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.

[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?

[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

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.