Talkative antivirus

 

I have had Symnatec running on my laptop for several years now (corporate policy).  An anti-virus, which is what Symantec is, should  ideally work in the background, making every important decision independently and pulling the user into the loop only under super catastrophic conditions.

Symantec quite often does just  the opposite.

For example, look at this dialog box that pops up every time my computer boots up. 

The dialog box exists to inform me of existing risks and actions that I can/should take. 99% of the time, there is no risk to be reported. The dialog box still pops up with an empty grid which (1) leaves it to me to figure out the status and then (2) making me take a worthless action (of clicking the ok button) to dispose the window.

Either Symantec should not show the dialog box when there is nothing to report or very, very explicitly share the good news that my computer right now is super safe!

 

Here is another one.

The error message from hell.

A critical application (an anti-virus) is telling me that a critical task (remediation meaning weeding out the virus) has failed.

Now that my machine is probably infected with a hazardous virus written by a ravaging psychopath, all I get is an OK button.

No information about the failing task, or its criticality, or the reason for failure and most important. What should I do next ?

 

There are others that Symantec keep bludgeoning me with. Watch this space.

 

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Sigh-n

Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.

Departure signage listing the departure time, flight numbers, destinations and gate numbers...sorted on ...uh....departure time.

Imagine trying to find out what time the delayed flight to Seattle leaves.

They might as well sort it on gate number, it will require a part table scan anyway...

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A dentist with yellow teeth (or recursive bad usability)

I have always wondered.

Would a customer select a usability expert company whose website has a bad user experience?

I followed the link that Vinodh has pointed out in his earlier blog. Here is a screen grab.

Notice...

1. Using the typical (and a tad boring) Web 2.0 pattern, the designer tries to create a three step process to obtain the calendar. So step one, select the language, step two select the size and whoa.. where is step 3? Is translating the third step?

It is right there, blind boy, the green box - the one that looks like an ad - is actually the action button

2. The "translate the calendar" link takes you to a landing page for YOU to translate the calendar and send it to THEM. It has no relationship to the step 1 and 2 described above

3. And what's with the grammatically incorrect sentences? Surely, this not part of the causal English syndrome, is it?

Sad. BTW, had this not been the output of a usability expert company, I would have let this one pass

Here is one of my earlier rants about another user experience magazine.

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Bad Usability Calendar 2008

NetLife Research is a Norwegian based User Experience design and consulting firm. For the last couple of years they have been releasing a bad usability calendar which is meant to show examples of bad UX and usability.

This year's calendar has great examples of exaggerated use of web 2.0 design,social bookmarking proliferation, drop down menus, message feeds etc.

You can download this year's calender here.

Interesting way to portray UX and design bloopers!

How far would you go for help ?

 

 

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Junk folder

Just realized why my junk filter was being ineffective!

With four potential options, the mind somehow imagines two options for blocking, and two for marking safe. (Is it just that or is there a muscle memory  where an older version of Outlook had a "add Sender's domain to blocked list?)

 

Simple grouping would make this UX more usable. Just a seperator line between the first and the second option.

Better still, the option label starting with the actual action. For example "Block Sender...", "Block sender's domain", "Allow Sender..." etc. In the current form, you need to read to the third or fourth word to know the difference...

Give before you demand...

In my search for a good video editing software (any recommendations?), landed up on the Pinnacle Studio web page and was trying to find the nearest brick and mortar to buy the software.

This is what I got.

Not only can I not expand a zip-code based search without a radius parameter, would  it not have been F-DAU had they just showed the nearest dealer based on what ever information they had? Wasn't this a fabulous opportunity for continuity of experience by suggesting other ways to buy? etc?

Web check -it...

Adding to my list of traveler's travails...

Delta airlines. Web check-in screen.

There are three ways to identify your itinerary : frequent flier, confirmation and e-Ticket number.

And I am asked to identify the identifier through the radio button. Unnecessarily. Each type has a unique pattern. In this example, the eTicket number always starts with 006, in other cases, say Alaska, confirmation number is 6 digit alphanumeric, eTicket number is 13 digit numeric. Etc.

Cummon, don't make me work. Make those programmers work :)

BTW, at an uber-level, web check in as a feature itself is great usability for the airline "users".

Google-y??

At least once a day or in two days, we all pay our ritualistic visit to Orkut, only because Facebook has taken over that frenzy. Well, I recently paid one such visit, and wanted to message a friend of mine. However, to my great surprise, I could not find a ‘Search’ button on the page!

The only option is to hit ‘Return’ to get to the search results!

Even though I understand that when Google started off, they did put a tool-tip saying ‘You can hit Return instead of clicking the Search button to get the results faster’, did they just assume we all learned?

Assumed intelligent behavior?

Google Talk's Schizophrenia Problem

As you all know, google put a small Google talk box on the gmail page. Nice touch I thought. So now when I check mail, I can also see people online.

Now the problem is when you're logged on to the desktop client too. Then a window pops up in gmail as well as gtalk, but if your friend is using the desktop client and so are you, then only the first message comes up in the Gmail client.

If you thought that was it, I'm just getting started :).

If you start talking to a friend on the Gmail client, then later move to the desktop client, you can't see you're recent messages. And by chance if you're friend is using the Gmail client, all messages keep appearing there. Oh boy!!

And now for the killer. If you're using just the gmail client, you start talking to a friend, but managing multiple chats inside the gmail client is a pain. Imagine having multiple windows as below clouding the bottom part of your Gmail page.


The guys at Google thought of that, and they created this nifty feature of allowing you to pop out a chat window.
So you might have multiple chat windows open at any point of time. But once in a while, you might refresh the gmail page to see if you have any new mail. Or God forbid you close the browser. And poof!, all the chat windows you popped out are gone!!!

Google though gives you this very handy message below!


P.S. I thought I wouldn't post screenshots for the rest of the issues so as not to take the focus away from this gem :).

Spot the file name!!

When I installed Microsoft Office on my machine, it set Microsoft Picture Manager as my default viewer to open images. I wanted to take a look at the picture’s filename and after a whole lot of looking around, I figured out it was at the bottom left corner. The application title bar just shows “Microsoft Office Picture Manager” and not the filename as if it is the name of every file which was being opened. :)

These "sixes" are not thrilling...

On the day, Punjad da puttar hit six sixes in six balls, here are six screens you have to bear before finally connecting to a wireless.

Irritating, no?

Remember those Attachments?

coffee.fetchNow();
post.History(initial, followUp);

User Scenario (for the Problem Statement)

Dave Burton has just finished working the sales forecast for the quarter. His boss, Lee Hunt, asked for the document by the end of the day. Dave switches to his Outlook window, and creates a new email. He types:

Lee,

I’ve attached the sales forecast you requested for. Please review and comment.

Dave.

Dave clicks the “Send” button, and goes out for his well deserved coffee break. When he’s back, he sees the following reply from Lee.

Dave:

I didn’t receive any document in your email. Please check and revert asap.

Lee.

“Whoa!” thinks Dave. He forgot to attach the document. This time, doubly careful, attaches the document in reply to Lee’s mail. His email body reads:

Lee,

I guess I forgot to attach the document the last time. Please find it attached here.

Dave.

The Solution

User Scenario

Dave Burton has just finished working the sales forecast for the quarter. His boss, Lee Hunt, asked for the document by the end of the day. Dave switches to his Outlook window, and creates a new email. He types:

Lee,

I’ve attached the sales forecast you requested for. Please review and comment.

Dave.

Dave clicks the “Send” button, thinking about going for a well deserved coffee break, when he sees a message pop-up.

Dave clicks on “Yes”, thinking “phew, thank you for reminding me!”

Feature Specification

Outlook should be able to automatically detect the user’s intention to send an attachment with an email by unobtrusively looking in the email body for words, which we shall call “attachment-indicating” words or phrases.

Following is the set of attachment indication words & phrases [Note: this list will be revised after the usability tests.]

• Attachment
• Attach
• Here you go

Normal Flow

The user is in the Compose Mode. The Compose mode includes New Message, Editing a Draft Message, Reply, Reply All & Forward email options.

The attachment auto-detect feature is turned on. This could be implemented as a separate thread, process or program. The spec will use “thread” as a metaphor to describe its functionality.

The thread checks whether there is an attachment to the mail already. If there is, it stops.

If there is no attachment, then the thread periodically scans the new content in the email body for any attachment indicating words or phrases. As soon as it finds one, it sets off a flag.

If the any of the email content is deleted, the thread runs its checks again, and updates the flag accordingly (if any word/phrase still exists, then keep the flag on, else turn it off).

When the user clicks on the Send button, check for the status of the flag before sending email. If the flag is on, then prompt the user with the following message.

If the user clicks

• Yes: Close the message dialog, and focus the cursor on the “Attached” field of the email. Display the “Attached” field if it wasn’t displayed earlier.
• No: Close the message dialog, and send the email.
• Cancel: Close the message box, and place the cursor in its last position in the email body.

Alternate Flows

The user decides to save the email to send later

Behavior: The flag status is stored as well, and the checks resume when the user opens up the message in the drafts folder.

The user cancels the message

Behavior: The flag status for that message is also deleted.

The user has multiple windows open in the Compose Mode

Behavior: Each message has its own flag, and each flag status is maintained even if the user switches windows.

Also Applies to:

New Appointment, New Meeting Request

p.s.: This is the first post I've written with some commercial interest. At last I'm making money by blogging.

The other "traveling salesman" problem

This dialog box - in it's current state - works just fine if you use it for that once a year vacation... For users on the move, people who are OO 3-4 times a month, ability to "schedule" OO is a must.

Here is a recommendation. (Thanks, Sid, for the screen design)

It takes one thing off the checklist before one shuts the laptop before heading out of office.

The cobbler's son is without shoes

Here is the homepage of a magazine dedicated to user expereince. Every rule broken. Every mistake repeated. Crowded, cluttered, static, bricks of text. Scattered colors. Uni - No - Zero dimensional !!

Which reminds me of one of the first puzzles my dad had posed to me.

You go to a village that has two barbers. The first is in a dishelved shop, with torn clothes and a bad haircut, the other is in a shiny shop, wearing an apron and well trimmed. Who would you go to?

I obviously answered it wrong all those years ago. Just tells me that the experts are busy fixing user experiences some place else. Good for them.

A click in time ...

Installed PhotoShop for fixing red-eyes and such. Now, an automatic downloader launches every time I plug my camera or phone into USB.

I searched around in the dialog box to find a way to turn it off (A simple checkbox would have got Adobe a happy user). Read help and realized I need to go to the preferences box (A button to launch it? Nope. Hyperlink to a help page which tell me where to find the preferences dialog box. No Sir, the developers are in a morale event)

Open Adobe PhotoShop. Preferences are in the Edit Menu. Non standard for a Microsoft application. Clicking preferences throws up submenu with 10 items. Damn.

Trawl through each item and reach Organize and Share (10th item :)

Clicking it opens another application (Organizer) !!! along with a dialog box titled preferences. And finally find the checkbox.

Whew!!!

What printer is that, again?

A label in the print dialog box of Outlook 2007 threw me off.

Does this mean, if I choose a printer other than my default, the attachments would not print? Or would they just not print on the printer I selected?

And without nitpicking - a good UX designer should- the spacing and allignement between the checkbox and the label does not conform to the Microsoft standard user interface guidelines.

What's your DNA?

This is from an Chicago-based NGO's website. If you haven't volunteered before, you better know your DNA (mine's GATC ATTC... :P) (click on img for larger size)

What they really want the user to do is type "DNA" meaning "does not apply" in the field. Huh?!

DNA apart, there are other UX bloopers in this form. What do you think they are?

Viewing pictures in WinZip

To open a picture from a picture folder in windows picture and fax viewer, you navigate through the pictures with the help of the arrow keys.

Try doing the same in a zipped folder of pictures.

You wont be able to navigate through your arrow keys, instead if you press the arrow key to view the next picture the same picture would come up again or you may see some picture which you never expected. This is because WinZip shows the picture, which is already stored in the Temp folder of your hard drive.

WinZip should automatically open and store the picture in the temp folder whenever user clicks on the arrow key to view the next picture.

Bad Usability on Rails?!

Now Indian Railways is not really concerned about usability, but they do some interesting things sometimes, which sometimes go bad, and sometimes good.

A recent example is when they started using a new standard for coach names. The earlier standard for naming A/C coaches was AS1, AS2 etc., which everybody understood. AS1 stood for A/C sleeper 1. The last time I was travelling, I was surprised to find the coach name as B2. Now this didn't convey anything. It also created apprehension that the system might have assigned a non-A/C coach against my reservation.

Thankfully, when the train finally came, I realized they've changed the standard!!!

The next surprise came when I was ready to sleep. I noticed there was an overhead lamp, and it had the seat numbers on it.Its clear why they did this. People who get on at night don't disturb those who are sleeping. But how obvious is it that you have to stare straight up to read it? Maybe they just expect everybody to look up for help from dear God whenever they're confused, and VOILA!! :)