There’s a really great article published on the simple-talk website regarding Microsoft’s annoying habit of presenting you with annoying confirmation dialog boxes. They’re either ridiculously repetitive or the timing of being presented with them can mess up your entire day of planned computer activities.

There’s the instance shared below:

One of the worst habits is to have unnecessary pop-ups and dialog-boxes. Vista is horrible in pursuing this vice. Even in response to the seemingly most straightforward of request for action, it apparently cannot resist subjecting the user to an onslaught of silly, nannying dialog boxes. "Are you sure you want to do xxx?" Yes…Click. "This requires your authority to yyy?" YES, I know…Click. "You are about to zzzz, click OK to Confirm" Yes, Yes, YES!!! For goodness sake.

The worst of these dialog boxes pop up after a short delay, usually at the beginning of a long copying job, and just after one has nipped off to the pub for lunchtime refreshment. One returns an hour later only to find that the process hasn’t even started and instead the dreaded "Are you sure you wish to overwrite xxxx?" dialog box is gazing limply at you from the screen.

How many times have you gotten caught in one of those instances where you weren’t quite paying attention to the dialog boxes and thought a process was running, only to find out later you didn’t actually click enough of the "OK" buttons to start the process?

The writer, Tony Davis, suggests that perhaps Windows should develop functionality and partner with keyboard manufacturers to deliver a "JFDI key". I’ll let you figure out what the letters would stand for in your situation, but I’m sure you’ll get the drift.

If you go to the article and leave your own example of a broken user-design and user-interface snafu you can win a $50 Amazon gift card.

Image: Screen shot of empty recycle bin confirmation dialog

Post from: EveryJoe

Are you sure? …and other annoying windows

Image: Screenshot from Microsoft Word 2007 ©2008 Jason Bean

Could the Office Ribbon be going away? No, not really but I just read about it being called something else.

The new name is "Office Fluent User Interface".

Can that be right? I’d think the ribbon was developed for people that weren’t as fluent with the Office applications as those users that were probably considered "fluent" in the first place.

In fact, I’ve had a couple of conversations with people that have suggested that the people Microsoft left behind with their Office 2007 user-interface redevelopment were those above-average and "expert" users.

History tells us that it is a bad idea to change the interface of an established word-processing application. A similar act of folly caused the demise of Wordstar, for example. Word’s menus and shortcuts had been learned by its users for eighteen years, so forcing them to adopt a different metaphor, without the choice of the ‘classic view’, seems reckless.  At least we could switch off the ridiculous animated paper-clip (TFC), their previous attempt to dumb down their flagship applications. However, unless you buy one of the many applications that are designed to put back the classic menus, you are condemned to haunt the Ribbon UI (TFR), looking for that elusive Word Count menu item.

Simple-Talk uses Microsoft Word as the de-facto standard for article submission, and most authors I’ve spoken to are united in their dislike of the new ribbon UI. It may help the novice, but those of us who have the old menu tattooed into their cerebellums are disinclined to thank Microsoft for suddenly changing all the rules.

I for one actually like the ribbon interface. That can also be accurately interpreted to mean that I don’t consider myself above-average or "expert" in the Office applications prior to 2007.

I believe the real question is whether or not Microsoft really made the mistake when they didn’t offer a "Classic View" option to the interface. The comments on the article link below share quite a number of good thoughts, opinions and suggestions for what should have been done on both sides of the argument.

Source: Application Usability and Standards by Tony Davis on Simple-Talk

Post from: EveryJoe

No More Office Ribbon?