed below The programe files shortcuts and contents of any folders that that the buttons refer to will also be deleted GRAPHICS The message is generated when the user requests that a shortcut icon on the Office shortcut toolbar be deleted using the toolbar s Customize function In the example above we added a shortcut to an image file then asked that it be deleted As Ludwig explained Never mind the typo in the sentence that that but the whole meaning
251. mp Chaos data folder and will be assigned a BAF file extension a You are about to backup your tiles for safety It s been 1 minute s since your last backup Cancel Another example from Time amp Chaos Whenever the user exits the program this dialog 1s presented even if no changes have been made A better less intrusive and more intelligent method would be to automatically perform the backup when necessary http www iarchitect com stupid htm 10 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Heen _ Integer height Ww choosecase i Hy integer linesperpage Wi instance ine Hi integer toolbarheight w oman ha Hy integer toolbarwidth Ww overload owe T integer toolbars w wham s His integer toolbary k Hs integer unitspercolumn TA ki Integer untaperline oe Ti Integer width h Egy integer x kt integer y h A T long backcolor PowerBuilder has a penchant for making software development a truly inefficient process Throughout the application when a list of variables or properties is presented to the user the list 1s sorted by data type e g integer real number etc rather than according to name The above example shows a list of objects on the left and the available properties e g backcolor height width of that object are displayed on the right When a programmer is searching for a property of interest the data type is meaningless and only serves to make it more diff
252. mple confirmation dialog why did the programmer decide to make it appear to be a serious error message Is the title Alert accompanied by the Windows caution symbol really appropriate While we understand that CompuServe must support a variety of platforms we would have hoped that they would have verified that the instructions given in each version of its software would be http www iarchitect com clarity htm 9 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology consistent with the intended platform We can understand the meaning of Press lt CR gt although we would expect that the phrase might cause many of CompuServe s computer unsophisticated users to scratch their heads but the phrase type M to return to the previous menu simply does not apply to this version of the software Typing the letter M of course does nothing Watcom C programming environment Should we even Screens indow Options mention the problem Line baged selection Paging noo common lines Image ait Image psp GIF Compuserve Paint Shop Fro Image psp BMF 0572 or Windows Bitmap Amiga itt CLP Windows Clipboard Compuserve Graphics Interchange git LUT Or Halo Deluse Paint Err DIB 0572 or Windows DIE Dr Halo cut EFS Encapsulated PostScript Encapsulated PostScript eps GIF CompuServe GEM Paint ing FF Amiga JPEG JHF Compliant pq i peg IMG GEM Fart k
253. ms Folders x Baka From Subject it Outlook Express There are no deleted tems To delete an tem right click ERNS Local Folders on a message and choose Delete Do you want Outlook see El Inbox 2 Express to delete some items for you gA Outbox m 1 Sent Items Tes oe Deleted tems CB Drafts I was using Microsoft Outlook Express 5 and I went into the Deleted Items To my surprise I found a message stating that there were no items in the Deleted Items folder and do I want OE to delete something What sort of a message is that Why would I want OE to delete a randomly selected piece of mail I didn t try and find out what it would delete I just pressed No immediately Bo Bichel N rb k discovered this dialog in Reflection FTP after EPET AR hitting the F5 key to refresh the file listings Understandably Bo asks WHY THE amp CAN T REFLECTION JUST GO Client AHEAD AND REFRESH BOTH LISTINGS INSTEAD OF PUTTING UP THIS STUPID DIALOG BOX f Server Cancel Ken Rachynski asks a similar question of Network Associates VirusScan The program adds an item to Explorer s context menu to allow the user to scan the selected file or folder However rather than performing the scan the application pops Poe fe ses up a dialog box asking if the user wants to Scan Now Quick uS Add to Zip http www iarchitect com new htm 2 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 26 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Addition
254. n before a file has been selected the click would have no apparent effect leading the user to believe that the images are simply just curious images The best way to let your users know which aspects of your interface are controls is to make your controls look like controls The three objects at the bottom now they look like command buttons f Microsoft Internet Explorer Fle Edit View Go Favorntes Help Am AS Sh Sd hel hl ahd abt oe oh a mi vom i eee E l y r r an r 7 m M l F rr p H z iron ie wa r ir a a Lt L aT T 1 a I p T J WTE fi oH 1m i prj d IE E A A amn i A 2 1 _ oo a ie a S A A aP Aeee ls i Address Quick Links Microsoft s Internet Explorer provides a clear example of novelty without reason One of the reasons that graphical user interfaces are easy to learn is that the interface controls look and behave as controls they appear as though they can be manipulated Architects have often removed or confused such visual cues for the sake of novelty Each of us has experienced the end result the embarrassed glance around to make sure that we were not observed trying to push open a door that must be pulled open Aside from the usability aspects there are the aesthetic Whereas the toolbars in Word or Excel for example could be described in engineering terms as sexy or elegant the toolbar in Internet Explorer could only be described as the equivalent o
255. n the only way to navigate to a control or field is to click on it Navigating among controls by pressing the Tab key is usually not Date Format mmm d yppy ii Time Format hinnarp al Mail Notification wie File permitted This is unacceptable especially since this is the 5th major release of the product Users of the Edit Image function of The GIF Construction Set will readily identify with the frustration caused when the developer has neglected to provide keyboard access to interface controls Among other properties the window allows the user to specify where the image should be located Unfortunately after specifying the Left location the only way to get to the Top location 1s to click on the textbox the Tab key will not move the cursor to either of the text boxes nor are keyboard access keys provided The end result is that the interface becomes a frustrating burden as the user is forced to repeatedly switch from the keyboard to the mouse As further evidence of their love affair with the mouse the developers of Time amp Chaos decided to extend the new Windows95 interface standards The application not only supports right click context menus 1t supports left click context menus as well click on any of the objects on the form with either mouse button and the context menu will be displayed On the surface it seems like a reasonable idea In practice however it becomes infuriating Once displayed there
256. n Writing Effective Error Messages Last updated 4 April 2000 We are unfortunately all too familiar with the use of terms such as Fatal Error Critical Error and Severe Error but Ben Speakmon discovered an entirely new type of error in FreeJava AN Unholy Error The message resulted when Ben invoked the Build command after editing a project Apparently FreeJava s developers consider the fact than an error occurred as being far more important than identifying the source of the error http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 1 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 37 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Keith Uher sent in this image of a useless message he received from RoboHelp an otherwise very useful help documentation utility Document Wizard Result HTML Conversion complete Press View Result to view resulting documenation The message appears when generating a Word document from an online help project It s great that the program offers the option of viewing the results but in this case it s the only option the user cannot elect to not view the document One would have thought that the very act of viewing the resulting document would have been sufficient indication that the conversion had completed Claes Tullbrink discovered this example of circular logic in RealPlayer for Windows v 6 0 0 128 RealPlayer N Unable to contact Technical Support for further mnformatior More information i availab
257. n menu At the very least the distinctions made in the toolbar tabs make it more difficult for the user to develop associations between the toolbars and the menus One has to wonder however what possible benefits one can gain by placing toolbars in a tabbed arrangement Lone Wolf Software claims that the arrangment allows them to present more buttons than can normally fit on a window and moreover that they can create bigger buttons without running out of real estate By placing representations of menu items within tabs however the developers have simply created a duplicate menus Toolbar buttons are intended to provide single click access to frequently used menu items If the toolbar button is within a tab the user is essentially performing the same action as that provided in the menu Any possible benefit if any provided by this strategy is offset by the difficultes created by inconsistent grouping of items between the tabs and the original menus This unusual application of the tabbed dialog metaphor was discovered in Contact Master a contact management application developed by Bytemasters Whereas the application makes appropriate use of tabs in other areas in this particular dialog tabs are used to sort database records a Contacts mje Hame City State Zip Code Telephone Fax Type Date ip Code Hame Cit State Primary Telephone HELS Hound Dog Taylor Springfield OH 212 555 1212 fede James Cotton Hashvill
258. n of the relative size of the list both of which are provided with standard scroll bars The only way to determine how many tracks are on the current CD is to repeatedly scroll down through the list one track at a time until the list stops scrolling Track Options Despite their outward appearance the green bullets to the left of the track names are actually option controls that operate just like the Random and Continuous mode option buttons Clicking on a bullet will disable the track adjacent to it clicking again on the same button will enable the track double clicking will cause the state to change twice rapidly rather than playing the song as most users would expect One feature that is notably lacking with this design is the ability to enable disable multiple tracks at a time something that is provided by the multiple selection and extended selection properties of standard list controls Track Reordering The bullet images to the right of the track names are also controls However unlike the left hand bullets clicking on a right hand bullet has no effect The right hand bullets allow the user to change the order of tracks in the playlist by dragging a track and moving it relative to the other tracks Unfortunately because of the complete absence of aftfordance few users would ever realize that such a feature exists Track Names http www iarchitect com realcd htm 4 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame Real
259. names used in a particular form or code module Access allows the developer to use up to 40 J Dane aidie characters for function names yet for some inexplicable reason only J Popup Menu Cies displays the first 15 or so lt Popup Meru Dele E Cutline Collapse M x utline_E spand x Popup Menu rite _ Popup Menu Sele vf reellear Our guess is that the designer of WebForms if given his choice would rather be in a studio painting landscapes The overuse of 3 D effects throughout the application reminds us of the Arizona desert wide sweeping valleys interspersed with mesas of varying heights fm Exporting In this case the overuse of 3 D effects makes the window unnecessarily cluttered and confusing Export to Access Database Users will wonder if the various depths represent Me Export to tert file CS1 some sort of significance when in fact they merely represent the whims of the programmer As shown Purge responses from original table with the command buttons at the bottom of the window the misapplication of a sunken 3 D border l E Ok Cancel surrounding a raised object nullifies the command button s intended border When you find yourself about to unnecessarily clutter your windows with irrelevant visual effects try to remember this timeless phrase Keep it Simple Stupid http www iarchitect com visual htm 9 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements
260. nce bass and treble audio controls and the video navigation controls A similar animation smoother than that of the Favorites Drawer is used to give the appearance of the panel opening at the bottom of the device Unlike the Favorites Drawer which will not open if the player is positioned too close to the bottom of the screen the Advanced Controls Panel will open beneath the visible portion of the screen thereby requiring the user to perform some window manipulations to view and access the functions http www iarchitect com qtime htm 9 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 M wii e a n iin Fi L IENEN MENIL R EALAHCE The position of the Advanced Controls Panel directly interferes with the Favorites drawer often making it impossible to select favorites when the Advanced Control Panel is open By selecting a design in which both panels open below the player the two panels must compete for the same screen real estate Further attempts to view more of the Favorites Drawer when the Advanced Controls Panel is open can cause both panels to be closed If the designers had employed a standard pop up window for one or both of the panels neither would of necessity interfere with the other The design of the Advanced Controls Panel suffers from a number of basic design problems the most notable of which is how the user accesses 1t Whereas the Favorites Drawer is accessed by dragging or double clickin
261. nces applet in Windows95 sports a couple of features that make it difficult to for the user to see what he or she has done In the first place they decided to give the sample fields a disabled appearance rather than a read only appearance Had they decided to use the standard text color rather than the disabled text color the second problem might be more evident they did not provide enough room in the fields to fully display the specified format The sample values should have 4 digits to the right of the decimal and the negative value should be sporting a closing parentheses Oops Users of Microsoft s Office97 products will recognize this new interface feature For some inexplicable reason Microsoft has decided to add a border around menu titles pa Fs Edit wiew Insert Format Too when the cursor passes overhead resulting in changing the menu title s appearance to that of a command button Before adding this feature to your applications bear in mind that it provides absolutely no usability benefit It is simply an unnecessary distraction that has the very undesirable effect of capturing the user s attention away from the task at hand Microsoft Word Document Microsoft added the feature only to make their applications look different not unlike the eradient shaded title bars used in Office95 We can only hope that this practice is as short lived as the gradient title bar Our advice don t waste your time trying to make your menu title
262. nconsistent use of control rules in the Find applet The File Name field supports the use of wildcard characters and placeholders for searching As shown ini would search for all files with the extension ini Similarly d ini would locate any files beginning with the letter d having the extension ini and d would located all files that have the letter d in the third character of the name of any file extension This is pretty powerful stuff and probably the most advanced feature in the dialog Unfortunately the Containing field on the Advanced Tab does not support wildcards nor placeholders in searches Entering develop with the expectation of finding all files containing the words develop developer development etc will only lead to disappointment and frustration The Containing search is a literal search Interestingly there is no indication that wildcards are permitted in the File Name field nor any indication that they are not permitted on the Containing field Further there is no mention of wildcards in the Help file nor in the context sensitive What s This help for the field As discussed above the Advanced Tab allows the user to search for those files containing a particular string We found it somewhat surprising that the Tab did not provide a means to allow the user to specify a case sensitive Case Sensitive search For some inexplicable reason case sensitivity for the search string is save Results specif
263. nd Config Cookies Cursors Alber Collins Koko Taylor 4 Windows The Windows95 common file dialogs Open File Desktop C Favorites J Fonts C Forme Eg Help LF leone _ Carey Bell _ Delbert MeClinto Save File Run offer further proof that proper interface design is no longer a concern at Microsoft We are at a loss to explain what the designers were thinking when they came up with these dialogs What we do know however is every time a new user is presented the Windows95 common file dialog he or she is at a loss as to what the heck is going on IBM s RealPhone is purported to be an experiment in user interface design We regard it as a complete failure in interface design and an embarrassment to the entire interface design profession We examine the many interface design problems and attempt to highlight why real world metaphors rarely succeed in interface design trueSpace2 is an extremely powerful 3D graphics tool that will allow you to create stunning images and visual effects Unfortunately to achieve this power the designers have literally turned interface design on its head resulting in an interface that will absolutely confound the user Whereas the properly designed interface is almost invisible to the user trueSpace2 users will find themselves stumbling over the interface Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights r
264. nd Exit function but this does nothing until the user has launched a game The only way to quit the program is to select the EXIT PIRATES command button Thus the designer has disabled all the typical means of closing a program used on this particular operating system and required the user to perform an operation that is not normally performed in the operating system selecting a command button from a window with a menu http www iarchitect com pirates htm 2 of 5 15 02 2001 6 16 30 AM Interface Hall of Shame Pirates In Depth Some of the menus themselves are worthy of note The Music menu for examples offers two choices Music On and Music Off Perhaps because the developer had not yet learned how to Tum ship ard isis Animation place checkmarks in menus there is no indication as to which 7 option is currently in effect The Animation menu is similarly designed Music On Music Off There is a potential interesting consequence of this design that should not be unexpected Pirates plays a short tune when the program is first run Selecting Music Off during this tune has no effect on this tune nor on the irritating Parrot Screech sound played whenever a command button is selected since the Music menu is disabled despite is enabled appearance until a game has been initiated Thus the new user could reasonably conclude that the program has a bug Music Off did not turn off the music and selecting Music On
265. nd to the needs of the user Master Information MenuPal wet ree rms res Work Order Status PO Status Project Status http www iarchitect com metaphor htm 5 of 11 15 02 2001 6 04 37 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors While most metaphors in interface design attempt to provide a basis on which the user can develop an appropriate model of the system s design we have included this example as illustrative of the designer s mental model We call this the Available Space Metaphor and it describes how this individual approaches the task of adding functionality to an existing system This pseudo tabbed dialog is used to provide user access to the various types of information in a complex system Information types are arranged in accordance to the amount of available space on a particular pseudo tab When a psuedo tab became full the designer simply added another pseudo tab and added the new information types The tab labels have no relation to the information each contains and further there 1s no apparent grouping of information Tasks for example is located on Page 1 whereas Task Types is located on Page 3 The developer seems interested only in providing access to the functions not in the degree to which that access might be meaningful to the user The tabbed dialog metaphor only works when the tabs contain related information For situations in which the groupings are difficult to define a simple alphab
266. nds represent the actual programmatic statements used to write the program and have little relevance to non programmers Fetch whoof When the designers of Microsoft s Word for Windows 6 0 realized that the FindFile function had more options than real estate they decided to create a new control into which they Open Bead Unk could dump all the extra controls Print Summary We re not too happy with the use of menu type Bisete command buttons since they operate unlike all Eon other command buttons in Windows They also introduce an extra step into the process of selecting a desired function The designers at least provided an indication that there is something different about this particular button unlike similar controls later used in Windows95 Sorting A bigger problem here is that the commands are not meaningfully grouped the first 5 are related to http www iarchitect com clarity htm 14 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology the currently selected file and the last is related to the entire list The designers might just as well have just labeled the button Miscellaneous If the items cannot be meaningfully grouped then they shouldn t be grouped at all Things we couldn t fit elsewhere is not a meaningful construct on which to design an interface We offer the following advice to the developers of Zoc a i communications application kip this Drop this
267. nformation Architects Globalization Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Globalization As software producers expand their markets by introducing their products in other countries they face a host of new interface considerations The simplest problem is the accurate translation of their product to the target language Other problems include sensitivity to cultural issues such as the use of images and color We hope to provide a clearinghouse of these problems and since we rarely have access to multi lingual software nor would we understand much of it if we did we will rely heavily on contributions from our visitors To submit an example please drop us a line at bchayes iarchitect com and include an image if at all possible gt Additional Sources of Information De Globalization Tips Last updated 23 November 1998 C 4Club Infotinstallation Fichier Edition Affichage 7 This image was provided to us by an individual identified only by the name Phoenix who received the message while attempting to install an Jomega Zip Drive onto a machine running the French version of Windows95 note that the menu titles in the background window indicate a French version of Explorer Given that the installation program was unable to determine the appropriate language to use we are not a bit surprised that it was also unable to correctly identify the operating system Unfortunately the
268. nks for the advice Mike Irvine Synthesoft With due apologies to Sesame Street I offer the following variation of one of their favorite tunes One of these tabs is not like the others One of these tabs just doesn t belong http www iarchitect com tabs htm 20 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs 3 ASPack 1 08 04 Scid suggested the exe dll compression program ASPack as a candidate for the Tabbed Dialogs section of the site Five of the six tabs work as one would expect tabs to work click on any of these and the dialog will switch to the appropriate page One tab however operates like a command button click on the Exit tab and Oops you re staring at a blank screen Thus unlike the Open File tab which does not open a file or the Compress tab which does not compress a file or even the Help tab which does not provide help the Exit tab does what it says it exits the application Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited feedback iarchitect com http www iarchitect com tabs htm 21 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Metaphors Interface Hall of Shame Misplaced Metaphors Metaphors are often employed in interface design to help users learn the application by faci
269. ns and the program remembers it between sessions This should come as no surprise Tooltips have become essential in applications that utilize toolbars and toolboxes They enable new users to learn the interface more rapidly by making the toolbar less intimidating and they allow the user to rapidly locate functions that may otherwise have been buried within the menus Like all good things tooltips can be overused to the point of becoming distracting Their use should be limited to toolbars and toolboxes and the user should be provided the option of turning them off Tooltips should never be used for command buttons and text boxes if your labels do not provide sufficient meaning then you need different labels http www iarchitect com mfame htm 7 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame Rather than completely submit to the whims of Microsoft s graphics artists the designers of the web browser Opera decided to provide a welcome option for those of us who find the Large Image Microsoft Coolbar to be a distracting C Text gimmick The Show Border option in Opera allows the user to display toolbar buttons as they should be displayed as controls that indicate they are indeed controls without the Show Bode distracting flashing of the button border as the mouse passes over We strongly encourage all those developers who have felt compelled to use Microsoft s latest flash and trash gimmick to provide a similar
270. nt Software The interface requirements of an installation program are no less important than the interface requirements of the software to be installed The installation program for Datastream s Demo an application that provides a preview of Datastream software provides a number of examples of how not to design an installation program e Creates a folder that contains a single item rather than simply adding the item Does not allow the user to specify the folder into which the item should be installed Uses an unnecessarily lengthy title that more than doubles the normal width of the start menu Does not provide an uninstallation program nor register itself with the Windows95 Remove Software applet Removing the software will require an experienced user at least 10 minutes of effort and even then traces of the program will likely remain on the system The installation program provides your users the first impression of your software How intelligent your software may seem will be determined in part by the apparent intelligence of the installation program In this case Datastream may want to reconsider how they showcase their software Stray from Microsoft s mainstream applications and ip you can easily find instances of interface stupidity P Topics Indexed A This example can be found in the Index function of AutoSize Property the Office Development Kit The user selects a topic of interest from the index and is then p
271. nterface is programmatically selected when the user initiates a font sizing operation and remains selected after the resize is completed This latter feature requires the user to specifically de select the text after any font sizing operation The end result of this programmatic approach is that the font sizing control is particularly awkward to use http www iarchitect com readplease htm 5 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 The main interface of ReadPlease 2000 also allows the user to change the speed of playback Unfortunately rather than using a slider control the designers selected a shuttle type control similar to those found on high end video equipment The designer could not have selected a control that would be any more unusable than the shuttle control The designer was aware that the speed control would be problematic as indicated in the following statement in the Help file One thing that will take a bit of getting used to is the Speed control The Help file author however felt that the only problem was that the speed control has a built in 3 second delay before the speed is changed The delay is but a minor problem with the control especially when one considers that almost all of the controls have a lag The real problems with the speed control are that it does not provide an indication of the minimum or maximum values it does not provide an indication of the current p
272. nts illustrating the useless progress meters implemented in Microsoft s Outlook When dealing with a single message the application displays a 2 state progress bar the program is either busy or it s not Retrieving a message with a 340KB attachment over a modem connection typically takes 1 minute and 45 seconds During that time the progress meter is shown at its maximum value rather than displaying the relative progress of the retrieval something progress meters are supposed to do The likely result of this misimplementation is that the user will conclude the computer has yet again locked up and will perform a three finger salute to get back to work This particular design in Microsoft s Internet Explorer has prompted us to consider adding another category to the site Silly Designs Whereas toolbars are designed to provide rapid access to frequently used menu items Microsoft s designers chose to use the toolbar to display menus 3 Z Search Favorites Prnt Font Mall Add To Favorites Organize Favorites 5 IN http www iarchitect com controls htm 3 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls As can be seen in the image of the Favorites menu the Favorites toolbar image merely replicates the menu In so tion Architects Inc Microsoft Internet doing the designers have provided no additional usability Go BREESE Help benefit and in fact have decreased the usabli
273. o When you select Connect from the File menu the application Connect responds with the dialog box shown to the right After the user has issued a command the fact that WinCim asks Do you want to connect or do something else makes it seem pretty darn stupid You need to again state that you want to connect or press the Continue button to dismiss the dialog and do something else T Skowal Ctsrtup This attitude expressed in this error message from IBM s Aptiva Address ee ee Es Book application certainly earns it a place in our Error Messages section but You must enter the last name it illustrates two aspects of interface and a phone number stupidity The first is that the message is wrong it is generated when the user attempts to add a record that s missing either the last name or the phone number The programmer apparently was not competent enough to display a message for the specific omission so he or she opted for a generic incorrect message The second more serious aspect of interface stupidity is that the program has adopted arbitrary rules based on the needs of the program rather than the needs of the user The application requires the user to enter a last name and a phone number for each record The end result of these rules is that they compromise the usefulness of the application How does the user enter a record for the local power company Do I have to know the name of the receptionist at the cable com
274. o change it to world wide There is a gitaa shortage of trained personnel Spelling and Grammar English British There is a worldwide shortage of trained Ipersonnel Suggestions world wide Tim accepted the application s offer to change the offending word only to find that Word 97 s grammer checker considers the word world wide to be a compound word that would be better written as worldwide There is a world wide shortage of trained personnel Spelling and Grammar English British Compound Words There is a world wide shortage of trained Ignore All Mext Sentence suggestions worldwide Tim discovered that the only way to solve the problem is to add the word worldwide to the custom dictionary or use the English American dictionary http www iarchitect com new htm 7 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions Greg Funk sent in this rather perplexing problem he discovered with Microsoft s Internet Explorer 5 0 FTP application Cancelling The problem is one that could keep the more philosophically minded computer users debating at great length What happens when one cancels the operation Cancelling sic Greg points out that the scenario can be recreated in the following manner 1 Select file and right click to Copy To 2 Select folder 3 Let it start copying 4 Hit cancel It should be noted that the operating is not canceled when requested G
275. o the user Regardless of the criteria specified in the Named field Of type will read All files Changing the Of type has the effect of deleting the user s earlier file name specification The end result of all this is that the user is confused as to which files are being searched for The appropriateness of the term Advanced is dubious at best Is searching for a string of text in files really an advanced feature The likely result of the Advanced label is that some users will be intimidated from ever exploring the Tab Since the dialog offers very few criteria there is no reason not to provide them in a single location Such a design would allow the user to instantly see the various criteria and would prevent conflicts between visible and invisible criteria http www iarchitect com tabs htm 7 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Occasionally you find people employing tab controls for unusual reasons This example taken from Mountain Menus by Lone Wolf Software shows the use of tab controls to present a menu of toolbar buttons Fountain Menus Part of the problem here is that the toolbars do not necessarily reflect the menus they are intended to augment While the View toolbar for example replicates the functions available in the View pulldown menu the System toolbar consists of some of the menu items from the Configure pulldown menu and some from the File pulldow
276. o this are perhaps the most common and the ones most easily avoided This message is generated by the Address Book applet of IBM s There is no record to change Aptiva Communication Center when the user has pressed the Change button when looking at a blank record Maybe it s a stupid mistake but when stupid computers allow people to make stupid mistakes we ll make them What the user does not expect is a computer with an attitude The message might as well say Change How stupid are you What the heck do you want me to change There is an obvious solution which has become a standard of graphic interface design never provide a function that will only result in an error message disable any functions that don t apply This is a truly insidious error message provided all too often by Visioneer s Paperport an award winning very useful document imaging and management application The message is not necessarily rude or ambiguous the problem is due to the fact that it is incorrect It results from a bug in the software such that it does not correctly determine the amount of available computer memory for certain Windows95 users Because of the message users have reportedly removed software from their computers repeated reinstalled the application and the operating system and in some cases spent hundreds of dollars purchasing additional memory for their computers all to no avail AN Not enough tree system memory to load ima
277. ocal help any such advantages are far outweighed by the disadvantage placed on the user On line help should be considered an adjunct to a local help facility http www iarchitect com qtime htm 13 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 One area that can be expected to cause confusion 1s the use of two separate About dialogs These typically include the version information for the program copyright notices and other such information Selecting About QuickTime Player from the Help menu causes one About dialog to be displayed the other About Box is accessed by selecting About QuickTime from the drop down box of categories on the QuickTime Settings dialog which is itself accessed by selecting either Connection Speed Streaming Proxy or Registration from the Preferences submenu of the Edit menu While there is a logic behind the two About Boxes the logic will not be apparent to those many users who will not notice the distinction between the titles About QuickTime Player and About QuickTime The typical user will not notice that there is a distinction between the player and the underlying system files that allow it to work If it is necessary to provide both types of information they should be provided within a single dialog accessed from a single location in the application Concluding thoughts The design of the user interface in the QuickTime 4 0 Player could hardly be described as innovativ
278. odak FlashFis fps JIF JPEG JFIF Compliant Macintosh PICT pct JPG JPEG JFIF Compliant MacPaint mac Change sucks In their transition from version 4 to version 5 of Paint Shop Pro the designers chose to radically change the way users interact with the program The images above are cropped from the Save dialogs from version 4 left and version 5 right The upper field represents the default filename assigned to the image and the lower field represents the file type Whereas in version 4 the user that wants to save an image in GIF format simply selects GIF from the file type drop down the version 5 user must now select CompuServe Graphics Interchange Similarly to save an image in BMP format one formerly selected BMP and must now select OS 2 or Windows Bitmap This presents a couple of significant problems The user is now burdened with the task of knowing the technical jargon formerly represented by the extension itself It is completely unnecessary to require the user know for example the the extension TIF represents Tagged Image File Format or that GIF represents CompuServe Graphics Interchange Secondly because of this change existing users can no longer employ the keyboard shortcuts they have been using for years Whereas the user could specify the GIF format by typing the letter G he or she must now type a C for the same result http www iarchitect com clarity htm 10 of 23 14 02 2001
279. of having to use r word processors that only support spell checking in American English While the spell checking functions of most major word processors support variants of English such as Proper English many programs provide spell checking through culturally insensitive third party add ins that do not recognize archetypical spellings such as Customise First Mame ul Last Name hali of shame Company Address PO Box El Laky Berowra State ip Code 2081 Country Australia Phone Fan E mail hallofshamne Visitor Peter van der Woude sent along this image from the registration form of Norton Anti Virus 5 0 Peter from the city of Sydney in the state of New South Wales in the country of Australia filled in the form as best as 1t allowed The form would not allow him to enter a state and it disallowed his 4 digit postal code Clicking on the Next button in the registration wizard caused a error message to be displayed Please enter your zip code to continue Peter found that if he preceded his actual postal code with the letter Z Norton would consider it a valid zip code and thus allow him to submit his order Norton seems to be unaware that Austrailia does indeed have states Norton also seems to be unaware that the phrase zip code may not be a familiar term outside of the United States Norton further seems to be unaware that in some countries postal codes may actually be less than 5 characters in length
280. ogether to conserve space the buttons on the bottom row are normally located in the title bar We would never have considered using a pastel color scheme before now we know why The soft colors make it difficult to distinguish among the many buttons The shape of the image 1s muted by the color scheme making it difficult to extract the shapes in the images Here s a test locate the Cut actually Erase and Copy buttons from the toolbar answers at the bottom of this page Despite the difficulties locating and interpreting the toolbar images you better get used to it whereas most applications use the toolbar as an additional means of accessing frequently used functions in trueSpace2 it is the only way The designers proclaim this as a feature of the interface The interface is completely icon driven no more searching through endless menus and submenus to find the features you need http www iarchitect com truesp htm 2 of 6 15 02 2001 6 21 11 AM Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 We regard it as a severe hindrance One of the benefits of a menu driven application is that it groups the functions hopefully into logical groups For many new users this is the primary means of learning the application One can quickly scan the items contained in each menu simply by dragging the cursor along the standard menu bar The designers of trueSpace2 however chose to nest the functions in the toolbar buttons forcing the user to altern
281. ogram defaults to the current date but the only way to get the date checkbox checked is to click it then click the OK button in the Date dialog The most problematic aspect of the design 1s evident when the user attempts to check the Print checkbox before he or she has checked all of the checkboxes above it An error message 1s displayed stating The checklist is not complete Are you sure you want to print Here s a lesson from GUI 101 Checkboxes are used to toggle an option on or off Command buttons are used to initiate actions Don t let your confusion confuse the user http www iarchitect com controls htm 6 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Share with S5TIP DE ELOPHMENT Customer Profile TT s Biling Engine ee Commitment Mumber 3 Customer Procedures It would appear that the developers of Microsoft s Visual SourceSafe 5 0 were somewhat uncomfortable with the uncommon file dialogs used throughout Windows95 and decided instead to develop their own based on the Windows 3 1 common file dialogs Unfortunately they ended up combining the worst elements of each As is indicated in the illustration as the user drills down through the directory tree he or she will need to use the mouse to scroll to the right to view the directories In the course of so doing the user loses information as to his or her relative position in the hierarchy It would seem that the Projects line abov
282. oject This latter behavior entailed a considerable waste of time since the user will most likely ignore the skeleton and work on an existing project he or she would have to wait for two projects to load the skeleton and the desired existing project We do have one complaint about the dialog however on the Recent tab we would have preferred that the entire row be highlighted when selecting a project As indicated in the image only the first column of the selected row is highlighted and moreover attempting to select a project by clicking on the path in the second column will not change the selection the user must click in the first column Despite this quirk and the fact that the dialog always opens on the New tab developers will most frequently be opening the last project they were working on VB developers have found the dialog to be a vast improvement in the evolution of Visual Basic Presenting a small graphic with each item in a list allows the opportunity to provide additional information to the user without sacrificing valuable screen real estate Most users are aware of its use in Microsoft s File o Manager and Explorer to distinguish B digPrint frm dlgPrint between files and directories and also E frmChild frm frmChild among file types Here it is shown as used sae a in Microsoft s Visual Basic to indicate the SL mdiMain frm mdiMain type of files used in the project 2 APILBAS CHDIALOG YEX http
283. ole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com color htm 7 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Wouldn t it be great if program developers and users shared the same knowledge base Programs would be designed according to the tasks of the users and each would know what the other was talking about Unfortunately that s rarely the case and too many programs give the impression that they were written in a different language Here are some examples of some rather unclear program elements Last updated 15 December 1999 Olli Siltanen suggested we take a look at CSE HTML Validator v3 05 a program designed to check HTML documents for syntactical errors We found this portion of its Options dialog to be particularly problematic The Flag checkboxes are used to set validation and program options Quick here s a test l A 3 4 5 Which flag checks for tags specific to Internet Explorer Which flag checks for tags specific to Netscape Navigator Which flag displays a warning against the use of lt CENTER gt tags Which flag controls whether sound is played during validation What does Flag 14 do Here are the answers l 2 oF Flag 1 Flag 2 Flag 9 It also warns against the use of lt BASEFONT
284. on Unlike gaqScene x SaueState Always Boxes standard combo box controls the user must hold the P l Thold Tablet mouse button down to move through the list 1000 i releasing the button will select the item currently under the cursor To the experienced Windows user this can be downright frustrating Windows users typically click and release the down arrow of a combo box then scroll through the resultant list and click again to make the selection and close the list By creating their own control trueSpace2 s designers have required us to unlearn a well ingrained habit just so that we can interact with their program By eschewing standard controls trueSpace increases the probability that the user will make an inadvertent selection This particular panel uses the same x y z pseudo combo command button as shown above Location 0 ooo ooo however because the list is longer and the window is Rotation positioned near the bottom of the screen by default Size the designer s opted to shift the list up so that it can be Mame Scene DX Dynaunit x aunits displayed in its entirety In so doing as soon as the user clicks on the button the selection is automatically vertices 1407 World changed without any input from the user other than faces i611 Object clicking on the button in the first place The animation to the right shows the effect in response to a single click on
285. on 4 12 it has one extremely annoying interface inefficiency When exiting the N save changes to Image4 quite nice unfortunately since the prompt dialog images for the Interface Hall of Shame a Paint Shop Pro session might involve many images only sigh No Uh uh If I wanted that one I would have saved it nope no It would appear that the reason for the omission is that PSP is relying on the Windows built in message box functions which do not support a No to All button While reliance on the built in functions relieved PSP s developers from the negligible burden of creating their own dialog it often requires the user to respond to a plethora of useless messages WARNING Ed LCookierambo amadeustimicrozoth com it a Cookiell Are you sure you want to delete it Bob Rock received this message when attempting to delete the Internet Explorer cache from within Windows Explorer Unfortunately the message box did not provide a Delete All command button requiring Bob to individually confirm the deletion of hundreds of cookies Not surprisingly Bob tried to give up after a while and clicked No button Unfortunately this provided little satisfaction since Explorer continued to provide confirmation for each of the remaining cookies The wording of the message is rather interesting Cookie X is a cookie Aside from its inherent redundancy one has to wonder about the emphasis placed on the fact that it s a cook
286. on the designer adopted the PDA metaphor in this particular application was because he or she was familiar with PDA s and felt that emulating one would make this application look Kewl Re ggdPle 3 5 OOO Kewl like beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some users will conclude that the designer has successfully achieved his or her goals Others will conclude otherwise I for one do not consider a primarily black interface to be attractive I particularly do not find black text against a green background in a black window to be attractive and I especially do not consider purple highlighted text against a green background in a black window to be attractive What I find least appealing of all this is that despite the fact that I have a monitor that supports 16 Million colors and an operating system that allows me to specify my color preferences ReadPlease 2000 subjects me to the dubious aesthetic preferences of its designer I find that being subjected to these colors because of the designer s slavish adherence to an http www iarchitect com readplease htm 2 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 inappropriate design metaphor to be most unappealing The green color of the display window was selected to emulate the green window of the PDA display Adopting this color in ReadPlease 2000 represents one of the fundamental problems in applying real world metaphors to the design of software the softw
287. on to access the Rename function the user that removes the Rename toolbar button will find that ALT N no longer works Afterwards the only way to access the function from keyboard will htto www iarchitect com clarity htm 22 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology be to learn and use the ALT F R menu equivalent Placing the mnemonic on the image reduces the language independence of images This will impact the conscientious developer more than the users as he or she will have to create new images for each language V makes a useful mnemonic for View in the English language but may be entirely inappropriate in other languages One advantage of icons is that they can transcend language differences Inarelated vein some of the mnemonics seem inappropriate when isolated from the rest of the words they represent For example L for Filter and R for Print seem particularly unrelated to the functions they represent less relevant than if displayed as Filter and Print Drag and File has a few additional interface problems e g toolbar functions that are not available through the menus and images that are inconsistent with images used elsewhere such as the binoculars for View and the magnifying glass on a page for Find but is otherwise a very good program and seems much better organized that Microsoft s Explorer In particular we feel that placing file related functions copy delete and move
288. ons can potentially lead to problems The toolbar icon for the Delete command appears remarkably similar to the Window Close button in the upper right corner and is exactly the same as the Cancel icon in the widely used but frowned upon Borland style command buttons Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com visual htm 20 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 32 PM Interface Hall of Fame Home Design Announcements Hall of Shame Isvs Information Architects Mak ing inform ation usable New Entries Controls Stupidity Visual Color Terminology Errors Tabs Metaphors Globalization In Depth Books Links Index Feedback Hall of Fame Contact Us interface Hall of Fame Occasionally we come across applications that employ interface elements that are so intuitive and effective that we feel all applications should emulate them when appropriate The Hall of Fame is a collection of design solutions that will likely improve the effectiveness and usability of all applications that employ them We applaud the designers and developers for their creativity and for their consideration of the needs of the user If you are aware of interface elements and techniques that you feel are worthy of mention please drop
289. ontrols in the order in which they were added to the form While this may make some limited sense at the time you are developing the form it can wreak havoc on complex forms and especially when the code must be modified at a later time This is especially problematic when a programmer has to modify the code developed by someone else as the former has no knowledge of when controls were added to the form and therefore must read the entire list to locate the control of interest After discovering this feature while modifying complex forms generated by someone else we could only wonder What the heck was Microsoft thinking http www iarchitect com clarity htm 19 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology M Maintain Aspect Ratio Use Full Page Image Width 3 00 Image Height 5 91 M Center on Page From Left 0 75 1 05 Printable area 10 50x8 00 OT 40P Paint Shop Pro is an excellent full featured graphics editing application Unfortunately it has one very annoying feature that dramatically detracts from its usability the user cannot print an image at its actual size at least not without having to pull out a calculator and performing some conversions By default the print function sizes the image to fit the page The user can override this setting by entering the dimensions of the image in the Page Setup window shown above in either inches or millimeters The problem is that Paint Shop Pro
290. or Spin buttons are intended to provide guidance to the user by restricting input to the range of acceptable values The range of acceptable values for the number of days in the Find Applet as discovered by scrolling down until the minimum value is reached and up until the maximum value is reached is from 0 to 999 days So it would seem When a search is performed using O days the program responds with the message You must specify a valid number Despite the fact that O is indeed a valid number the developer s failure to specify the correct range negates any benefit of http www iarchitect com find95 htm 6 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet using a spin control Another failure is evident in the fact that the user can if he or she so desires type letters into the textbox portion of the control Since the applet can only interpret integers the developer should have written a line or two of code to ignore any non numeric input This would have negated the need to perform a specific error check for non numeric input and consequently would have made the erroneous error message unnecessary Peter Lind wrote to inform us of a particularly problematic F feature of the Find Applet The success of a search Hamed moricons performed with the Find Applet is dependent on the user s selection for the Hide Files option in the Explorer application For Look in w95ust u L example if the Show
291. or and a stunning lack of familiarity with how Windows applications normally operate This is a tool designed for full time users who can afford the very significant investment in hands on training it requires Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited feedback 1architect com http www iarchitect com truesp htm 6 of 6 15 02 2001 6 21 11 AM Interface Hall of Shame Home Design Announcements Hall of Shame New Entries Controls Stupidity Visual Color Terminology Errors Tabs Metaphors Globalization In Depth Books Links Index Feedback Hall of Fame Contact Us Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame The Interface Hall of Shame is an irreverent collection of common interface design mistakes Our hope is that by highlighting these problems we can help developers avoid making similar mistakes We are constantly searching for examples of design practices that are worthy of extinction and those worthy of emulation see the Interface Hall of Fame Submit your own nominations for potential entries into either hall to feedback iarchitect com and we ll try to add it to the collection Our review of the new New Entries GUI in Ap ples 4 June 2000 QuickTime 4 0 Player Users of all operat
292. or inclusion on the Options dialog the user could specify actual size in bytes the actual size in kilobytes or the estimated size as currently used We came across a rather interesting message posted in one of the Windows95 internet newsgroups We feel that it quite succinctly 7 illustrates one of the problems with Explorer and with Windows95 Fie Edit Tools itself E Wwi5y Y Loolbar A quick question for you how do you increase the font size All Folders eee of the file names in Win95 file Explorer The display E Large Icons setting in control panel allows me to change the size of the mo Smal Icons PT Exploring W95us1u C Help menu text but not the filename text size Does anyone know List i 9 e 7 how to do this It s for a person with a visual disability a Details most of the other display settings are on large it s just H explorer that s unreadable Any other suggestions welcome Arrange cons except buy a 17inch monitor Pt Line up Icons At first glance you might expect that Explorer s Options menu a i i Po OE Retresh would be the appropriate area to specify Explorer s display characteristics Unfortunately the options available under Explorer s Option menu offers very few options We were able to solve the riddle only by recognizing that despite its outward appearance Explorer is not really an application it is an extension of the operating system Thus w
293. ore htm 10 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Common File Dialogs The common file dialogs used in Windows95 clearly demonstrate that programming efficiency was a far more important concern to Microsoft than usability New users and experienced computer users alike are stumped when initially presented the common file dialogs Even with considerable experience with the dialogs they are notoriously inefficient to use require considerable input of the user to find the necessary information and offer the potential to lead the unwary user on a convoluted path through the operating system The very design of the common dialogs makes it difficult to explain how they operate consequently making it difficult to explain the problems the design present Last updated 17 April 1998 Open Look ir J Program Files T Accessories Delna Microsott Visual Bas Moden Age Books Muska Norton Antivirus Plus Symantec T Activex Internet Controls J Chaoz32 2J CleanSweep engwiz Gadget are Microsott Exchange H Common Files DEGrid Microsott FrontPage Microsott Publisher Fle name cine an cancel Where am I The main problem with the dialogs is that they hide the hierarchical information from the user For example consider a scenario in which you have cr
294. oreover a great many of the individual tabs have arrows shown in lower left of above image to allow the user to navigate across the multiple pages contained on the tab What an absolute nightmare Update The following letter from the author of the Psychedelic Screen Saver was received shortly after the above entry appeared I m writing to thank you for including the Psychedelic Screen Saver in your Hall Of Shame It and the subsequent taunting I received from my colleagues was just the push I needed to get off my butt and redesign the interface I found your critiques of the poor tabbed dialogs combined with the Hall of Fame examples of proper UI design to be quite informative I managed to trim down the number of tabs to just five from 30 using a technique modeled after your suggested solution to MultiEdit s mess Instead of using a list box however I used a treeview because it better illustrates the hierarchical nature of a display setting for the screen saver The screen saver still has piles of controls but I really don t see a way to limit these in a way that doesn t take power away from the user However even with just the existing changes the feedback from our beta testers has been overwhelmingly positive Not surprisingly I ve found that after using the new UI myself for a while it has become crystal clear just how poor the old one was While the UI is far from perfect it s one heck of a lot better than it was Tha
295. oreover each time a voice is selected the application automatically starts to read the text in the display area starting at the beginning for each voice selected changing voices on the fly is not possible http www iarchitect com readplease htm 6 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 The designer s aesthetic preferences extend beyond the adherence to the PDA metaphor The menus used in ReadPlease 2000 are particularly attractive utilizing a gradiant shaded w ReadPlease 2000 Edt Help background and colorful icons Unfortunately these features O Hew Ctrl come at a huge price for the user as tested on a Pentium 150 Open Cele running Windows 95 ten seconds will pass from the time the user clicks the File menu title until the menu is displayed In Close order to achieve these aesthetic features the designer could not Ay Save Chi S utilize the operating system s own menu drawing facilities The Save As end result is shown in the real time animation shown here the Zh Print Ctrl P menus become absolutely unusable This is an unacceptably ae high price to pay for aesthetics and one that this author finds cb Exit to System Tray Chrl T particularly unattractive Terminate ReadPlease Ctrl Q Perhaps due to the fact that ReadPlease 2000 utilizes non standard menus or because the designer was unfamiliar with rules for good GUI Cut Ctrl design the application allows the use
296. orld interface modeled on a plastic CD case and combined with controls for playing music represents the state of the art for on line music At the very least IBM certainly has great copywriters They ve managed to fit nearly every contemporary buzz word into the two sentence description object oriented state of the art digital audio on line music real world The only noticeable omission 1s the phrase paradigm shift Despite all of the catch words the one phrase that caught our attention was the phrase modeled on a plastic CD case This was simply something we had to see We ve seen it used it extensively and have prepared an in depth review of the design Before you peruse our findings we would like to extend IBM s invitation to you to obtain and try out the software yourself This way your experience with the product will not be impacted by the information provided here and will be more like that of a new user seeing the product for the first time RealCD is available from IBM at http www ibm com ibm easy frontdoor fddownloads2 html At present RealCD is only available for use on the Windows95 operating system Last updated 14 November 1997 e Visitor Comments Visitor Comments http www iarchitect com realcd htm 1 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD Here is the RealCD user interface that is about all that most users will likely see There is a great deal more to it
297. ormation as to how applications should NOT be designed ReadPlease 2000 is a potentially useful text to speech software application designed to look like a Palm Pilot The usefulness of the application however 1s almost entirely negated by the gratuitous application of a completely inappropriate metaphor Amid much fanfare Apple recently released a beta version of QuickTime 4 0 In addition to a variety of technological improvements over previous versions QuickTime 4 0 sports a completely redesigned user interface one that represents an almost violent departure from the long established standards that have been the hallmark of Apple software Ease of Use has always been paramount to Apple but after exploring QuickTime 4 0 the rationale behind Apple s recent Think Different QuickT ime advertising campaign is now crystal clear We wish we found IBM s Lotus Notes a long time ago This single application could have formed the basis for ji i the entire site The interface is so problematic that one Lotu might conclude that the designers had previously visited this site and misread Hall of Shame as Hall of Fame http www iarchitect com target htm 1 of 3 15 02 2001 6 11 45 AM Interface Hall of Shame In Depth Reviews A regular visitor to the site pointed us to the shareware strategy game Pirates Quest for the Seas The program offers a number of important lessons for the user interface des
298. osh Products Guide Apple Tech Info Library Ci Apple cam Where does one begin Perhaps the most notable problem illustrated in the animation is that the size of the dialog is determined by selected tab The resizing can be severe as search criteria are added in the Find File tab the height of the dialog itself increases switching to a different tab will cause large abrubt and unexpected visual changes These changes contribute to the impression that instead of a single coherent dialog Sherlock is a collection of three distinct dialogs thereby defeating the purpose of the use of a tabbed dialog The titles of the tabs introduce a number of conceptual problems The tabs Find File and Find by Content both allow the user to Find Files The former allows the user to find files based on operating system characteristics of the file such as name size creation date and location Find by Content allows the user to find files based on their content and location These distinctions are based on the different programmatic models underlying the two types of searches but the distinctions like the underlying models are lost on the typical user To the typical user searching for files that contain the word model is no different than searching for files whose name contains model By allowing the underlying programmatic model to dictate the separation of content from other file characteristics the designers have greatly reduced the uti
299. osition relative to the minimum and maximum values it does not indicate the extent of movement necessary to effect a desired change it requires a circular movement of the mouse something mice are particular ill equipped to do Interestingly the options dialog of the application provides slider controls to change the playback speed Here sliders provide a far more intuitive and usable interface in much less space than the shuttle control The main interface of ReadPlease 2000 also allows the user to change among four pre selected voice configurations Mary Mike Sam and Marilyn the adult entertainment star shown here this latter observation is merely a reflection of the image used to represent the voice and not a reflection of the characteristics of the voice itself The voice selection control is particularly unusable most notably due to its built in lag time Two buttons are provided to allow the user to scroll through the available voices After clicking on a button the user must wait ten seconds before the application responds During this time the interface provides no indication that the application has received the input In addition the control provides no indication as to how many voices are available The only way to determine the number of permissible voices from the main interface 1s to scroll through each when it wraps around to a familiar image the user will know that he or she has seen all of the alternatives M
300. osoft s Outlook Express redefines the word question Send Mail So what s the question Luke Tomasello sent in this image of an error message he received while working in the Microsoft Developer Studio Microsoft Developer Studio Luke was struck with the hopelessness of the message I ve read the message several times and can only conclude that the dialog box desperately needs another button I don t know Z James Hewett Hicks sent us this image of a message he received from Banyan Vines BeyondMail According to James the message appeared out of the blue while the program was minimized As to the practice of placing the error code in the title of the message box well that is simply BeyondBelief http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 4 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages As stated elsewhere on the site Paint Shop Pro is Paint Shoo P Ei an excellent graphics application but at least santa ble application the user is prompted to save each unsaved image The fact that it prompts the user is Cancel does not provide a No to All button the user is forced to respond to the prompt for each unwanted image As is often the case when preparing one of which will ultimately be saved for use Unfortunately without the No to All option the user is forced to specifically tell Paint Shop Pro No No Nope Not that one Not that one either through versi
301. ould translate as search comb or scour The button Find now is labelled Starten obviously translated as Start So guess how many people try to find a file by clicking on Durchsuchen It happens to me even I know about this mislabelling Arrgh htto www iarchitect com global htm 2 of 6 15 02 2001 6 10 34 AM Isys Information Architects Globalization Welcome to the PMC for Windows installation program Setup cannot install systen fles or update shared files it they are iri use Before proceeding we recommend that pou clase any applications you may be unnng For information on closing applications without exiting Setup choose Help PMC for Windows 2 3 is a complex application for automating industrial maintenance management and is available in several languages While the application s user interface has been translated into a variety of languages the user interface of its installation program has not Thus purchasers of the Spanish version of the application will see the exact warning message above as will purchasers of the Dutch version etc The complex installation program is entirely written in English regardless of the purchased version of the product The truly insidious aspect of this problem is that rather than investing in a multilingual installation toolkit the company adopted the preposterous policy of telling its customers always choose the default option regardless of the severity impac
302. ounterintuitive spin controls Microsoft Visual J Geek verbal skills Microsoft Visual Hiding information behind scrolling tabs SourceSafe 5 0 Making files just a bit harder to find Microsoft Visual Kafkaesque options Studio Microsoft Web Wizard The Third Degree Version 2 Poor Short Term Memory No pain no gain Between a rock and a hard place Microsoft Word 6 0 Faulty Assumptions Special rules we won t tell you Confusing tab structure Inconsistent tab rules Confusing multi row tabbed dialog How the heck should I know Things we couldn t fit elsewhere Microsoft Word 97 Aesthetics over good design Rube Goldberg message Microsoft WordPad Get a clue Memory impaired Midi Orchestrator Saturday Night Fever Mindspring s Oh is that what you meant Pipeline Mountain Menus A tabbed toolbar MsgBox Mayhem Bells and Whistles Multikdit The absolute worst tabbed dialog Unnecessarily alarming the user http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 6 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 41 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index Mustek s ScanExpress Lessons on how not to localize an application NetManage Ecco Sort limitations Netscape Truly artificial intelligence Communicator Netscape Navigator A B C it s easy as 0 1 2 Hieroglyphics or just bad symbols Lack of intelligence Subliminal messages Too much information Norton Anti Virus 5 0 Foreigners not welcome NoteBook Back arsewards buttons Oracle Lite Explo
303. ouseclicks among two controls and locating the sampling rate of the sound track will require additional manipulation of two controls for an additional four mouseclicks The person responsible for creating this Rube Goldberg design could not have made the information more difficult to locate and access There are many additional interface problems that indicate a general lack of familiarity with the basic principles of user interface design These problems we believe cannot be excused by the beta status assigned to the product Apple regarded by many as the definitive advocate of attention to the user interface should be setting an example for other developers to follow not relying on its users to identify user interface problems in its products One characteristic of the QuickTime 4 0 Player that we found particularly striking was that the program is often stupid It forgets for example the user s specified volume bass treble and balance settings It cannot remember the state of the Advanced Controls Panel and it cannot remember where a particular dialog had last been positioned Providing an application a means of recall is standard practice in the software industry the failure to provide such recall is more a reflection on the designers backgrounds than on the beta status of the product Additional such examples include the failure to allow multiple selections in lists the failure to indicate the default command button when an ite
304. ove the applications that came with Quick Tine Click Uninstall Evernthing to remove the sistem extensions as well not recommended Uninstall Everything Uninstall We found this curious message when uninstalling Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player for Win95 We are told that the phrase System Extensions is familiar to Mac users but the Win95 users who will see the message will justifiably be at a loss as to its meaning Some might argue that the oversight is a reaction to the fact that Mac users have had to endure similar oversights in Microsoft products Sylvain Martel sent us this image of an error message he received from Microsoft s Office 98 on a PowerMac when attempting to add a flow chart to a Word document http www iarchitect com clarity htm 5 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology Microsoft Organization Chart Please close other programs or exit from M5 Organization Chart Ifthe problem persists consult your Windows User s Guide for ideas on how to allocate more memory Select MS Organization Chart Help from the Help menu i There is not enough memory for standard operations Needless to say Sylvain had more than a little difficulty finding a Windows User s Guide among Apple s documentation In the spirit of rewarding the many technical writers who have suggested various corrections to the site we present this image sent to us by Stephen Ross Microsoft isual J 1 1 Steup
305. ox 1s provided by the Certificates function in HEREN per a search 5 ae Microsoft s Internet Explorer Humans can scan written F internetMCl Mall F Verisign material faster from top to bottom rather than left to right Despite this widely accepted observation and despite the fact that vertically oriented lists are used throughout Windows Microsoft chose to require the user to scroll horizontally in this particular list In contrast to the single item scrolling permitted by vertical lists horizontal lists create huge visual changes in which the list is complete redefined and after which requires the user to scan vertically anyway The most unfortunate aspect to this is that other developers will erroneously conclude that since Microsoft is doing it it must be good design It s not 7 Heywithess Canada Inc 7 Thawte Premium Server LA 7 Thawte Server LA htto www iarchitect com controls htm 13 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Associate Ea Files with Extension JENE OK Associate with IN one 000 File CAWN DOS rS TE MAE MW Adobe Acrobat Document C V4CROREAL Help Cancel Browse OK ae soa We weren t certain just how to categorize this particular problem but in our view displaying only 3 items in a listbox is just plain stupid This dialog box is provided by the Associate function in Microsoft s File Manager as is displayed when the user wishes to assoc
306. pany just to store the number of the billing department What if I want to enter the mailing address of a company and I don t have the phone number after all it s an Address book The only way to do so is to enter a fake phone number The problems illustrated with this application are unfortunately all too common especially in corporate applications They result when the application 1s designed according to the needs of the database rather than designing the database according to the needs of the user Any time you hear the phrase required field an alarm should go off warning you to determine how it will limit your users http www iarchitect com stupid htm 13 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity This one is a personal pet peeve of the author In the Visual Basic espem programming environment if you select a piece of text then open Wwin ini Notepad the Find dialog the highlighted text will be displayed as the text File Edt Searcn Help to search for This is as it should be Unfortunately few other HullPort Hone programs are smart enough to figure out that if you open the Find device RA 850C dialog immediately after selecting some text you are likely to be searching for another instance of that same text As shown in the image Notepad is unable to figure out that I might just want to search for HP Deskjet Similarly Microsoft s Word Excel and Access programs are equally dumb At least th
307. phone application Sure having an image of a telephone handset helps but it s not necessary Make the handset a necessary control for the application and you ll have a lot of users that are unaware that it s a control Controls should look like controls and they should appear manipulatable Here s where the metaphor starts to break down No matter how similar your program appears to look like a phone it will always operate differently When using a real phone you pick up the phone verify the dial tone then dial your number With RealPhone you dial your number then point to the handset and click on it to start the call Furthermore to speed dial a number on a real phone you pick up the handset then press the speed dial number On RealPhone however you simply click on the speed dial number which is likely to lead to a lot of inadvertent phone calls Inadvertent mouse clicks don t happen when using real world phones but they occur Interface Hall of Shame RealPhone Novice users can use it immediately expert users can learn shortcut keys and other advanced ways of using the interface to make it more efficient Part of the appeal of the RealPhone is its visual appearance It is a fully rendered three dimensional phone http www iarchitect com phone htm 3 of 6 15 02 2001 6 20 44 AM frequently in computer based applications Not likely The application does not provide an area to type the number to be dial
308. pplication The image contains only a very small portion of a form that simply lists Internet font related sites Interestingly while the statements look like Internet links the program does not provide Internet support clicking on a blue line on the form will not take you to the listed Internet site Even worse the application does not allow the user to directly copy web addresses from the form you would first have to write it down on paper then type it into your browser Trying to make a desktop application look like browser can only lead to confusion In trying to extend the misdirected browser metaphor by applying a background image the designer intentionally makes the information more difficult to read While you may not be consciously aware of it your eyes are struggling to extract information from the various contrasts in the image eventually this leads to eye strain and headaches If the information is worth putting on the screen make it readable http www iarchitect com visual htm 16 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 32 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements The About window of eZip Wizard by ediSys provides a couple of very useful features the For information contact ability to connect to their web site and the edisys Corp Help ability to send them an e mail directly from 329 Douglas Suite 550 A otions within the application Unfortunately many Dallas TS fo225 oats users will be unaware that such functiona
309. process by Laura Arlov author of GUI Design for Dummies The National Center for Accessible Media The Web Access Project researches develops and tests methods of integrating access technologies such as captioning and audio description and new Web tools into a World Wide Web site making it fully accessible to blind or deaf Internet users Macintosh Interface Guidelines Despite the proprietary nature of the title this resource has a great deal to offer designers and developers of all applications regardless of the target operating system Windows Interface Guidelines An online copy of Microsoft s design guidelines Provides some useful information on the principles of GUI design but unfortunately spends too much time on the G in GUI We found that the first version of the book although intended for Windows 3 1 applications provided much more useful design information OSF Motit Style Guide Again despite the proprietary nature of the title this resource offers a good discussion of basic user interface design principles Color Contrast and Partial Sight Color sensitivty affects a much wider population than the 6 8 of males that Perception textbooks typically identify as congenitally color deficient This article provides some startling information on the breadth of the problem and also provides a very informative discussion of designing with color http www iarchitect com links htm 1 of 4 15 02 2001 6 40 59 AM Interfa
310. put them on the same form Menus would have been a far more appropriate design strategy for this application One advantage they provide over tabs is that they can be accessed through a variety of methods including short cuts accelerator keys and perhaps a toolbar of frequently used functions Don t let this happen to your applications http www iarchitect com tabs htm 13 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Hew Database Connection Properties In the Add Database function of Oracle s Personal Oracle Lite a tabbed dialog is used to allow the user to specify the properties of a new database Unfortunately the design of the dialog prohibits the user from exploring the tabs of the dialog As illustrated above if the curious user clicks on the Settings tab he or she is rewarded with an error message One of the fundamental principles of graphical user interface design is that the user should be allowed to explore the interface By performing field validation when the user leaves a field Oracle has needlessly prevented users from exploring the dialog The dialog should have been designed such that field validation takes place only after the user has selected the OK button In effect Oracle has placed a linear model on an interface that is by definition non linear If a linear model indeed underlies the process of specifying a new database then Oracle should have used a linear interface such as a Wiza
311. quality as a strategy game TUCOWS rated the game as having 4 out of 5 cows causing us to seriously question the integrity of their rating system which purportedly requires that a program in this category has a cool intuitive interface and be user friendly The poor quality of the user interface in Pirates did not inspire us to sacrifice the time necessary to learn how to play the game While Pirates is a game we have seen many of its interface failures in corporate applications and felt that it was important to discuss the underlying reason the developer didn t have the faintest notion as to how to design a graphical user interface We recognize that some visitors may disagree with our assessment of particular features of the application and we invite your feedback Comments can be sent to bchayes iarchitect com Last updated 20 February 1999 Let s start this discussion with what is perhaps the most bizarre password dialog we have yet come across PIRATES Password Yentication http www iarchitect com pirates htm 1 of 5 15 02 2001 6 16 29 AM Interface Hall of Shame Pirates In Depth Apparently and this is learned only after much consternation the user is expected to type the password into the Cancel button As characters are typed there is no indication that the input has been received other than the fact that the blinking cursor moves to the right as characters are typed Placeholder characters are not displayed
312. r to select commands that do not a Cony Ctrl C pertain to the current situation In this case the context menu dislayed when right clicking on the text area of the display allows the user to play the currently selected text even when no text has been selected We select All Ltri A only mention this because of the rather humorous result ReadPlease Delete 2000 provides an audio error message to the effect that no text has been selected Faste Ctr Play Pause Sorry you have not selected any text J am unable to read it to you on Paste amp Play Play Selection Uptions amp Settings htto www iarchitect com readplease htm 7 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 The architecture of ReadPlease 2000 can be downright confusing at times The options dialog for example is presented within the same apparent dialog as the main interface rather than in its own dialog as the user would expect Unfortunately this means that the size of the options dialog and its readability 1s determined by the size of the main interface If the user had resized the main interface to a small size the options dialog can be nearly unreadable thus requiring the user to resize the dialog The options dialog does not provide a Close or Cancel button and instead only provides an OK button If the user wants to cancel any changes he or she has made in the options dialog the changes can only be undone by man
313. r to the typical user s expectations To increase the value in the control the user must click the down arrow Similarly clicking the up arrow decreases the value The conscientious developer will have to write a routine to reverse the control rules so that the control operates correctly As Mark notes With Microsoft providing this sort of help it s a wonder anyone develops an app with any sort of decent interface fe TestSpimn http www iarchitect com controls htm 4 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Select an award style CSO RVIER Prag lm 4 ihan bgi wed Fi FLEE FIO eS PE ee ey Th link r emn ee H ort a CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD a Click amp Print Certificates is a useful little shareware program for printing a variety of certificates and awards The program offers a Style Buddy to help the user select which of a number of certificates to print Once you get past the obvious problems with the dialog instructions in the title bar right aligned vertically oriented instructions Cancel button before the OK button reference to an OKAY button the use of all capital letters the hard coded sickly green color etc there are some important design problems related to the choice of control for selecting the desired style The various styles can be previewed through the use of the horizontal scroll bar each click displays a different certificate style The
314. rather bizarre and potentially destructive error message provided by the Find File function in Microsoft s Office 4 2 _ Iwas trying to search my entire hard drive for a file Although I don t know the exact al number of directories it isn t very many I would think the programmers should have anticipated users searching an entire drive for a file That aside why in the world would they suggest deleting one or more directories as an acceptable method of resolving this problem This is the most dangerous error message I have ever come across I can t believe this was in a commercial product It would seem that the developer should have been a little more careful in his or her advice The intent of the message was probably to decrease the number of directories specified to be searched since the Find File function allows the user to specify multiple discrete directories but the message as written might lead some users to actually delete the directories from the hard drive This example suggests another useful guideline for developers You are responsible for any misinterpretation of your messages Hicrosott Word i Word cannot copy a file to itself C document gquestop doc How should you respond to the above This message is generated by the FileFind function in Microsoft s Word for Windows when the user attempts to copy a file to the same location where it is currently located Word appears to cancel the operation in response to e
315. ration Not Permitted Oracle SOL Net Mixing commands options and meanings OrderWriter Isn t it obvious OzWin IT I m a lazy programmer The wrong tool for the job Get your thinking caps on Paint Shop Pro Unfortunate defaults Changing the way you use the product Flawed recall Options where none exist Singular messages Bait amp Switch menu items PaperPort Expensive Error Message PMC for Windows Pay no attention to us PowerBuilder 5 0 Delayed gratification Misguided priorities Programmed inefficiency Popkin s System How not to resize a form Architect PowerSearch We could help you but we won t http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 7 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index PeopleSoft PGP 5 5 Psychedelic Screen Saver Quickbooks 4 0 ReadPlease 2000 RealPlayer 6 0 ResSched RoboHelp Spidersoft s WebZip SOL Windows Team Flow Server Time amp Chaos trueSpace 2 0 Quicken s TurboTax Rational s ClearCase Siemens WebWasher Socket Spy 32 TransSoft s FTP Control Unscrollable Scrollbars Cryptic instructions Tabs on acid and a response from its creator Hey that s not what I wanted In depth review of gratuitous metaphor chicken or the egg Immediate Action Menu Titles No way out The insidious Hot Cursor metaphor Necessary but hidden features The problems with dynamic buttons Ambiguous Error Message Hostile Menu Titles Unhelpful Error
316. rd As a side note notice that the OK button is enabled and is the default button even though all of the fields are empty Can you guess what happens when the OK button is clicked Labeling is certainly not a tab specific problem but we ve come across a number of tabbed dialogs where the labeling contributes to the inefficiency of the design Properties for Tet ol Ta s asl Alignment In the Text Properties dialog in Lotus Notes 4 6 ambiguous iconic labels have been used in place of meaningful textual labels The user will have to rely on repeated trial and error exploration of the dialogs to learn the actual meanings of the icons The use of icons in this dialog is particularly dubious since there are no apparent real estate constraints that would have precluded the use of meaningful textual labels If you are considering using iconic labels in your own applications you may want to look at the InfoBox in Lotus Approach http www iarchitect com tabs htm 14 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs Settings for Field SHIPF4D0R8 Font name Text color Times Mew Roman N This dialog should serve as a warning to developers icons require a great deal of creativity The developers of this particular dialog were simply not up to the task if they couldn t come up with an icon they simply used a textual label instead Thus two types of labeling are used in the dialo
317. re are probably many http www iarchitect com global htm 1 of 6 15 02 2001 6 10 34 AM Isys Information Architects Globalization non English speaking individuals that will be unable to appreciate the erroneous error message Ins rez la disquette E3 Veutlez mz rer le disque Windows 95 CD ROM puis clquez sur OK This image was also provided to us by the individual identified only by the name Phoenix While many French speaking individuals will able to abstract the correct meaning of the message we suspect that many individuals will be feverishly searching for a floppy disk labeled Windows 95 CD ROM Of course the search will be fruitless resulting in an almost guaranteed call to technical support Not convinced Consider how your mother grandmother or boss would react to a message entitled Insert Floppy please insert the disk labeled Windows 95 CD ROM MamerUrt Anderningsdatum Weitere Optionen Mame Starten Anhalten TR hat JF JIL iE l Suchen in ulul Durchsuchen BAE i Untergeordnete Ordner einbeziehen Alex Regenass wrote us to point out that Microsoft s translators made the German version of Find Applet even more difficult to use I fully agree with your criticism of the find applet But in the german version of ai Windows 95 Microsoft even managed to make it worse The button Browse which is used to choose another starting directory is labeled Durchsuchen which you c
318. re are two significant problems with this design In the first place the only way to determine which styles are available 1s to scroll entirely through each of the styles A second problem is that the only way to select a particular style is to browse through all those that precede it For example to select the Team Player certificate the user must click on the scroll bar 9 times waiting for the program to load a preview of each of the 9 certificates that precede it We offer the following alternative to Click amp Print s Style Buddy which we feel resolves these problems http www iarchitect com controls htm 5 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls w Click and Print Certificate of blank Certificate of Achievement Create four Own Award ETFi EEEa cus ra MER SERV Ee Distinguished Service ie Employee of the Month Leadership Award a Outstanding Perhormance Senet Safety Award Sales Award Team Player Award While checkboxes typically provide the means by which to specify options Click amp Print uses checkboxes as indicators and as command buttons When the user clicks on a checkbox in Click amp Print a dialog box is opened into CLICKLISTH which he or she enters information to be printed on a certificate The checkbox only becomes checked 1f the user clicks the OK button on the related dialog box Click amp Print Certificates Setting the date 1s particularly unusual The pr
319. reg eventually had to hit the close button in the upper right corner In his own words Greg canceled out of canceling the canceling by hitting the close box Of all the possible real world objects that one could select as the F basis on which to model a software user interface I do not believe that one could make a more ill advised decision than to select a PC DVD hand held remote control Unfortunately Creative Labs did just BEETLEJUICE 16 that with their design of their Creative PC DVD application Visitor lari Sani sent along images and a thoughtful critique of the T resultant design which provides further additional evidence why the Default software industry should adopt a zero tolerance policy against the use Default of real world metaphors Additional detailed critiques of real world interface metaphors in the Hall of Shame include Apple s QuickTime 4 0 Player ReadPlease 2000 text to speech synthesizer IBM s RealCD player IBM s RealPhone telephone application These reviews reveal a number of important axioms for those contemplating a real world design metaphor You cannot think out of the box when you are trying to copy a box It takes a tremendous amount of skill to make a real world metaphor work but only a modicum of intelligence to realize that one shouldn t even try Objects designed to be operated with fingers and thumbs were not designed to be operated http www iarchitect com new htm 8 o
320. rer has some built in inconsistencies that make it difficult to learn how to use it For example not all files are treated the same Drag a document file from one folder to another and the file will be moved Drag an executable file from one folder and the file won t be moved Instead Explorer creates a shortcut to the file in the second folder To delete the file at some later time you ll need to delete both the original file and the shortcut Interestingly one of the goals of Windows95 was to make the distinction between executables and document files less defined Se B mn Wels bmp To further add confusion dragging behavior also depends on the number and type of files dragged Drag a set of executable files and a shortcut to each is created in the target directory However 1f at least one of the selected files is a document file then all files are really moved regardless of each file s type One of the most disturbing aspects of these distinctions 1s that certain actions cannot be undone For example you can Undo the dragged movement of a document file but you cannot Undo the dragged movement of an executable file The real problem arises in that the Undo functionality is related to the last undoable action not the last action For example drag a document to another folder Then drag an executable to another folder Selecting Undo would undo the first move not the most recent This increases the likelihood that the user w
321. resented a AutoSize Property list as shown here of all instances of the topic in AutoSize Property the files The problem is and this shouldn t take a AutoSize Property brain surgeon to figure out is that the list provides Auto21ze Property AutoSize Property Cancel AutoSize Property no indication of the context in which the topic is discussed in each instance The user must Go To each instance to determine which relates to his or her concern In this particular list the first instance discusses AutoSize as it relates to pushbuttons the second instance discusses AutoSize as it relates to picture controls the third as it relates to label controls and so on The program could easily determine the context of each instance but for some reason the programmers decided that they had better things to do http www iarchitect com stupid htm 12 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Imagine the following scenario You walk intoa a eee bar and say to the bartender I want a beer The bartender responds Do you want a beer or something else You think to yourself pehaps he didn t hear me so you again say I want a beer The bartender responds Do you want a beer or something else You stand there perplexed is this guy an idiot or am I living a Kafka story Conrect Cortinuc Help Connecting to Compuserve through their WinCim application is not unlike this scenari
322. ress arrow to move fh bonus to make the text just a bit more difficult to read eee a Secondly while the tutorial window is resizable by dragging the border only the size of the window changes the user is presented with a large white window with a small green area containing text in the upper left corner Conversely the tutorial can be minimized but doing leaves the user in a state of limbo the tutorial is a modal dialog such that the program ignores any input until the tutorial is closed in the appropriate manner the new user that minimized the tutorial purposefully or inadvertently will have to search for the minimized window to have any further interaction with the program More importantly the tutorial consists of dozens of screens similar to that displayed here Unfortunately the tutorial is forward only while the Next button is clearly and unambiguously labeled the other has no such label The unfortunate user hoping to review the last screen will sadly learn that the button means Go All the Way Back to the Beginning PIRATES File Navigator t View Player Files The file selection dialog in Pirates will undoubtedly create uncertainty for new users of the program Instead of alphabetizing the items in the lists to make it easy to locate an item of interest the developer chose to use randomly order the lists To display the contents of a different drive the user must 1 locate the drive by clicking on the tiny
323. results into the same window If the designers had used a separate results window they could have optimized its design to take into consideration the purpose of the window to provide sufficient information properly arranged to allow the user to rapidly identify the desired file or files Thanks to Tim Jones for pointing out Find s forgetfulness I HATE the way the damn thing NEVER remembers what size I had its results ai portion or how wide columns were fancy having to do that every time you use the darn thing use the damn thing everyday and it is amazing how quickly you adapt to such ugliness http www iarchitect com find95 htm 2 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet The use of Tab sheets in this dialog represents an unnecessary application of micro management Tab sheets are a great means of reducing clutter on a complex windows by organizing the information into discrete sections However their use in the Find dialog is inappropriate since the dialog is neither complex nor cluttered nor do the imposed sections reflect distinct sections In fact similar criteria are entered on separate Tabs creating a conflict for the user One point of conflict imposed by the Tabs is the type of files to be searched Name amp Location Date Modified Advanced As shown in the figure the user could specify the file type by entering a file extension and wildcard for the Named field wha
324. ried to invoke the code coach on an assembly language file only to discover that VTune only understands C C Java and Fortran Tune tm Coach EJ Q The YT une tm Analyzer cannot determine from the tlename LADO WIM AVIedUCe reduce asm whether to invoke the C C Java or Fortran Coach For C for C reply Yes For Jaya or Fortran reply Mo Othenvise Cancel Code Coach language not supported No Cancel Somehow the developer s inability or unwillingness to design an appropriate dialog box doesn t inspire a great deal of confidence in his or her ability to perform performance tuning VTune provides another example of questionable competence in its non progress dialog as shown in http www iarchitect com new htm 14 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions the following animation Ji Instrumenting Processing COMCTLS2 0LL Instrumentation Type AFI BEEE Michael Wilson sent in this example of programmer verbosity that he was confronted with when he tried to view Midwest Microwave s online catalog at http www midwest microwave td uk index htm JavaScript One has to wonder why all that information was loaded into a transitory message box rather than simply including it on the web page itself http www iarchitect com new htm 15 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions James Kibo Parry sent in an image of an er
325. rnet Explorer Home Page Current Browser You appear to be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 0 A new version of Internet Explorer is available If you would like ta upgrade please follow the instructions provided below To see a list of other software click the Other Options button at the bottom of the page Internet Explorer 4 5 with Outlook Express 4 5 Macintosh Edition MacBinary English Language Version for Macintosh http www iarchitect com new htm 4 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 26 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions Could this be a realization that J E4 5 is somewhat better than JE5 0 PointCast one of the first push systems that spread like wildfire several years ago has been replaced with a new version In a detailed guest analysis of the replacement visitor Bill Tyler concludes that the replacement is an inferior tool whose presentation GUI and features that are a major regression not improvement entryp an POWERED BY FOINTCAST a Rick Lamoreaux sent in this image he received when attempting to add files to a project in Microsoft s Visual Source Safe Microsoft isual SourceSafe Q ve m Heb As Rick pointed out the message does not inspire much confidence in the software and seems to be not so much a warning as a CYA hedge just in case something goes wrong The message This might not work are you sure seems to be a means of transferring responsibility for the pro
326. robably be an important requirement for a hand held device however this is not a hand held device it is a piece of software one that must coexist with other pieces of software The design results in an extraordinary waste of screen space In effect the designers have replaced the visual noise and clutter of useful controls with white noise blank space that interferes with the user s ability to view and access other information on the screen and as will be shown later with the user s ability to interact with the player itself http www iarchitect com qtime htm 4 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 20 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 Perhaps in an effort to emulate the design of a real world device or to avoid potential color clashes with any of the available colors for iMacs the designers decided to give the player a brushed metal appearance with dark gray controls and a pale yellow progress meter If that particular color combination does not appeal to you too bad the designers of the QuickTime 4 0 Player were only concerned with their aethestic sense not yours Windows users will discover that the application ignores the user s preferred color settings and does not provide a means for the user to specify his or her preferences Similarly Mac users will find that the program does not respond to changes made through the Appearance Manager The designers did in fact adopt the user s color preferences for the transient secondary dialogs b
327. ror message he received when trying to register with American Airlines Web site Cannot Accept Entry What s Wrong The name you entered W contains invalid special characters What You Need To Do Select the Try Again button and re enter this information using only characters spaces and hyphens Kibo simply typed W not W and not W when asked for his middle initial Apparently either the W or the is considered an invalid special character Kibo didn t realize that he could only type characters Less recent additions 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes iarchitect com http www iarchitect com new htm 16 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 27 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Isys Information Architects Making tnformation usable Interface Hall of Shame Controls In a graphical user interface the controls represent the means by which the user communicates with the application The quality of the communication depends on two aspects of the controls the appropriateness of the control for the task the consistency of the rules under which the control operates Select the wrong tool for the job or change the rules under which the tool operates and you will create problems for your users Here are some examples Last updated 19 Sep
328. rough the default OK button clears away the whole dialogue box So you have to dance in a zig zag between the name list and the to cc bcc buttons Of course the same shortcuts all do not work in the addresses field either it s click on a recipient down to click on remove up to click on a recipient down to Perhaps the most infuriating feature of Notes as it was configured at the corporation where it was inflicted upon us is that every time the user presses the Send button after composing a letter the application 4 Do you want to send the mail now responds with the illustrated message oe Send Now We have two alternative suggestions 1 change the caption of the Yes button to Yes Dammit because that s what every user thinks when they see the message or 2 recognize that the user by pressing Send probably wants to Send the letter so just Send it http www iarchitect com lotus htm 10 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes M Archive Expired documents Archive documents which have no activity Generate an Archive Log each time an archive occurs Lotus Notes offers the user the ability to set certain preferences for its Archive functions Unfortunately many users will conclude that these settings cannot be manipulated The Archive Preferences dialog contains a number of checkboxes some of which are shown in the illustration For some inexplicable reason No
329. rrational Jacek Wojdel sent us this image of a message he received from an NT workstation Exploring disk Cannot find O 4rnaProgramnssnetworksetup disk 1 45E TUF EE Windows needs this file to run O 4nasProgramnssnetworksetup disk 1 45E TUP ESE Duh Cancel just about any function in Quicken s Turbo Tax and the TurhoTax for Vifind program will thoughtfully tell you that you cancelled the function Duh Such stupidity is somewhat troubling for an application that we re supposed to trust to represent us to the Internal Revenue Service User cancelled http www iarchitect com stupid htm 3 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 33 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity This revealing example of context sensitive though hardly user sensitive help in AutoCAD Mechanical was provided to us by visitor Jerry Albro Cancel Click this to display an overview of this dialog bos idiot For Help on an item click at the top of the dialog box and then click the tem While some may regard the message as humorous we find it particularly contemptuous We are reminded of a recent drugstore advertising campaign with the motto treat every customer as you would want your mother to be treated That AutoCAD allowed this message to slip into its final product is truly shameful Update We ve received word from an individual at AutoDesk that the author of the message considered it a joke that would never be seen by the users
330. rre interface rules employed in other Lotus applications one could reasonably expect that some users would interpret the instruction as meaning that they must first click on the tab itself before changes could be made Visual Portfolio Manager is a client management system for attorneys The application presents a number of problems related to their use of the tab metaphor http www iarchitect com tabs htm 12 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs E PH Switchboard Visual Portfoho Manager Ej Move After Enter Arrow Key Behaviour Cursor Behaviour Entering Field Don t Move Nest Field Select Entire Field D DEO l EEG BE Goto Stat Of Field C Next Record E C Goto End Of Field Cursor Stops at First Last Field Reset VPM Detault Values Quit Application Specifically the main purpose of tabs in the application is to provide access to collections of buttons a menu of sorts of system functions For the most part the tabs serve as menus each containing a number of submenu items Further this design is not consistent Mixed in among the menu tabs are option like dialogs and function dialogs e g Database Connection Certain tabs e g Backup and Utilities represent rarely used functions but are nonetheless given the same priority in the dialog as frequently used function None of the tabs are related to each other except for the fact that the designer simply
331. rs nuts because they completely disrupt the visual metaphor of the application IBM s position on the little boxes is either pure arrogance or pure ignorance The title bar standard exists to provides consistent access to these function across all applications Suddenly IBM concludes that this is a bad thing The basic problem with IBM s RealPhone is that IBM started out with the metaphor rather than the goal of optimizing the usefulness of the application The most important aspect of a computer based telephone application is not the ability to dial a phone number You could simply provide a blank text box and a button labeled Dial and have a more intuitive interface than RealPhone The most important aspect of a telephone application is the ability to manage the names and numbers part of which is retrieving a particular number quickly IBM provided almost no administration functions in the application not even the ability to edit an existing entry nor the ability to search for a particular name To do so would have broken the visual metaphor This is exactly the problem with applications based on real world metaphors they do not support functions that are not permissible in the real world but are not only feasible in computer applications they are desirable The task is to allow the user easy and rapid access to these information management functions Unfortunately RealPhone fails miserably in this regard Consider the process of assi
332. rticular task at hand As is amply demonstrated in the images above Microsoft has made the EMERAC metaphor a central design theme in their applications Such features provide absolutely no benefit for the user and are only used to make the program look different and perhaps as a means of showing off one s programming abilities By now you ve probably scrolled the page down to hide the above animations This should be a good indication that the EMERAC metaphor is not something worthy of emulation Instead we would recommend that you strive to employ the KISS Metaphor Keep it Simple Stupid Your users will thank you Spidersoft s WebZip employs a particularly insidious metaphor in their list controls As the cursor passes over items in the list the color of the item changes to reflect aq addguest htral 1 568 well nothing other than the fact that the cursor is over the E addr gif r item By itself this is simply another example of the Fai brattr gif W distracting EMERAC metaphor described above mad faq htm 1 220 Unfortunately WebZip takes it one step further 1f the kad Furphy htm 2 69r cursor pauses for a moment the item under the cursor is H gloves git 20 325 automatically selected a mouseclick is not necessary ba guestbook html 2 E23 E logo gif 4 540 The problem as it is quickly discovered by using the control is that the technique is subject to frequent inadvertent selection Imagine having selected a file in
333. s This gratuitous use of the tab metaphor was discovered in MediaBlaze 98 a multimedia viewer application that was inexplicably granted a 5 Cows rating at TUCOWS EI MediaBlaze Unregistered JPG GIF BMP DIB RLE WMF EMF ICO CUR Sq DISK2PARTOW COLORGPT JPG COLORS JPG HELP Pts HELPMENMLU JPG OPTIONS JPG PLAY SEL GIF ROPLEASE GIF READER GIF REASOMENU Clr READ SIZE GIF REASOSM IF REASOSPO GIF SLIDES GIF STATUS JPG TITLES GIF The first four tabs are used merely to change the type of files displayed in the unlabeled directory of http www iarchitect com tabs htm 9 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs files The MediaAgent tab displays a search function to locate files on the user s computer Interestingly on the MediaAgent tab standard option buttons are provided to allow the user to specify the type of files to be located The About tab displays the information typically displayed in the standard About box Tabs were thus needlessly and inconsistently applied in the application Moreover since the application does not offer an option to make the tabs readable the user is left to tilt his or her head to read the tabs The tabs do not provide any benefit for the user and in fact serve only to further degrade the usability of this particular application The Address Book function in IBM s Aptiva Communication Center illustrates the joy the developers must have felt when
334. s My VirusScan P files delphiwoll2wollkip4d4tral exe P files delphi woll2woll ipddtrial i elude SLUT OES Di Eompressed Nes EY c agamn Mee amp rile Pures An anonymous visitor sent in this image from Milltronics Dolphin Plus a configuration package for industrial level and flow sensors as a candidate for the Tabbed Dialog Hall of Shame P Instrument Parameters Display Edit Discrete P s Relay Pump Control interlock Alloc Interlock Status Pump Status Pump Energy Pump Efficiency Flow Flush Pump Records OCM Totalizer Range Calip Temp Comp Rate Meas verif Scanning EchoProc Adv Echo Proc T T Shot Config Measurement Test Profile Records Install Record DataLog Security Basic Setup volume Reading Display Failsafe mA Input Communications SmartLinx Lioeration Material liquid or horiz solid surface Maximum Process Speed I E mimin fast Where s Waldo Ben Oram sent in this image from English German from OneApp Software http www iarchitect com new htm 3 of 16 14 02 2001 5 50 26 PM Interface Hall of Shame Recent Additions 2 UEEULE s WET WT oll English German 1 4 ro Main Sp Collection Irreg Verbs tel Read Text E Miniwindow Collect voice Pipe Organ Found aup f KES 1E v advertise v Wierbung machen Tur annonceren inserieren ans wering machine in der Anufheantworter be a credit to So
335. s FREE PHONES FREE Access Numbers amp Logon Instructions United States and Canada Search Perhaps the designer thought that since the site is free timely interaction with this function really wasn t a criterion Then again perhaps the designer didn t think Search Search ro aa ro aa Area C ode CompuServe Network For some reason the designers of Sort By Microsoft Word for Windows 6 0 2 decided to limit the computer s Column 1 z Type Text K T intelligence Your computer is certainly capable of sorting records Then By on more than three fields yet the designers chose to set an arbitrary limit deciding that you probably wouldn t need more formna Z Toae fTen E Descenino Then By Ascending Column 3 Type I z z o ext Descending Because of this arbitrary limit we cannot for example sort our clients by State City Last Name and First Name The designers figured we d never need to The old saying When you assume you make an ass out of u and me still holds true http www iarchitect com stupid htm 17 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Netmanage Ecco Pro v4 01 is purported to be a very sophisticated personal information Sorn Items EE manager Some magazine reviews praised its Sort flexibility while others complained about its f Entire view rigid structure The reviewers in the first C Sub items of selecte
336. s act like Microsoft s your time can be better invested in improving the interface Bg Reports fa Macros amp Modules Ope Hew Microsoft s Access97 sports another variation on unnecessary distractions As the cursor passes over the tabs on the main database window the caption is displayed in a brighter color Not unlike the dynamic borders on menu titles in Office97 the practice of dynamically changing the color of interface elements provides no benefit to the user but has the undesirable effect of capturing his or her attention away from the task at hand http www iarchitect com visual htm 3 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Microsoft s own uncertainty over the practice is clearly evident from the fact that they chose not to use the new technique on the command buttons on the dialog nor did they employ the practice on other tabbed dialogs in Access97 As further evidence of Microsoft s uncertainty regarding the mm z Da ication of e Deasy application of its new dynamic interface elements one need only contrast the Coolbars used in Office97 applications against the standard toolbar used in Office97 itself Coolbar buttons do not become buttons until the user passes the cursor over them Toolbar buttons as used in the Office97 toolbar need no user intervention they are immediately identifiable as controls Do we detect dissention or is it just careless d
337. s si contents of a single drive at a time There are two major problems with combined control approach All Folders Lontents of Windows First once you have navigated sufficiently into a ef Command particular drive there is no indication as to where you a Contig BE Command are in the hierarchy As shown in the image there is fl Conkies Contig no indication of which drive you are currently E Cursors Sa Cookies exploring nor can you tell which direction to scroll to H E Desktop E Cursors get to a particular drive Microsoft concluded that new 29 Favorites 3 J Desktop users were overwhelmed by the amount of aia information presented in the combined control We would conclude that the problem isn t so much the amount of information but the lack of spatial information Based on the way the information is presented it is very easy for the user to lose track of where he or she is at any given point Combining all of the drives into a single control also presents a second problem in that it can be difficult to switch from one drive to another To get from drive C to the contents of drive G for example you have to either collapse the outline manipulate the combo box or scroll past all the displayed contents of drives C D E and F In contrast in File Manager all you have to do 1s click on the G icon http www iarchitect com explore htm 1 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer Explo
338. s us of a child s paint by numbers set The images not only lend themselves to an unprofessional appearance they are distracting The toolbar used in Microsoft Word in contrast uses a much more limited set of colors and the colors are themselves subtle Despite these differences Word s toolbar provides far more information in less space because it primarily relies on shape to distinguish among the functions In addition to presenting a more professional appearance the judicious use of color is less likely to give rise to unintended interpretation based on the user s personal and cultural color associations Ci tel SLY http www iarchitect com color htm 5 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color sg og E E eE Color can also detract from the information you are trying to convey This image includes some of the many toolbar buttons used in Zoc a communications application In this example the first four toolbar buttons represent various ways of sending a file These are in order of appearance e Send e Send without carriage returns Send with quotes Send with CIS quotes The differences between the images are almost undetectable as each image 1s overwhelmed by the blue object in its foreground we re pretty certain it s a telephone Without tooltips the user would be unlikely to be able to distinguish the function of each image the developers could have simply skipped the images altogether
339. se Errors reported by output device VIEW EMOTE Details gt gt Joost Vunderink sent along a couple of images illustrating a fundamental design problem with Easy CD Creator a program used to write CD ROMS At the end of creating a CD there are two possible outcomes the process was successful or some error occured a not infrequent result when writing CD ROMS The error message is displayed above The successful message is displayed below CD Creation Process Untitled Recording Phase LD created successtully So what s is the problem The dialogs are far too similar and both utilize a red heavy icon to represent success or failure As Joost indicates Each time I ve finished a CD I see something red and I panic but then it s alright after all Good question We believe we determined how the designers at AST Software came up with the name for their In Out whiteboard application Who s Where is the individual in or out Obviously Elle Help given the bright green color and the raised appearance of the In am button the individual is in Obvious that is to most people but not in to the application s developers Actually the individual is out z Who s Where http www iarchitect com color htm 4 of 7 14 02 2001 5 59 01 PM Interface Hall of Shame Color Changing your Windows color scheme can often illuminate otherwise hidden examples of inter
340. sign Sure it looks cool but by using the real world metaphor the software application becomes subject to the limitations of the real world CD player For example the only way to determine which modes are available is to repeatedly press the Mode button when it loops back to the beginning you will know the range of possible playback modes An alternative design would be to provide a combo box which lists all of the possible modes and asks the user to directly select the Playback Mode desired mode This is a standard GUI software solution that is not available in real world CD players and is therefore unavailable to designers that try to translate real world designs to the design of software How the designer organizes information in the user interface can have important consequences on the efficiency with which the user can interact with the product A case in point is provided by the Controls combo box Unite In Stock provided by Microsoft Access 2 0 Unite On Order The controls combo box lists all controls used on a form When the developer E sa Lev h needs to modify the code for a particular control he or she can access that o ii section of the code by selecting the desired control from the list What we Supplier ID find surprising is that Microsoft failed to provide any apparent order in the Bowl 21 display of the controls In other Microsoft development products the controls are listed alphabetically Access however lists c
341. significant but on a maximized window the menu could be missed We ve included this example because we still see questions in programming forums asking how this technique is achieved in the Windows operating system The answer don t do it http www iarchitect com visual htm 12 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Set the selected name and number to a speed dial click on flashing speed dial List of names numbers and speed dial accelerators Set Volume Click or Chrl Lett Ctrl Aight The designers of IBM s RealPhone application felt that the user would benefit if the application wasn t cluttered with such distracting items as control labels and instructions Instead the designers opted for the use of so called Hover Help throughout the application Why they didn t use the industry standard Tooltips is beyond us Tooltips are a very important innovation in interface design if used appropriately As indicated here IBM abused them making them not only ineffective but highly distracting as well The tooltips we cannot bring ourselves to use the term Hover Help are used to compensate for the complete non intuitiveness of the application and as a result provide far too much information to be effective Worse than that the tooltips are only displayed for approximately 3 seconds they disappear before the user can finish reading them RealPhone has earned a very special place in the Inter
342. staken here but we can only surmise that the change was the result of observed difficulties with the use of the context menus We welcome all alternative explanations Cancel Not Of course if a user selected one of these functions inadvertently such as deleting a file Cancel they could simply hit the Cancel button to undo the changes right Wrong Unlike all _ Cancel other dialog boxes the Cancel button on the standard file dialogs does not undo the changes that have been made it merely closes the dialog This is probably because standard file dialogs are not supposed to allow any changes to occur Roget s Syndrome What does Open really mean anyhow That depends on a number of things most importantly which Open function you select If you clicked on the button labeled Open the current application would attempt to open the file for editing which was the purpose of providing this dialog If you selected the context menu item Open however several different things might happen depending on the type of file you clicked on If you Print Opened an executable file Open would start or Run the application If you clicked on data file Open http www iarchitect com file95 htm 6 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs would start a parent application for the file then Open the data file with the parent application The one thing the context menu Open does not do is open the file with
343. stency from Microsoft s Design Guidelines rather than from using Microsoft s products The image above is a compilation of various dialogs used in the VB5 programming environment In many parts of the program the VB5 development team relied on Microsoft s then newly adopted practice of locating command buttons horizontally aligned in the lower right corner of the dialog boxes Unfortunately the developers responsible for a large number of the functions in the product were not aware of the new standard In addition to the various positions illustrated here dialog boxes provided by third party add ons to the product e g Crystal Reports utilized even more creative locations http www iarchitect com visual htm 7 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements This is image selected from Compuserve s WinCim e mail applet and illustrates a typical problem that results when improperly using controls as indicators rather than as controls One of the benefits of many Windows controls Xe x is that they can serve as both control and indicator However when the designer uses a control only as an indicator a variety of problems are likely to result In this case the user is unlikely to notice that the disabled checkbox to the right of the Attach button is actually indicating that an attachment has been selected In contrast the Auto File checkbox clearly indicates that a copy of the message will be automatically filed
344. stomers About Microsoft visual Basic Certain toolbar buttons in PowerBuilder employ a rather unusual technique that we felt made the product more difficult to learn As shown 1n the illustration certain toolbar buttons have an associated drop down control that causes a sub toolbar to be displayed This in itself is not particularly bad design but we found the fact that the toolbar image itself changes to reflect the selected option caused us to forget how to get back to the original selection None Window Mza Once again we have to thank the boys and girls in Redmond for conceiving of PPT more completely useless features that can only serve to impress each other during W Microsoft W recess For those users that prefer to play with their software the dockable menu in ie g Office 97 is undoubtedly kewl We on the other hand prefer to work with our meae software Normal meh With gimmicks like this is it any wonder that Word now consumes 120 MegaBytes of disk space SH mopu age sool Jasu Mali IIPS als d http www iarchitect com visual htm 6 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements Page 1 5E consistency makes the interface familiar and predictable The Windows User Interface Guidelines for Software Design Microsoft Press Microsoft Yisual Basic LIF Cancel ddi Help Our hope is that most Visual Basic 5 0 developers will learn about consi
345. sulted in the loss of his work up to that point The problem was corrected in version 3 03 of the program Initial Setup x You will now be asked to select a command key map The command map you you choose will be Used whenever an add on option like Delphi Integration or EVOLVE adds commands If you change command maps after installing an add on option You will need to re install that option NOTE The default command map is windows CUA compliant Paul sent us this image of the first dialog displayed after installing MultiEdit a program advertised as being the ultimate editor for all programming needs I was suprised as soon as the program started Up comes a Critical Error message box What s wrong I thought Nothing the program just wanted me to select a keyboard mapping Call me picky if you want but when I see a big X in a red circle I assume that a serious error has occured Microsoft Internet Explorer E x Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site The server returned extended information Ed Chaney sent us this image from Microsoft s Internet Explorer 4 0 According to Ed the message results when logging into an FTP server fails for just about any reasion but mainly when the server is full While the server may have returned extended information Microsoft clearly decided to withhold it from the user perhaps Microsoft felt that learning that the server was full might be just a bit too
346. t or even the content of the message This has undoubtedly created a nightmare for the company s technical support department and moreover for the non English speaking purchasers of the product Name Aaldress cyl tti is S state Alp f Localizing an application is not simply a matter of translating the text of the interface to the target language Thor Are Helge of Norway described a particularly problematic aspect of many multi cultural applications including this image taken from Time Magazine s web site f _ Most U S designed applications assume that every country in the world has the same address conventions and ask us to select U S states from drop down boxes put the zip code in behind the state name etc Using a U S designed form generally ensures that the mail will not be delivered In Norway we don t use state names in our address and we put our zip codes in front of the address Also the City field is not correct for Norway Because we are so few we do not have many cities and do not need to address by city Kolsas is one of several districts of the city where I live but by no means a city in itself Thor provided a fictitious example of a typical Norwegian address Ola Nordmann Bratt ret 8 http www iarchitect com global htm 3 of 6 15 02 2001 6 10 34 AM Isys Information Architects Globalization 1352 Kolsas Norway According to Thor the most frustrating forms are those that employ edi
347. t checking and tell the user they have forgotten to enter a state or that the postal code is not properly formatted A more culturally flexible means of collecting address information is provided at Byte Magazine s web site Name Email Addressi Address Address A more usable alternative would be to simply provide a free form text field and trust that the user has entered a valid address This reduces any uncertainty associated with the various addresses is Address 1 my home address and Address 2 my work address etc While both of these approaches place the burden of organizing your data on you rather than on your users 1t may be the only practical means of collecting such variable information Chris Herboth has put together a page describing various international address formats appropriately entitled International Mailing Address Formats Hi Brian was about to write you about how we could SGT something but then this spell checker through a fit about my spelling of the word Check Spelling ki x Unknown customise customize Change Change all customs cusbomized customizes suggest Add custodes custom z Edit Dictionary Change To Suggestions Options http www iarchitect com global htm 4 of 6 15 02 2001 6 10 34 AM Isys Information Architects Globalization Tim Jones of Australia provided this image and described the frustration
348. t kind of label is that on the Name amp Location Tab or could select one of the file types from the Of type who comes up with these labels Of type All Files and Folders drop down on the Advanced Tab Changing one of these fields causes the Containing text device other to change but because they are placed on separate Tabs this change is not visible to the user Regardless of the criteria specified in the File Name field Type will read All files Changing the File Type has the effect of deleting the earlier 1ni specification The end result of all this is that the user is confused as to which files are being searched for Hamed 1ri Hame Location Date Modified Sdvanced The appropriateness of the term Advanced is dubious at best Is searching for a string of text in files really an advanced feature The likely result of the Advanced label is that some users will be intimidated from ever exploring the Tab An appropriate design of the Find Criteria dialog would have been a single window which would allow the user to instantly see the types of criteria allowed and allow them to specify any combination from the same location The Find dialog allows very few criteria therefore there is no reason not to provide them in a single location http www iarchitect com find95 htm 3 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Find Applet The image shown above also illustrates the i
349. t the no faxes option http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 14 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages There has been an error transferring your mail sald HAIL FROM lt mmecclinc yt edu gt and then the SMTP server sald 503 Polite people say HELO first Is it any wonder that many people consider programmers to be geeks Matt McClinch sent us this image of a bizarre error message provided by Eudora Light a al popular e mail program Matt a computer science student was able to determine that the message was attempting to indicate that the mail client was not adhering to the SMTP protocol Non programmer types would probably wonder Huh What did I do wrong The problem here is two fold the Eudora programmer improperly chose to parrot the error message generated by the SMTP server and additionally improperly chose to frame the message in the context of a dialog between the two machines We have no difficulty imagining the programmer sharing the resultant message to his programming friends snickering ala Beavis and Butthead at his keen sense of humor We d suggest that he take a day off from the computer and go out and interact with a few non programming type individuals We can t help but wonder what 503 impolite people would say This message is generated by OzWin II a popular off line reader FAFA for the Compuserve Information Service The error occurs when the user
350. t the association has been made throughout all of Windows95 And as we have seen above to change the display characteristics of Explorer you have to go to the desktop and change the settings in an apparently distinct application The cause of these problems is that Explorer lacks an identity Without an identity the user is made uncertain as to where to perform certain operations and as to the scope of those operations Now we re not too sure of how many of our visitors will be designing operating systems in the future but we are pretty certain that the lack of identity makes Explorer a pretty weak and problematic model to follow The file delete confirmation is further evidence ry eer x of Explorer s lack of identity and the problems this can create for the user Windows95 provides i m P l i ATE you sure you want to send the option of not displaying this message when l automate tst to the Recycle Bin deleting files However this option is not provided in Explorer but in the Recycle Bin itself Interestingly it is not offered under the Options menu in the Recycle Bin but is only accessible by right clicking on the Recycle Bin selecting Properties then selecting the General tab In all outward appearances the user must change the properties of another application to change the behavior of Explorer What makes this interface fragmentation even more confusing 1s that the file delete confirmation s
351. t this application was designed by IBM s User Interface and Architecture Design Group that we surmised that the green light might in fact be the means by which the user exits the application Sadly our assumption was correct Clicking on a green light to exit an application is about as intuitive as clicking on the Start button to exit Windows95 The only good thing we can say about this particular aspect of the design is that it is so stupid and so counterintuitive that once discovered few users will ever forget it The remaining control is perhaps the most important control in RealCD and true to the design team s tendencies it bears the least resemblance to a control It is the only means to access the Help Book and the only means to view the contents of the CD This control is the Open the CD Case Button represented by the 2 gray squares RealCD does not provide a status bar nor tooltips to indicate the functions of the various controls nor for that matter to identify which screen objects are indeed controls IBM considers such interface elements as clutter Since the Open the CD Case control is so completely inapparent our guess is that most new RealCD users will never realize that the application offers more than the basic playback functions http www iarchitect com realcd htm 2 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD Realty 1 PEA If the RealCD user has been lucky enough to discover
352. te Exit with SQL Windows The SQL Windows ee documentation states that the exclamation point alerts users that the menu title is a direct action command In our view the exclamation point only alerts users that they are using a downright hostile application Visual Labels supports the use of right click context menus Well Text supports is somewhat inaccuate Visual Labels requires right clicks to a perform necessary functions It is the only way to access necessary functions Font Color Rotation Right click context menus are a useful addition to interfaces They are Send to Back intended to be an alternative means of accessing functions as shortcuts primarily for advanced users They should never be required and should Bring to Front always be used in conjunction with conventional menus Otherwise new users might never realize the functions are available and they will have no keyboard access to the functions once they find them Center Center Vertically Center Hornzontally Whenever a new user is observed using a program that requires right mouse clicks they will inevitably ask How do I and when instructed will invariably respond with Gee that s odd Delete Visual Labels uses a rather odd toolbox It requires that the user drag from the toolbox to the desired location Toolboxes usually serve as a collection of tools click on a pen and your cursor behaves as a pen click on a paintbrush
353. tead of investigating how current GUI design strategies might be improved followers of the real world approach have decided to completely abandon those strategies and with them the basic principles of design such as perceived affordance feedback guidance and consistency The attempts to follow this approach have demonstrated that they have indeed thrown out the baby with the bathwater We are struck by the consistency of failure exhibited in these attempts and see several possible explanations for the failure rate a it is being attempted by the wrong persons b it is being attempted for the wrong reasons or c a combination of both We believe there is data to support each of these candidate explanations and another as well designing virtual software in accordance to the requirements and characteristics of physical devices does not work Related Articles Sherlock Get a Clue Leander Kahney Wired News A Worm in the Apple Salon Magazine Has Apple finally lost the plot The Independent Apple Quicktime Player 4 0 a Real Dud Bruce Tognazzini QuickTime 4 Blech Erik Barzeski MacOpinion Quicktime 4 Three Strikes and Yer Out Jeff Lewis MacOpinion This Year s Skin Feed Magazine Real Interfaces UI Religious Wars David K Every MacKido Fix QuickTime4 Petition Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1999 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any for
354. tember 1999 The editors of the August 1999 edition of the Visual Basic Programmer s Journal 101 Tech Tips for VB Developers must have been running low on tips Medel to share with their readers Tip 100 provided the code to make checkboxes act Sport Coupe like option buttons M Sedan Checkboxes and option button controls function similarly but with an Gort Ltility important difference A user can select any number of checkbox controls l on a form at the same time but can select only one option button control in a group at a time Pickup Truck A small piece of code allows the user to select only one checkbox in a group at any given time This change is useful when you want to use checkboxes instead of option buttons We would have written the last line as This change is useful when you want to confuse your users Option buttons are used to allow the user to make a mutually exclusive selection Checkboxes are used to allow the user to make multiple selections The very appearance of checkboxes tells the user that he or she can select several items Never use checkboxes when you want the user to make a mutually exclusive choice http www iarchitect com controls htm 1 of 24 14 02 2001 5 52 18 PM Interface Hall of Shame Controls Visitor Cory King asks a very good question Why is it that Adobe Acrobat has the keyboard navigation keys mixed up The page up and page down keys scroll through a page like you d exp
355. ter time True clipboard operations are application independent You can copy a paragraph from a document in one application then paste it into the document of another You cannot however copy a bitmap file in Explorer then paste it into another document which really would be a useful function Moreover true clipboard operations are singular actions You can Undo the last Cut or the last Paste http www iarchitect com explore htm 2 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer operation But since in Explorer a Cut is not really a Cut until you Paste there s nothing to Undo until you Paste Even then the Undo command 1s labeled Undo Move While these differences can be learned with practice a well designed interface should not require practice Even the most experienced user has to make the mental note these aren t the same as normal clipboard operations In time less attention is given to the distinction but it never disappears al Contig tet Contral crim If you really want to confuse your users and make it difficult for them to learn how to use your application occasionally change the rules under which the controls operate in your application Explorer does just this in its multiple selection method Usually you select a continuous range of items within a list by clicking on the first item then clicking on the last item in the range while holding the Shift key down All items between the
356. tes designers chose to display the dialog in read only mode that is clicking on the checkboxes has no effect Unlike all other dialog windows in all other applications and for that matter all other dialogs in Notes the user must first change the state of the Archive Preferences dialog to Edit mode This absolutely non intuitive requirement 1s accomplished through the absolutely non intuitive action of double clicking somewhere on the dialog itself The dialog will then behave as a normal dialog Judging from the number of visitors who have mentioned it the process of copying messages in Notes is perhaps its worst interface feature Apparently when mail messages are copied from one folder to another the message itself is not copied Notes creates a reference to the message Unbeknownst to the user if you delete the reference Notes will in turn delete the message itself Similarly deleting the message will cause all references to it to also be deleted A number of visitors described the loss of valuable information through this process Piooctic tor Fa E g E Ta as es Alignment First line List Lett margir 2 54cm Spacing Interline Above Below Single Single Wayne was one of several visitors that wrote that the Notes Text Properties dialog is a source of confusion Single up Edit Text Properties Change font color or whatever Now look for the OK Apply and Cancel but
357. th em can t live without em The following message was discovered by Bret Empie while using Microsoft s Visual Fox Pro 3 0 VEP_EXE Drive Not Ready x dive Device Harddisk Partition and make sure that a disk is Inserted and that the drive door it closed Retry lanare I suppose there is something messed up in the environment to generate the error which occurred when I tried to display my OLE Controls library in Visual FoxPro 3 0 Anyhow one might wonder how we are expected to close the drive door on a partition x The drive i not ready for use tts door may be open Please check Living Books Player v2 0 Wini amp ABCDEMO LBE A ed Ne While some programmers might readily understand this message we would consider it beyond the understanding of most computer users especially for the target population of the particular application that generated the message The message is displayed by Dr Zeuss s ABC an alphabet game intended for 3 to 5 year old children Funny thing though the message is completely unnecessary since the program works just as well at any typical display setting Microsoft Visual Basic x a He We came across this informative error message in Microsoft s Visual Basic 5 0 recently Since the message provides no indication as to the problem nor its cause we decided to accept Microsoft s offer for assistance After pressing the Help button we were rewarded with the follo
358. the Open button he or she will be rewarded with an apparent doubling of the size of the application While IBM has kept to their practice of removing the clutter of meaningful standard controls they decided to stick to their practice of devoting a huge amount of screen real estate to their logo When opening the CD the user must be careful to make sure that the application is positioned toward the right hand side of the screen Like a real CD case RealCD opens to the left If the application is positioned toward the left hand side of the screen before it is opened the left hand portion of the opened CD will be positioned off the screen This again is by design despite its obvious usability problems IBM s design group argues that keeping the main interface a new concept in itself stationary is preferable to moving the interface into a useful and usable location An even more bizarre problem related to this design strategy will be demonstrated below Opening the case provides access to the meat of the RealCD application the list of songs on the CD and also provides the conscientious developer a host of examples of how not to design an interface RealCD1 Playlist es a 5 42 BS Oe Total Play Time 72 53 Random Continuous htto www iarchitect com realcd htm 3 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 00 AM Interface Hall of Shame RealCD PlayMode Options The dark objects to the left of the apparently disabled Random
359. the message is displayed only after the cursor has paused over the control They have the additional advantage of being displayed in close proximity to the control Even then make sure the control needs a description displaying Adjust channel volume for a control labeled Volume and Total Length of song for a control labeled Total length does not add much to the user s understanding Here s another rule of Windows design the title bar is used to display the title Status messages and context sensitive help should be placed in the lower left corner of the screen At least Midi Orchestrator used a different font for status messages this and the fact that it changes so often distract the user s attention painfully so to the title bar More typically users don t look to the title bar for help they ve come to expect that the title bar will contain the title and help will be displayed in the lower left corner If you need to display status messages display them where they will be seen 2l HP Scamlet Copy Utility Piel Ea File Help Hewlett Packard writes software to support a wide variety of platforms so we can be somewhat forgiving of their indiscretion with the placement of menu titles for Windows software Under the Windows operating system the Help menu should be the right most menu title This does not mean that it should be placed all the way to the right as shown above In a relatively small window the distance is not very
360. the upper left corner of the panel The reason this is not described in the Help file is because the window title bars are optional though why anyone would want to hide the only indication of what function they are currently using escapes us htto www iarchitect com truesp htm 4 of 6 15 02 2001 6 21 11 AM Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 So confident were trueSpace2 s designers of the intuitiveness of the application they decided that command button labels image utilities were not needed The rectangle under the words Input Input Image Column Image is actually a command button Clicking on it will 1D Envr Map cause a standard really Windows file dialog box to be displayed Upon selecting a file the caption of the button will iE isplayed Upon selecting a file the caption of the button will moe change from nothing to the name of the selected file None Pesonn Med Unfortunately if you really didn t want to assign a file there s Convert Image 2D Envr Map no way to cancel or otherwise Undo the selection Who would ever need to do that Using standard Windows controls would have been too easy on the programmer and on the user This is Render All the only reason we can come up with to explain the EGRE wireframe combo command button used throughout E TopMenu Always Wire trueSpace2 Click on one of these buttons and a list OrthoHavu X Titles of various settings is overlaid onto the butt
361. the Playlist on the right The major problem with the design is that the two lists operate differently For example double clicking on a song in the Track List will cause it to be copied to the Playlist however double clicking will not remove a song from the Playlist Additionally whereas the Track List supports extended multiple selection the user can select only a single song at a time in the Playlist making the design a contender for our Interface Stupidity section There are a number of other design problems with the Playlist function which we have listed below Take another look at the image and see how many you can spot some of the problems are detectable only through actually using the application something IBM should have tried before they released the application Consider this an experiment in web site interactivity Hold your monitor up to a mirror to see the problems we ve identified or if that s too awkward just click on the list below nett tacte woberw to qotte bsaslg enottiud brer miottod si aitorra E eed tect lottos yioo sih et rotted bha sdr 8 tatoe eds 225906 eed ted Ase1T ach asdw stow vho cotted bbAsdT ssramsdto bsldeerb tom s tud suant vithdebest esesstosh toot JE terbyelD srt cucttra goros tsbtost ot dork yd ensam oh lina th nedi srstosteds stormt etqssos nortan Ja same yirieees asic tigen esteactardt asdi celeb ro oorlas cack tluetsh ait srtosad ton eso0b noud bh v aogas Asds sld
362. the combo command button http www iarchitect com truesp htm 5 of 6 15 02 2001 6 21 11 AM Interface Hall of Shame trueSpace2 The designer s of trueSpace2 describe the interface as being direct manipulation JUSt sgy point at the object and click However determining which object should be clicked lt amp on can be confusing For example to open the Object Information panel for a given object on the screen the user must click on the object to select it and then right click on the pointer toolbar button we re not kidding Additionally to set the font for text on the screen you must right click on the Text button rather than the text you want to modify Unfortunately you must specify the font before you create the text object you cannot modify the font of an existing text object The only direct manipulation going on here is the manipulation of potential customers into believing that this product is easy to use Answers to the Toolbar Quiz Erase row 3 column 2 Copy row 3 column 3 Primitives row 3 column 7 trueSpace 2 is unquestionably a very powerful and feature rich application that will allow its users to create stunning graphics and visual effects We ll trust the reviews in such magazines as InfoWorld and PC Week when they say you cannot find more features at a better price than trueSpace But there is no question that proficiency with the tool will require extensive practice trial and err
363. the in box causes the message to be immediately deleted from the in box and sent to the Trash folder It should be pointed out the the image of the Delete button above is only available when the program is viewed on a monitor with a resolution of at least 1024x768 When viewed at a more typical resolution of 800x600 the Delete button 1s truncated as shown here at a resolution of 640x480 the Delete button is not displayed at all Go figure Part of the difficulty facing new users of Lotus Notes is the terminology employed by the application The main application command buttons provide access to Reply k databases such as the E Mail Database the Help Database the Address Database etc The Help database defines a database as a single file containing multiple documents then defines a document as a datebase entry consisting of fields The Help database then gets into a verbal joust with the user with such terms as database libraries records and Domino Servers While the Help database describes the steps necessary to replicate a database it fails to define the word replicate Achorns Forward All of these terms are meaningless to most computer users Moreover they should be meaningless to most users Unfortunately to learn to use Notes the shipping clerk the secretary and the vice president of finance all have to develop a programmer s vocabulary Computer applications are supposed to shield the user fro
364. the reason Explorer doesn t really have a Sort function and instead refers to it as Arrange Icons If they labeled it Sort users might expect that it would actually sort the filenames http www iarchitect com explore htm 5 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer Maybe it was an attempt to make computers more human like but we were surprised at the l userQ dat lack of precision in the file sizes reported by user02 dat Explorer Rather than reporting the exact size E Userlls dat userO3 dat of the file in bytes Explorer always rounds to Z User 4 dat user dat the nearest kilobyte KB A 1 byte file will be User5 dat user05 dat reported as being 1 000 bytes in size The UserQ6 dat user U6 dat illustration shows the same files and their sizes as reported by Explorer on the left and File Manager on the right As we looked into Explorer s estimation further we uncovered a number of disturbing problems Whereas the filelist area of Explorer shows an estimate based on a 000 byte Kilobyte the status bar displays an estimate based on a 024 byte Kilobyte for the selected file Consider the following figures True Size Filelist Size Status Bar Size 127 bytes 1 KB 127 bytes 3428 bytes 4 KB 3 34 KB 51 289 bytes 51 KB 50 0 KB What bothers us most about Explorer s estimation is that the user is not allowed to specify the precision This would seem to be a perfect candidate f
365. the result set Of course not but the design of the form gives this impression Given the complexity of the programming task that 1s to be able to perform all of the necessary functions we re pretty sure that the developer was very proud that he or she was able to combine them into a single form Unfortunately by combining everything on a single form the efficiency of each function is reduced to nothingness The best solution would have been three separate forms one for specifying the fields to be included in the results another to specify the sort order if any and a third for specifying the search criteria That way the interface problems relevant to each function could be properly addressed While we appreciate the difficulty of the task and the complexity of the programmatic solution from an interface perspective the end result would be laughable if it weren t so sad This toolbar from Canyon Software s Drag and tk 34 221 2 5 Se pa Jw C l File a very well thought out replacement for the Windows95 Explorer represents an interface technique we ve not seen before and well we do not feel represents an advance in usability Drag and File assigns mnemonic keyboard access keys to toolbar buttons and displays the key in the button s image the user accesses the function by pressing the ALT key and the mnemonic key at the same time While we are very vocal supporters of mnemonic access characters on windows controls we believe
366. the text select text properties select the alignment tab Mm BW N choose left align Then you can read the message without horizontal scrolling Be careful with that Save As Draft button Save As Draft If you re writing a mail and worried you might lose it you can either press control s and then continue writing right away or press the save as draft button whereupon the messages vanishes into the drafts folder and you assuming you figured that out go back to your desktop open drafts and re open the message to eventually continue working on it Thanks to Markus Kassbohrer for pointing this out Enter Password eS eee SO OO a a r The login window for the Lotus Notes utilizes a security feature to defeat would be onlookers from learning your password Never mind the fact that the password characters are not displayed as with all login windows the designers decided to add further protection by adding extraneous characters to the password field so would be onlookers cannot determine how many characters are contained in the password in the above example a six character password is being entered Further as groups of characters are typed the images on the dialog change to distract the would be onlooker from http www iarchitect com lotus htm 12 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes observing the number of extraneous characters typed Now if Notes could so
367. ther reduces their efficiency Windows95 makes the column widths in the dialogs wide enough to display the longest name of the files or folders contained in the current folder This results in an amazing waste of screen space especially when for example all of the files in the C folder are in 8 3 format with the exception of COPY BEFORE NAV OF AUTOEXEC BAT which some installation program has thoughtfully created for you A single filename like this can result in the dialog displaying only 6 files at a time meaning that you will have to make more scrolling inputs to get to the desired file Stunted Growth Perhaps the most frequently mentioned complaint that we receive concerning the Windows95 common file dialogs is that they are not resizeable Depending upon the length of a single file in the currently displayed folder the dialog may be limited to displaying only 7 files in the default mode and in Details mode will never display more than 7 files Unfortunately someone at Microsoft felt that this wouldn t be an issue Cancel Memory Impaired One characteristic of the common file dialogs that would earn them notable http www iarchitect com file95 htm 4 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 File Dialogs mention in the Interface Stupidity section of the Hall of Shame is that they are unable to recall the user s preferences from one instance of the dialog to the next For example if you decid
368. ther with its almost invisible text cursor 1s likely to inhibit new users from discovering that text can be directly entered into the window The provision of the green button is taken directly from the physical design of the Palm Pilot itself This same button 1s provided on older PalmPilots to turn the device on and off On newer PalmPilots holding this button down toggles backlighting Attempting to adapt this physical control model into a desktop software application will only lead to problems for users experienced with the actual PDAs The choice of colors used in the application is merely one artifact of relying on a real world metaphor An additional artifact is the impact the design has on expected system behavior ReadPlease 2000 is presented to the user within an application window this could be considered the PDA in a box metaphor The application window is resizable but the user quickly realizes that the resizing of the ReadPlease 2000 window is unlike the resizing of any other window ReadPlease 2000 utilizes proportional resizing The user that attempts to widen the display will find that the height is increased as well Moreover and unlike any other application on the system the individual screen objects within the display are resized accordingly Thus resizing the window to increase the amount of text http www iarchitect com readplease htm 3 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000
369. they discovered the use of tabbed dialogs Apra Addes H a 7 cf Soe ree Prei Halata Hap Eal ee ee T eR e o gt Hizme Tz gt l pty pan aba EIRENE L ia e a 1 a i J Fs ee is wy oll cio ois A Hp Pd ee eS The developers seem to have beside themselves with the new ability to place tab controls whereever they wanted Tabs are placed along the top and along both sides undoubtedly if they were not constrained by the size of a 640x480 screen they would have found a reason to put tabs along the bottom as well Of all the various sets of tabs only those tabs along the right side of the display are appropriate in this dialog These allow the user to quickly move to an appropriate page in the address book While not easily discernible there are two tabs along the left hand side of the dialog these allow the user to toggle the display between the Address Book view and a Speed Dial view The tabs along the top are particularly deserving of attention Of the nine tabs only two Add and Change can be argued to cause a different tab to be displayed Change causes the currently selected record to be displayed in the notebook area of the display and Add causes a blank record to be displayed in the area The other seven tabs are actually command buttons each either causing a secondary dialog to be displayed or initiate an immediate action
370. though such criteria are permitted with many Internet search engines Thus Sherlock consists of three distinct functions combined into a single dialog The designers need to find a way to combine the Find Files and Find by Content functions into a single function that is consistent with the user s expectations and which relieves the user from having to make a programmatic distinction between the two Further the Search Internet function should be placed in a separate application altogether The function requires a completely different set of operators and criteria and produces a completely different form of output Sherlock utlizes the tab metaphor not to present conceptually related information but to present apples apples and oranges Olli Siltanen suggested Siemens WebWasher an advertisement filtering program for web surfing as a good example of improper tab design wW WfebWasher Configuration Ei x Uptions 7 BUY 7 REGISTER File Plugins Proxy Engine Standard filters PAu X OU 120 x 90 a 125x125 125 x 90 E 1200000 El Inactive l D Do not filter this URL F Inactive Default 7 Disable built in exclusion list Filtered tems M Images MW Scripts Iw Frames W Text Links M Windows M Layer M Forme Replace filtered images with transparent images instead of removing them Disable location UAL change JS cript T Block URLs in the filterlist resp redirect to ignore i
371. tion under the title Add Remove Programs The Add Remove Programs dialog seems to be an example of the Available Space Metaphor described on the Metaphors section of our site Specifically it would seem that the Windows Setup and Startup Disk functions were placed on the dialog simply because there was space available on the dialog The Windows 95 Find Applet is critically examined in the In Depth section of the Interface Hall of Shame but a portion of that discussion bears repitition here Specfically the applet illustrates the use of tabs where such use is not indicated and how the misapplication of the tab metaphor can indeed decrease the usability of the application All Files and Folders 7 Tabs reduce clutter in complex windows by organizing the information into discrete sections The information in the Find dialog however is neither complex nor cluttered nor do the imposed sections reflect distinct sections In fact similar criteria are entered on separate Tabs creating a conflict for the user One point of conflict imposed by the Tabs is the type of files to be searched The user could specify the file type by entering a file extension and wildcard for the Named field on the Name amp Location Tab or could select one of the file types from the Of type drop down on the Advanced Tab Changing one of these fields causes the other to change but because they are placed on separate Tabs this change is not visible t
372. tions offer The only way the user can access them is to right click on a filename By their own standards the right click menu is supposed to be an alternative method of accessing menu based functions Since the Open File dialog is a dialog box it should not have menus therefore it should not have a context or right click menu Delete Rename Properties Get Your Pointers Out One particularly bad design feature of the common file dialogs is that they require the use of a pointing device to access certain functions Look in E Clipart The common file dialogs utilize toolbar buttons for the Create New Folder function and to toggle between List and Detail display modes The presence of toolbar buttons in a dialog box is itself enigmatic since toolbar buttons were created to be used as an alternative means of accessing frequently used menu commands Since the dialogs do not have menus and because toolbar buttons do not have captions there is no means to access these functions from the keyboard While the graphical buttons sure are pretty they have no place in a dialog box Ope Perhaps they were Mistaken After All Since first criticizing the right click context menu on the common file dialogs we have received a few letters criticizing our position It seems that a number of people after having become used to the context http www iarchitect com file95 htm 5 of 8 15 02 2001 6 20 31 AM Interface Hall of S
373. tons you always find in this kind of dialog There are none Have the changes been applied Turns out yes No way that I recall to undo the changes The Edit Text Properties dialog is an always stay on top non modal dialog The only way out of it is through the x in the top right control box This is the only such dialog I know of in Notes Once in a while it s convenient to be able to edit multiple Setting text font properties stops me cold every time Select the text and bring http www iarchitect com lotus htm 11 of 13 15 02 2001 6 15 07 AM Interface Hall of Shame Lotus Notes successive selections of text The rest of the time the absence of any buttons confounds me for at least a few moments Frank Kneepkens sent some images describing Notes lack of an automatic wordwrap feature When the incoming messages J have only CR LF s between couple was driving their per paragraphs you see those 5 There stood Santa Claus w1 ays Unfortunately the drivi w paragraphs as one long line when Ks reading the message from the inbox You have to select the hidden horizontal an Se Ee Office e scroll bar to read the line There is no way to set automatic word wrap Complaints to Lotus about this problem are responded to with the canned phrase It s not Lotus Notes s fault it s the sender s Huh To get the message word wrapped you have to do the following 1 put the document in edit mode highlight the body of
374. tter way to get at our pocket books again than to make a better product Our hope is that most developers will take the alternative view that quality sells Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com find95 htm 8 of 8 15 02 2001 6 17 20 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Hall of Shame Windows95 Explorer While the Windows 3 1 File Manager was certainly not perfect it performed file management tasks well Ask a former Windows3 1 user about his or her first impressions of Microsoft Explorer and the response will most likely be Hated it Clues to its problems were evident in some of the early reviews of Windows95 and the many Win95 HowTo books Many authors proclaimed that it will seem difficult at first but after you get used to it you ll find that it makes a lot of sense Imagine telling that to your customers Last updated 15 December 1999 Explorer uses a hierarchical outline control to show the contents of all drives at the same time Microsoft SI Exploring Windows itself reported that new users had difficulty with the File Edt Miew Tools Help control which is why My Computer only shows the window
375. tton Interestingly the Reply To All button has no apparent effect on the message The new user is likely to click on it pause a moment click on it again and perhaps click on it again To see that the button has indeed had an effect the user must open the recipient fields What should have been a single step requires three separate actions of the user Visitor John Kristoff wrote us to describe Notes behavior that he finds particularly problematic When you reply with history the original note you re replying to ends up first being copied into the clipboard and is then pasted into your new e mail Any information you had earlier copied to the clipboard and wanted to paste into your message will be wiped out Because of this bizarre behind the scenes behavior of Notes John learned to use the Forward function instead since it doesn t use the clipboard Unfortunately he then has to manually add the addressees to the message Pressing the Trash button while reading a message has the same apparent effect as the Le Tra ac Nest Unread Reply to All button nothing The typical user will click it click it again scratch his or her The Decision field inthe BILLING DTL amp t head and perhaps look around before clicking it varcharele and should be varchare s per again Still nothing happens While one would expect that the Trash button would close the message and send it to the trash folder it m
376. two will then be selected This is the standard method of multiple selection in Windows and the standard method of multiple selection in Explorer as well as long as you are not using either of the Icon views In the figure the left panel represents the List view in Explorer and the right panel represents the Small Icon view of the same folder In both panels the file labeled 1 was selected first and the file labeled 2 was Shift selected second Notice however that the range of files selected by each is different When in either of the Icon views Explorer selects those objects that fall within the imaginary rectangle bounded by the two selected objects All we can ask 1s Why for what purpose would Microsoft make the same selection method yield different results They switched the rules in the middle of game and here are the likely results The user will wonder what he or she did wrong The user will become frustrated that the computer no longer operates as expected The application s eccentricities will increase the amount of time to learn it http www iarchitect com explore htm 3 of 10 15 02 2001 6 17 49 AM Interface Hall of Shame Win95 Explorer Back in the days when Microsoft followed their own design standards there was a rule that you displayed keyboard shortcuts i bed Windows next to the menu item they were associated with For example File Edit g rather than selecting Copy from the Edit menu you could pr
377. ty of toolbar Add To Favorites buttons by changing the control rules toolbar buttons no sard Organize Favorites longer initiate an action certain special toolbar buttons require the user to distinguish among various types of Pia E Interface Hall of Shame toolbar buttons and may require a subsequent action of the user Since there is no benefit to the design we regard it simply as well Silly E lays Information Architects E We are grateful to visitor Gordon Allison for providing this example Effects Strikethrough T Shadow M Small caps M Double strikethrough F Outline T All caps Superscript l Emboss Hidden M Subscript M Engrave I d like to propose the following example that supports your view that Microsoft s interface design is in the hands of graphic artists not interface designers In the Font dialog box for Word 97 the user can set text attributes using an array of checkboxes no problem there However there a 4 pairs of mutually exclusive options listed strikethrough double strikethrough subscript superscript emboss engrave and all caps small caps the controls look like checkboxes but behave like option buttons Obviously using option buttons would have spoiled the aesthetics of the control group Microsoft s Visual C 5 0 offers developers a rather unusual spin control that caught the attention of visitor Mark Otway As provided by Microsoft the spin control operates completely counte
378. ually resetting them back to their original settings The user must select the OK button to return to the main interface regardless of whether or not changes have been made Additionally as with most of the controls in ReadPlease 2000 there is a huge delay from the time the OK button is clicked until the dialog is closed http www iarchitect com readplease htm 8 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 ReadPlease 2000 s unique architecture is immediately apparent when attempting to acces its Help file Selecting Contents from the Help menu a ES does not open the Help file as would be expected m S Contents but instead causes the Help Tab in the Options o ReadPlel dialog to be displayed over the main interface At that point the user can again ask to see the Help file or can ask to be taken to the ReadPlease website m ReadFlease Free Note that as with the Options dialog discussion Be above the size of the Help Tab in the Options dialog a A is dependent on the size of the main interface if the user resized the main interface smaller portions of the Help Tab will not be readable ReadPlease 2 2000 WM ead please Cor E mall supportreadplease corn There is a good deal more that one could criticize about the ReadPlease 2000 user interface but we hope to have illustrated the main problems with its design It should be clearly evident that usability was not an
379. uct Index Windows95 Who s Where Windows Help Designer Woodworkers Estimate Helper xBlock ZDnet File Finder Zoc for Windows General An in depth review In depth Uncommon file dialogs Artificial Intelligence So is it a floppy or a CD Just assume it knows what you want Problem where none has occurred Single tabs are not OK Improperly grouped tabs Backwards design Unhelpful ordering The difference between us and them We re Number 0 The difference between this and this Tab sheets extraordinaire Why even bother with toolbar images Angry command buttons How many ways can you spell Find Color Stereotypes Fetch Me Some More Jargon Can we fit any more options Drop Downs are Easy Let s use More Thank Heavens for 31 inch Monitors Do As I Mean Hey this 3 D stuff is great Computer geek speak 999 Beers on the Wall Say what you mean or else Stoplight Metaphor Available Space Metaphor Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 10 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame Product Index feedback iarchitect com http www iarchitect com idxprod htm 11 of 11 15 02 2001 6 33 42 AM Playlist Quiz Isys Information Architects Making
380. und from place to place as your brain tries to elicit some sort of order A well designed screen in stark contrast to this image uses position alignment and grouping to organize the information to provide an information flow This not only makes it easier to locate a specific piece of information it relieves the brain from having to subconsciously apply order Some hints Vertically arranged options are scanned much easier Make sure fields are long enough to contain the information Left align labels and their fields within a group e Assign mnemonics to significant letters in the label a for Wait 1 for Fine In all fairness IBM did not develop the Communication Center the application was purchased from a third party provider IBM could have saved themselves some embarrassment if they had reviewed the application before the purchase http www iarchitect com visual htm 14 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements In this example from Time amp Chaos the user might not be aware that the recessed Default Alarm Way File low quality images to the right are actually C AWINDOW S MEDIAS DING WAW a ES command buttons The curious user might ore l find that clicking on the left image opens a eE L ARE 8 ge op File Open dialog and the right image E Ee previews the selected wave file If the user clicks the Preview image we can t really call Ok Apply Peace it a butto
381. under the File menu is a significant improvement over Explorer s Edit menu Home Design Announcements Shame Fame 1996 2000 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited bchayes 1architect com http www iarchitect com clarity htm 23 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 18 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages Isys Information Architects Ma i ing inform il Hon i sab le Interface Hall of Shame Error Messages Imagine you are gathered with your friends and you begin describing a historic event that you witnessed on the television it s AN historic avent You idiot 2 This is how error messages often appear to the user Error messages are often invasive and rude halting the current activity and demanding that you acknowledge them before you are allowed to continue If your friends acted this way they wouldn t remain your friends for long On the other hand many error messages are ambiguous failing to provide meaningful information and at times are simply incorrect potentially causing undue grief and expense to the innocent user Most often an error message is an explicit declaration that the application developer has failed to anticipate the needs or capabilities of the user The examples below demonstrate how error messages should not be written For additional information see our page o
382. us bar descriptions are also delayed resulting in the incorrect description being displayed while the program waits to display the correct description Here s the rule tooltips should be delayed 1 2 seconds but status bar descriptions should be immediate PowerBuilder script File Help Select Cut from the Edit menu of just about any application and what happens The selected text or object is removed January and a copy is placed in the clipboard for later use This 10111 rule is so ingrained that the phrase Cut and Paste could be South 22100 24050 considered a cultural archetype almost everyone over the East 13270 15670 age of four knows what it means 10800 31500 Unfortunately the designers of Microsoft s Excel weren t familiar with the phrase To them Cut means Leave it there or at least Leave it there until I Paste it somewhere else Upon selecting Cut a moving border is drawn around the selection which indicates intuitively speaking Nothing Cut will not remove the selection until the user selects Paste at some later time In Excel Cut really means Indicate the selection you might want to Move at some later time In fact after performing the Paste operation of the complete Cut and Paste sequence the Undo command is labeled Undo Move By changing the rules every new or occasional user of Excel is instantly perplexed when performing the Cut operation The typical user will Cut an
383. used WordPad the File Open dialog would default to the Text Documents txt file type the next time we used WordPad We don t believe that asking a computer to remember something would be asking too much http www iarchitect com stupid htm 9 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Time amp Chaos is a really useful PIM application However it has the unnerving tendency to interrupt the user with useless statements The following message is displayed and requires a response whenever the user has made changes to the program settings It s almost as though the program is seeking a pat on the head Time amp Chaos E Settings Sayed If there is any benefit to this intrusion perhaps we should display similar messages for other command selections The selected text has been copied OK You have selected Print OK e Your page has been printed OK We ll stop now OK When you exit the event scheduling 7 program Automate Pro the program Close AutoMate Ed thoughtfully reminds you that doing so will 2 IF you cloze AutoMate your tasks will not be performed Are you sure you want to guit prevent all scheduled tasks from being performed The fact that it also warns you even when you have no tasks scheduled caused us to wonder just how much we should rely on the program BackUp Data Welcome to BackUp These compressed backup files will be located In your Time a
384. ut not for the omnipresent player window Fortunately the designers did not prefer purple buttons against a hot pink background or diamond plate to brushed metal The color scheme of the QuickTime 4 0 Player not only represents a complete disregard for the user s color preferences but the particular scheme selected leads to a number of important interface problems Most notably all of the controls appear to be unavailable In a properly designed application muted colors are used to provide a disabled appearance to any controls that are unavailable at a given point in the interaction The designers made no effort to distinguish between controls that are available and those that are not As shown below the image on the left was captured before a movie had been loaded and the image on the right was captured after a movie had been loaded or was it the other way around The Play button is available in one scenario but not the other Unfortunately the designers felt that providing subtle cues to guide the user s interaction would have amounted to visual noise The designers were apparently unaware of one of the basic rules of GUI design A GUI should provide GUlIdance HEA BBA alahala The designers were not unaware of the information that subtle color change can provide they just seem to employ such changes at curious times This image illustrates the appearance of the Play button after it has been clicked and released that is
385. visible in the display has the unexpected and unwanted effect of increasing the size of all the controls in the window The end result is that the controls consume a huge amount of real estate which reduces the amount of real estate available to display the text which is the user s original purpose for resizing the window This behavior is entirely inconsistent with the user s expectation of window resizing The only reason for this inconsistency in this particular application is that the designer was mistakingly trying to protect the visual integrity of the metaphor rather than considering the user s purpose for resizing the window The adherence to the visual metaphor has additional screen real estate concerns PDA s have a border surrounding the Headr ease lt uuy display so the designer of ReadPlease 2000 added a similar File Edt Help border This border serves no purpose other than to maintain the visual metaphor and in so doing needlessly consumes an inordinate amount of screen real estate Because of the PeadPlease 2000 inappropriate use of proportional screen resizing increasing the size of the display has the effect of proportionally increasing this border resulting in an even greater waste of screen real estate http www iarchitect com readplease htm 4 of 9 15 02 2001 6 13 42 AM Interface Hall of Shame ReadPlease 2000 It would appear that the designer did not want to completely waste all that spac
386. w options all of the options except the Picture Placeholders option Will take effect when the user switches to a different tab In addition when the user switches to a different tab after changing any of these option the Cancel button changes to Close This latter feature means that these changes cannot be cancelled without manually resetting them to their original values Other options on this tab and on other tabs in the dialog are subject to this inconsistent application of the rules and these inconsistencies were carried into later versions of the Office suite of applications Such inconsistencies prevent the the user from anticipating the behavior of the application make it more difficult to learn how to use this and other applications and make for an uncomfortable computing experience http www iarchitect com tabs htm 2 of 21 15 02 2001 6 03 26 AM Interface Hall of Shame Tabbed Dialogs In Word 6 0 Microsoft attempted to increase the utility of the tab metaphor by increasing the number of tabs in the dialog Unfortunately this increase in utility resulted in a serious decrease in usability In effect the designers took a good idea and extended it to the point were it negated any benefits it made possible Options xj x _ E The sheer number of tabs in the dialog intimidates new users and makes it difficult for the user at any experience level to locate a particular tab of interest The arrangement of the tabs
387. ware application we probably would not have taken much notice of it and we certainly would not have devoted the time and attention to it we have here What most captured our attention about the application was IBM s shameless promotion of the application s usability In addition to the proclamations of state of the art and intuitive design IBM promoted the design through white papers touting their design philosophy and the merits of real world design while also pointedly mocking the established design principles that have made computers accessible to millions of users As to the benefits of IBM s real world design let s get real an application modeled after a plastic CD case The basic premise of their philosophy 1s that users will transfer their knowledge of the real world counterpart to the computer representation Our challenge to IBM is as follows what possible knowledge could a user transfer from a plastic CD case that could remotely help them to play CD s on his or her computer A plastic CD case is as it is for 2 reasons a it is an inexpensive means to protect the CD and b its compact design reduces shipping and transportation costs The only aspect of the real CD case design that relates to usability is that the tracks are listed on the outside of the case so that prospective buyers do not have to open the case to see which songs are contained on the CD We find it sadly amusing that self proclaimed design professionals droppe
388. ware look like a hand held player and far too little time examining how they might add utility to such a player A hand held player is just that a player A software based multimedia viewer can become an information device It would appear that this latter approach was never considered in the design of QuickTime We should all be disturbed by this trend Apple devotees should be enraged Apple has amassed a dedicated following of users due without question to Apple s attention to the user interface If the user interface of the QuickTime 4 0 Player is an indication of the future of GUI design at Apple Apple s leadership should certainly be worried Without that attention to the user http www iarchitect com qtime htm 14 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 21 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 interface there is no real reason for a dedicated following among its users Our hope is that apologists for the real world design philosophy will take a serious look at the limitations of their approach It would seem that this approach has arisen from a belief that the current state of GUI design has stagnated and that a radical design approach 1s necessary The constancy of the desktop model might be explained in terms of the constancy of steering wheels and pedals in automobiles they work very well We do not dispute that there 1s room for improvement and we do not wish to detract from any sincere effort to explore alternatives Unfortunately ins
389. ware must not make the computer appear to be stupid Our overiding goal is to delight the user which we accomplish by anticipating needs and exceeding expectations Benefits Due to our careful attention to the user interface Isys Information Architects can reduce system development time increase end user productivity and reduce training costs Background Isys Information Architects designers have provided design consultations design seminars and usability engineering services to a wide variety of national and multi national companies Isys Information Architects president Brian C Hayes has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in human factors engineering and user interface design and has conducted extensive research into GUI design and adaptive assistance software ser List of Publications List of Publications Our staff has provided design services in the following types of applications http www iarchitect com mdesign htm 1 of 2 14 02 2001 5 44 12 PM Isys Interface Design and Usability Engineering e CMMS Applications e Human Resource Management e Computer Assisted Design Industrial Automation Computer Assisted Instruction e International Applications Customer Support Military Tactical Systems Database Reporting Systems e Order entry Retail Systems Facilities Layout and Design Telephony Systems Financial Applications Services Isys Information Architects serves as a facilitator betw
390. while a movie is playing The change me reflects two possible intentions of the designers a they wanted to let the user know mem button had been clicked or b they wanted to let the user know that a movie is currently playing Whatever their intention might have been the net effect is that the Play button now appears enabled while the Stop button appears disabled The designers have the means to provide control state information to the user they just need some direction in when that information should be provided Curiously a different color change is occasionally used in the QuickTime Player to indicate the post click state of other controls Q For example after the user has opened the Advanced Controls http www iarchitect com qtime htm 5 of 15 14 02 2001 5 57 20 PM Interface Hall of Shame QuickTime 4 0 Panel the controlling button in the upper right hand area of the image takes on a darker appearance presumably to indicate that the panel is open We would have thought that the very appearance of the panel itself would be sufficient to indicate that the panel is open Based in part on the selected color scheme the user cannot distinguish between actual controls and incidental images None of the standard affordances are provided to indicate which objects on the screen are indeed controls Moreover certain controls have the exact same visual characteristics as incidental graphics There is nothing about the
391. will not cause music to be played Similarly the program displays a sailing ship in the opening window yet the Sailing Animation On menu option does not initiate animation Some users might never try these menu options again and some we would expect would simply remove the seemingly bug ridden program from their PCs without exploring further We chose not to remove the program just yet We wanted to learn enough about the game to be able to fairly evaluate its interface and chose the How to Play PIRATES menu command We were then rewarded with perhaps the worst Help system we have yet to come across part of which is displayed here n Ship Upgrades a Additional Info The first thing that you will need to do is to create a PIRATES Player Profile A Player Profile is a special file with a prp extension which contains information about your self and the pirate that you will become in the game Besides contamine a player s name email address and location this file The Pirates help system consists of a very lengthy ReadMe like textual description of the game and 20 command buttons to navigate to sections of the document We re just grateful that the game wasn t so complicated as to require 40 or 50 sections thankfully the relative simplicity of the game left some room to read the help file Despite the plethora of buttons there were two that were noticeably absent Close this window and Print The only way to close the h
392. wing insight Visual Basic encountered an error that was generated by the system or an external component and no other useful information was returned The specified error number is returned by the system or external component usually from an Application Interface call and is displayed in hexadecimal and decimal format In other words Something bad happened We don t know what it was or what caused it All we do know is that the hexadecimal number you see is a hexadecimal number but the number itself http www iarchitect com errormsg htm 11 of 18 14 02 2001 6 01 38 PM Isys Information Architects Error Messages is meaningless What the help file left out was the solution reboot windows again Hicrosoft Access Which of Microsoft s minions is responsible for this error message in Access 95 The error message results when the user has selected a record to be deleted then presses the Delete button We can understand the desire to obtain confirmation from the user before performing a destructive action but we find the wording of the message to be particularly presumptuous Solution implies that there is a problem In this case there is no problem the user in effect said Delete the record We are also bothered by the permitted alternatives of Yes and No in response to a non question The developer might just as well have labeled the buttons Potatoes and Ham and said Click Potatoes to permanently delete t
393. wouldn t be much of a problem if the cursor indicated that you were in a particular drawing mode but without that feedback the user is likely to inadvertently draw quite a few objects Since the pointing cursor is exactly the same as the drawing cursor the user is often likely to create a new object when all he or she intended was to point and select an existing object http www iarchitect com visual htm 8 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements This image is from the G F Construction Set and lists the files selected to be included in the Selected tiles animated image to be created The user can add COVGRAPHICSVGIFCON YE ORM based a and delete files at this point in the program but CGR ARTIC SI GIE CON WE ORM bases unfortunately the designer s didn t provide enough HOMEAMtsimalSehSUmeLelRiNAmeladihslsrter space to read the entire file name In this example COVSRAPHICSIGIFCON WY ORM based the files are labeled base9a gif through LWGRAPHICSIGIFCOM WY ORM bas an base9k gif COVSRAPHICSIGIFCORMY FORM based w In case you were wondering you cannot scroll to ae Delete the right what you see is what you get To add insult to injury one third of the form is taken up with the company s logo Not to be outdone Microsoft Access 2 0 decided against sizing the control to contain its data This combo box is provided in the development environment and lists all of the subroutines and function
394. ws operating system We provide custom programming database and application development services r3 Fame is a collection of a images that demonstrate interface design solutions that are both creative and effective The Interface Hall of Isys Information Architects Inc 5401 McNairy Drive Suite 100 Greensboro NC 27455 bchayes 1architect com 1996 1999 Isys Information Architects Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission 1s prohibited http www iarchitect com index htm 14 02 2001 5 43 57 PM Isys Interface Design and Usability Engineering Home Design Announcements Hall of Shame New Entries Controls Stupidity Visual Color Terminology Errors Tabs Metaphors Globalization In Depth Books Links Index Feedback Hall of Fame Contact Us Isys Information Architects Making information usable Interface Design and Usability Engineering Overview The look and feel of the application can be the single most important determinant of its value to the user Isys Information Architects specializes in the design of highly usable interfaces that are easily learned minimize user frustration and maximize user productivity We begin with the system requirements and a few basic rules Software must assist the user perform a task not become a task in itself Software must not make the user feel stupid e Soft
395. x The message was displayed when Stephen attempted to install Microsoft s Visual J on a PC that was running low on hard disk space It would appear that Microsoft s QA testing group never tried to install the product on a similarly overburdened PC Paint Shop Pro offers a very handy Browse function that displays thumbnail images of each of the graphic images in any particular folder A double click on the image of interest opens the image for editing Paint Shop Pro File Unfortunately the Browse function has one very annoying interface feature After a Browse operation has been performed the Browse menu item disappears to browse a different folder you must select New Folder from the File menu Despite the fact that we ve been heavy users of Paint Shop Pro for several years this feature still throws us when we want to perform a browse we look for an item labelled Browse Browse While we can somewhat recognize the rationale for renaming the menu item PSP s designers failed to consider the problems it would cause In addition to the fact that the function seems to have disappeared the phrase New Folder has a different meaning in the Windows operating system i e to create a New Folder Further and quite fortunately PSP does not rename other menu items Paint Shop Pro File http www iarchitect com clarity htm 6 of 23 14 02 2001 6 00 17 PM Interface Hall of Shame Terminology under
396. y being searched The user can interrupt the search by selecting either the Stop or New Search buttons The actual animation is more detailed and much smoother than this facsimile http www iarchitect com mfame htm 2 of 8 14 02 2001 5 56 00 PM Interface Hall of Fame The most recently used files MRU concept represented a 1VOLVO DOL real boon to efficient interface 2 C DOCUMENTSCLERICALSRESUME DOC design The application 3C DOCUMENTSCLERICALSBUSCARD DOC maintains a brief list of the 4 CADOCUMENTSCONTACTS DOC files you recently accessed with the application Its use is based on the observation that most people tend to return to the same file upon restarting an application Rather than traversing the file hierarchy the user can return to a recently used file with a single mouse click E xit Even though the concept has been around for quite a while few programmers employ it in their applications Any document centric application can benefit from the use of MRU lists Its benefits are not limited to document editing applications such as text sound and graphics editors but also any application in which the user deals with conceptual objects such as employee profiles reports and even address books Rather than being a feature the MRU list should be regarded as a standard Open a Waveform Ed Recent Directores cmsvic c plus Weavers Look ir E Media Bal 2 Robotz Question wav ii Robota Win
397. y you cannot make the area smaller and we are particularly perplexed as to why Microsoft chose to place a Two Way Traffic sign on a one way street http www iarchitect com visual htm 10 of 20 14 02 2001 5 54 31 PM Interface Hall of Shame Visual Elements One aspect of Paint that can make it i particularly difficult to use is that the image fsi Logo bmp Paint Sl does not automatically scroll as you attempt Hle Edit View Image Options Help to move objects beyond the current boundaries of the viewable area As shown in the illustration the object still appears to be moving beyond the viewable area but since the area does not automatically scroll the user has no idea of the object s position relative to other information in the image When this occurs there is nothing the user can do about this except attempt to paste it into a safe area undo the paste scroll the window to display the appropriate area then begin the move or paste operation again Unfortunately if you have a particularly wide image it may be impossible to move an object from one side of the image to the other IF you wish to addy change network information please select one of the following options WANT TO CONNECT TO AN ESISTING TIME amp CHADS WORKGROUP OR MODIFY THE CONNECTION SETTINGS f WANT TO BUILD A BRAND NEW WORKGROUP Some of the network options in Time amp Chaos must be REALLY IMPORTANT Why else would the developers
398. ype I would have selected SaveAs and specified a different file type This occurs each time you save the document even if you haven t closed it between changes http www iarchitect com stupid htm 8 of 18 14 02 2001 5 58 34 PM Interface Hall of Shame Stupidity Cave as Save ir E3 Ybstart H base gif Save as type GIF files Cancel Open as read only This option in this particular dialog in the GIF Construction Set could leave quite a few users scratching their respective heads It might even cause some of them to immediately cancel the dialog thinking that they selected File Open rather than File Save Open Look ir Sy Website L iarchitect L Update Snip Files of type word for Windows 6 0 doc Cancel We have never opened a Word document in Microsoft s WordPad Yet every time we attempt to open a document in WordPad it assumes that we want to open a Word document We use WordPad to edit our HTML documents such as the one you are reading now but WordPad does not provide an HTML documents htm file type option nor does it provide the ability to add it to the list of file types which really would have been useful While hoping for that feature might be expecting too much what we would really like to see 1s that WordPad be given the ability to remember the last specified file type Thus if we specified Text Documents txt the last time we

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