(Click picture to see full-sized)
I know, it’s not nice to point at somebody’s work and say snarky things. And once you look at this site, it becomes clear that it provides a ton of functionality. But the design seriously detracts from the overall perceived quality of the site. The visual design just doesn’t scan, if you know what I mean. And that hurts discoverability.
If I was ready to put my money where my mouth is, I’d mock up a redesign. It’s easy to point out problems, harder to provide solutions.
Man, it’s a busy week. But I’ll try to put something together this weekend.
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I got an email from a reader saying he had a usability issue to rant about, and could he do a guest post. I said sure thing. So without further ado, here’s a post from Andreas Bossard, proprietor of NewsOfTheFuture.net. I’ve got a Sony Ericsson phone too, and I’ve been annoyed by this little feature as well. I hope you enjoy UsabilityBlog’s first guest post, and a big thanks to Andreas for putting it together. -Paul
Every time I connect my Sony Ericsson phone to my Windows PC, I am reminded of an annoying feature of Sony Ericsson’s PC Suite: The time checker that checks if the time of the cell phone is the same as the time of the PC (see picture below).
Every time I connect it pops up and asks me if I want to change the time of my cell phone. The program assumes that the time of the PC is always correct. But the opposite is the case: The cell phone time is correct, but the Windows time is wrong. So I always have to select “No”. The funny thing is that “Yes” has the option “Every time I connect. Do not show this message again”, but “No” doesn’t ‘t have such an option.
Only about 30 seconds difference, but PC Suite sees immediate need for action…
What designers can learn from this mistake:
- Make the right assumptions. Here it is assumed that Windows time is always correct, which may not always be the case.
- Give the user the possibility to disable an unwanted feature. Especially if it is an annoying pop-up window.
Note: The current version of PC Suite is version 3. This time-checker-feature was present in version 2. Nevertheless, it’s a good example of bad usability.
From my old friend Pete, via IM this morning:
Why does Firefox make me hit “Continue” every time it updates a plugin? What other options do I have???
Good point Pete.
