Seven deadly excuses for poor design

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Installers. Menus.

I too usually complain about "always" and "never", but "Best Practices" usually use those words to set firm guidelines that are not broken until someone has enough experience. Having enough experience is defined as when you broke the rule, got away with it, and nobody says it would have been better if you followed the rule.

--- "The best example of a multi-answer screen is entries that correspond exactly to the source <ocument."
I think you are referring to computerizing a paper form. Is that what you mean by "source document"? I have written articles about the differences between paper and computer forms. The main point is that paper is limited vertically, so everything is forced on the minumum number of pages; computers should rarely have two fields on one horizontal line (Best Practice would say "never".)

Users have learned not to trust progress bars. Lotus progress bars take forever to get to 30%, then complete quickly. MS progress bars get to 80% in minutes, then take hours to finish. The only usable proress bars are ones that state the current page and how many pages of questions, but that defeats the dynamic ability of Wizards. If the number of pages changes, do you add it as page "4A" so the total stays the same, but sometimes the page counter does not increment, earning more distrust? Or do you have the total include all possibilities, and scare the user with a large number?

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"You mean there's more?"
Paraphrasing: The PC did something so the user's tolerance level for more questions is reset.

My trouble with this is I believe every install program should be able to be run from a scripted configuration file. Every question must be known before starting (or the programmers could not have written the code.) Every answer must be known before starting (or just wait until you have the answers.) The GUI installer should just create that script, starting background processes as it goes. If the background process needs an answer that is not ready, it should quit and the next answer will start it again. This is simple to program.

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"I don't know why Windows doesn't start processing while receiving the answers."
Because MSWindows programmers still believe the computer is single-tasking. Most MS programs act that way. So do most other programs. Why do programs freeze while manually saving? Some can do scheduled saves in the background , but that code is not used when the user does it.

Windows could install most of the files in the background if the second question was "Where do you want to install?" The only other critical question is for the COA (personal identification number proving you own it), so ask that first. (I expect that question would be asked early in case it aborts the process, but MSWindows does not ask until after the files are copied.)

For the record, Linux programmers are not any better about this. Installing Linux follows the same "ask, then do" model.

I keep expecting programmers to think logically.

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File - Edit - View - {others} - Help
Most GUIs try to force their commands into this menu. And people have become "used to it". Isn't this article about avoiding the need for users to become "used to it". Best Practice is to keep the menus consistent. Great, but the current standard was set by MSWord (possible earlier, but that is off-topic.) I doubt the original programmers expected that their menu labels would haunt application development for more than a decade, and be applied to programs like browsers that have completely different needs.

"Tools" is a really bad label for anything. The computer and every command are Tools. What makes these commands special? Should the label be "Misc" for everything that did not fit in another menu? Why is MSWord's and MSExcel's "Spelling" under "Tools" rather than "Format"? Why is Excel's "Sort" under "Data" rather than "Format"? "Data" is another generic term. Most of the commands apply to data; should "Format" and "Save" be on the "Data" menu?

I wish the standard was less silly, but I doubt it can be changed. Programs will be criticized if they do not follow it. MS could make the attempt, but people have stopped buying their products so their changes would have little impact for many years. When I write a program that needs menus, I will think very hard before discarding "File/Open|Save|Exit" and "Edit/Copy|Paste".

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Does "SP2" refer to MSWindowsXP? I do not use it. My comments were about Mozilla's graphics security.

You are correct. This conversation is too complex for ZDNet. Do you have a Slashdot ID?

Posted by: solprovider   Posted on: 09/03/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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