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

[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.