Ok, this is just funnier than hell.

[kickaha]

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/2e680b8d-211e-41c5-a0bf-9ccc6d7e62a21033.mspx

Even the *PACKAGING* is hard to use.

Seriously... they had to put up a web page to help people *open a box*??

Good god. Now *that* is a usability epic fail, no matter how you slice it.







They screwed up a box.

They. Screwed up.



A BOX.




BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... *sigh*

Comments

*wide eyes*

[byrdie.livejournal.com]

Wow. I dived just in time.

Yep. That's my new test for whether I should switch to a different OS: can I open the software packaging? If the answer is "no," I'm going to consider it a cosmic clue brick and give that particular company's products a miss.

Re: *wide eyes*

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Obviously, we should all switch to Linux - no box at all! :D

I'd heard whispered stories about the box being a bit weird, but to post an official page? Oy.

[eridan.livejournal.com]

see, I have to say, I'm not sure that's a fail on the part of the packing, or a fail on the level of intelligence of the end users.

I looked at the Vista boxes a while back, since i'm going to build a new whitebox pretty soon... and it looked pretty straightforward to me... I mean, there's an obvious hinge in the bottom corner, and it's taped shut at the top... so wouldn't it make sense to cut the tape and use the hinge as the pivot?

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

See, that's kind of the point.

Most users can figure out an arbitrarily complex task given enough time and incentive. When you, as a designer, go *out of your way* to create a more complex task for a known solution, that doesn't offer the user anything new, but it makes them work harder just to do something basic... that's just dumb with a capital D. It's complexity for complexity's sake... which is pretty much *still* the design philosophy at MS as far as I can tell.

Now, you can argue that only the stupidest users will have an issue with this, and you're probably right - there's some threshold below which users will be confused, another segment above that for which they'll figure it out but be annoyed, and another group above that for whom it will seem obvious.

But that lowest group was large enough that they felt the need to address *how to open the box* on their official help pages.

That's a big FAIL sign right there, when the number of users you have confused with what should be one of the simplest tasks to getting your product up and running is large enough that you feel the need to officially help them.

It's a box. It didn't need a new design that is worse than the existing solutions just to look kewl. I swearz.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Yup. "Users iz dum" is not a defense, it needs to be a design constraint.

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

That would be an intentional anti-theft design, I think. Just because your chosen OS values usability over things like functionality, don't assume everyone does. :p

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

I would have thought the contents would be theft-deterrent enough... :D

[gwywnnydd.livejournal.com]

Only for those who have attempted to use them already.

Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .

[sfeldon.livejournal.com]

But I had and have nothing at all to do with packaging.

The packaging is actually quite brilliant, if you know what the goal was--it was to make a box with curves replacing the front left and back right edges of the box. Once you establish that as a requirement, and taking necessary packaging strength into account, the way the box is designed is by far the best way this could have been done.

Of course, this is complete question-begging. . . . Why did they want to do that in the first place? Who decided that design shouldn't assist function but should precede and limit it? Who decided that the "kewl looking" swoop was more important than usability? _That's_ the person with the big L on their forehead, not the folks who designed the box or documented user problems with it.

And people say MS doesn't care.

Re: Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

LOL

Indeed, those are precisely the questions that should have been brought up, and should have stopped this in its infancy. Form doesn't follow function... form *is* function. When you set the form first, independent of the function, you've already gone off-track.

Box function: contain things, be openable, and (presumably) recloseable for storage. Existing solutions are known, familiar, and tested. Slight variations that emphasize one function or another (holding an optical disc, having slots for little-referenced but important information that shouldn't be lost, etc) are fine, and usually welcome. But a complete re-design for no reason other than *to do* a re-design?

That's not a product, it's an art project.

Hmm... this explains much about software design now that I think about it - when you treat programming as a rarified artform, you get... muck. It may be pretty to look at in some respect (usually the code, not the final user-viewed product), but everything else falls apart abysmally. You must start with function (and I don't mean just functionality, but also UI, workflows, etc), and then the form specifics will follow naturally. Not easily, necessarily, but naturally.

Re: Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

treat programming as a rarified artform

I've been saying this for years--software design *is* an artform, where it *should be*, *needs to be*, an engineering discipline. It used to be an engineering discipline, in the fifties and sixties--it had to be, with machine time costing thousands of dollars per hour of computing cycle. When the code has to be right *before* you compile it the first time, because you can't afford to compile it *twice*, you learn slightly different coding habits. When it costs you no more than a few minutes to throw a new feature in there, is it any wonder that software doesn't get designed anymore, but rather accreted?

I am constantly hoping that the industry is ready to move out of artist mode and start engineering again, but as long as users keep buying the slapped-together crap that passes for software, the incentives just aren't there yet.

Re: Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Agreed wholeheartedly. Have I mentioned this little design-as-reproducible-engineering thing I've been doing? :D

Re: Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Possibly once or twice, yeah. :)

We differ mainly on our estimation of when such a transition is possible for the industry as a whole.

Re: Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

"_That's_ the person..."

Oh, I don't believe for a moment that there's any one person on whom blame for this sits - it's a systemic problem within MS, on multiple levels. The fact that it got okayed for market means that:

- Someone thought it was a good idea in the first place. (It wasn't.)
- Nobody could (apparently) provide a cogent argument for why it wasn't. (Closed ears, or lack of insight, dunno - but failure.)
- If anyone did provide such an argument, they were overridden. (Management failure.)
- The accepted solution to it is to slap a bandage on it in the form of a help page. (For opening a box. Srsly.)

Now... if the powers whut be, the processes, and the culture there can't be trusted to get a box right, how is anyone supposed to trust them with something actually important, like software design?

This just points at a pervasive problem, not individual issues... and the products reflect this, unfortunately. So much talent, caught up in busted culture. (Like I should talk... :D)