Only tangentially related to your posting, but reading it brought to mind the Firefox Vimperator plugin…took a bit getting used to, but now I see it as essential. It basically gives you a vi interface to firefox…death to toolbars, icons, and menus. The only thing that remains is the website and your tabs. Everything is done using single character shortcuts and :commands for more complex things. If you try it out, just keep in mind “I” is the shortcut for turning off vi mode…which can be very frustrating when typing in something AJAXy and every “o” tries to open a new page, etc.

@Travis – LOL! That’s definitely going to be rule #12

You forgot the worst one ever (other then microshits new interface for word)

I DO NOT WANT HELP FROM A FUCKING PAPER CLIP…. EVER
:D

Foxit rules. I always install it on my windows boxen.

Funny thing – on Linux acroread by Adobe is actually a semi-decent, albeit a bit dated PDF viewer. On windows it’s a bloated horror!

Love it. I agree on all points. This is why I went out and searched for alternatives to bloatware like Adobe Reader. Not only does it have the craptacularily annoying splash screen, but the fucking thing takes up 60 to 70 MBs of HD space…to do what?!? I found an app called Foxit PDF Reader…it does all the same stuff and is only 2.5 Mb or so…and no splash screen.

One of the biggest annoyances, for me, is what you described in #7. Webcam drivers are famous for this. Why the hell do I need all the drivers running IF I AM NOT USING THE FUCKING THING? Why? For fun? I use Starter to turn this shit off, and only turn the resource hogs on when I need them…which is hardly ever.

I

@Terminallycute hehe – your blog has a cool title too. ;)

@Tobias – thanks. I tend to do that lose/loose thing a lot. Somehow my brain got wired the wrong way for these things. One day I hope it will finally click in and I will stop doing that stupid mistake.

@varci – you make a very good point about #1. I totally agree that there needs to be balance. I think when I wrote that I was thinking about applications like Adobe Reader which wait to load every single plugin and feature before displaying the UI. They could just as easily start rendering page and just activate the plugins in the background. Or IE waiting and blocking till it loads the whole page, vs. the Gecko rendering the page as it loads. But yeah – sometimes it pays off to wait.

#4 – splash screens almost always cause the load process to be longer. The graphic must be fetched from HD, displayed on the screen and etc. If you skip these steps you can sometimes shave off even up to a second from the startup process which may not seem much but it does make a difference.

#5 – this is why skinning is such a nice thing to have. If the icons are confusing you just apply a different skin. :)

#8 – yeah, I know that this is the idea behind the tips on startup. But I seriously haven’t seen anyone ever use these things. People always either disable them or ignore them. No one reads them or clicks that “next tip” button. I’m saying this based on observing coworkers, and my students over the past few years. It’s really better to have good documentation available from the Help menu, or that “what is this” context menu option than randomized, tips on startup.

For example, instead of displaying “Did you know you can save your document using Ctrl+H” it’s better to have a clearly labeled “Keyboard Shortcuts” help page listing them all in one place, or better yet, a key binding menu where you can review and change these shortcuts.

I’ll give it a burl:

#1: Waiting until something is fully loaded before presenting itself to you is what linux does. Windows presents itself to you before it’s finished loading, and if you try to do stuff before it’s fully loaded, you get frustrated at slow response times and half-arsed functionality. While it is annoying to wait excessively long times to load (hello OOo) for really fringe shit to load, it’s also annoying to try something and then have it wait just as long until that module is loaded.

There needs to be a balance somewhere between an application being half-arsed and being a total arse.

#4: Splash screens suck if they’re taking more time than it takes to load the app in question. If they’re just there while the app is loading, who really cares? If anything, it’s helpful for support since splash screens invariably list version and build numbers, which is useful for situations where the app crashes before you can Help > About… or have an extra-clueless user.

#5: UI icons are important. Admittedly not as important as the function the button performs. There’s not a lot of difference between an average icon and a good icon, but there’s a world of difference between a bad icon and an average icon. I’ve just finished testing some software that has three buttons on the same toolbar that all look like a page with a folded corner, and they all do markedly different things. Each individual icon makes sense in what it refers to, but even I still occasionally have to mouse over them to remember which one is which.

#8: Tips on startup almost always have a checkbox you can untick. If you don’t like them, you see them once. Having them on by default gives new users the knowledge that there’s a resource available. And I defy anyone to say that help documentation is undesirable.

Greyed-out menu items: I’d much rather an unavailable menu item grey out than have it look available and ‘just not function’ when selected. If greying out is done correctly, it helps you get an idea of what menu items are available in different modes of the software, just through random exposure to other items on the menu.

I thoroughly agree with #6, but #2 is the best thing on the list. Stealing focus from other applications is one of the most evil behaviours around.

Tobias: Unfortunately, we ‘losers’ are losing out to the ‘loosers’ online. It’s so insanely prevalent on the net that it will eventually become an alternate spelling. But keep fighting the good fight.

All good points, and I think the reason these flaws persist is that most windows users simply don’t care about UI; they just live with whatever they have. Myself, I care a lot about UI, and that’s part of the reason I use a Mac.

Also, in point 9, I think you meant to type losing, not loosing – losing is to lose something, loosing is to set it loose (just a little pet peeve of mine).

hmmm….so tell me, do you think splash screens suck? *grinchuckles*

Great article. I’m alllll over #1. I have zero patience.

~TC

BTW, I really just wanted to leave you a comment ’cause I liked the name of your blog.

I had a good laugh over most of these points, especially #6 :mrgreen:

They’re all very true… Thankfully almost all of my applications don’t do/have any of these problems :D