Times are hard

Working with time is hard. Especially when working with multiple threads - which seem to have their own timers.
I just posted a reply to someone in Outlook 2007. Then, briefly my list of Sent Items looked like this:

It seems that even though I sent an email at what it knew was 00:00 which can (should) only ever be today something hadn't updated the date for the comparison of now and the date the messages was sent.

This is one of those issues which just looks foolish when you see it but very few people will ever see it.  It's also something that'd likely be very hard to test and unless you knew this sort of issue could occur you'd be very unlikley to look or test for it.

I guess this is merely just an observation. It's not like this would be easy particularly or worthwhile to fix.  I merely note this here so you might think about and avoid similar issues in any code you write.

Errors & FogBugz

Today I saw this: (click for full size)

Yes, it's a stack trace caused by a SQL deadlock.
What's note worthy is that this is on a live, public facing website. - for shame :(

Now how do I report this error?

Defrag chaos

This is after I managed to delete unneeded files from the C drive, which had run out of space.

Lesson for the day: If someone is responsible for admin of a key (read business critical) server, don't let them go on holiday if you'll have to pick up the pieces and sort out any problems, when it hasn't been proactively managed, while that person is away.

Example of poor usability

It's definitely a good idea to be consistent within software.  This is especially true when indicating special behaviour or requirements.

For example. It's not a good idea to highlight a textbox in one part of a program to indicte that it is a required field and then highlight a textbox in another part of the program, in the same way, to indicate that the text box is read only.

Representative comment

This is a genuine single line comment I just came across in some code I was trying to get to compile.

//Can't be in a transaction here...not sure why....can't be arsed to check. Hack Hack Hack......

I accept nothing

???

Attention to detail: Strange times and pausing.

If the quality of the simple things which are seen is poor, why should I trust the quality of the more complex things which aren't seen.

Up late in the kitchen one night, I noticed the clock on the oven change through the following times:

23:58
23:59
24:00
00:01
00:02

Hmmm. The hour changing 3 times in 3 minutes? I've never seen that on any other clock. While technically you could argue that it's correct, but it just seems wrong.

If you aren't paying attention to small details which I can see. Why should I trust that you are paying attention to the important things which I can't see.

If you press the volume up and volume down button on the radio in my car when a CD is playing it pauses and the display says 'PAUSE'. If you do the same when the radio is playing the radio is muted, but the display still says 'PAUSE', not 'MUTE'.
It's a small thing, but it bugs me every time I see it. Not a good way to build customer satisfaction. All because, hopefully, something was deemed to unimportant to spend enough time on.

depending on your operating system and ... ?

and what?

What if this wasn't optimized?

Poor internationalisation

This image is part of a screen shot from a shopping website I visited recently.

This shows the sites attempt at providing the site in different languages.

A few observations:

• Surely the options should be: Français, Deutsch and Svenska.
• What about an option for English. - Because this isn't, the only way to get back to English is to delete the cookie created by the site.
• Because an option is always displayed (French if in 'English mode') and the only way to change the language is by selecting a different language from the list, to get the site to display in 'French' you must first select one of the other options. Yes, to see the site in French you must first display it in Swedish or German
• There is no way to change the language if the browser you are using does not support Java Script.

Also, only the navigation was translated. All product descriptions were still in English. I don't think that will work out as being particularly helpful for French, German or Swedish visitors.

It's good to see websites adding support for multiple languages, it would just be nice to see them doing a good job of it.

already on wishlist

I'm surprised Amazon even let me try to add something that was already on my list. A bigger warning that I had done might have been nicer. I had to search for this, when the normal page wasn't displayed after adding an item.

This is bad. It didn't do what I expected and it didn't make it clear why.

Export progress

I wonder what this is doing or where it is exporting to?

What on earth does this mean?

There has to be a better way of saying whatever this message is trying to tell me!

Misleading execution times

After restoring a database I was surprised that SQL Server was reporting that it only took 1 second. It definitely felt like longer to me.

It did take longer. Look at the bottom of the screen, it actually took 33 seconds. So why report that it only took 1? And what only took 1 second?

This message is bad because it is unclear and wrong!

How many new items

I like Google reader but there is a definite usability issue in the indication of how many items are in the 'All items' group. It could be 101 or 10000001 for all I can tell. The reason this is bad is that I get an exact figure up to 100 and then suddenly all I get is an approximation with no indication of how accurate the approximation is.
Quite frankly, I'm not interested in finding out how approximate the figure is. I may be there for quite a while.

Bad Error message

I've built up quite a collection of bad coding/message examples.

This is a bad message as it comes from a program that I'm not able to debug. As an end user I shouldn't even be given the opportunity to debug anyway.

tile and cascade

While the popularity of MDI may have dropped in recent years. It still has its place. Just be sure you understand the concepts of 'tile' and 'cascade' and their respective icons.

Unable to locate content?

???

Don't force me to provide feedback

But you didn't say that comments were compulsory when I first tried to fill in the form!
Good job (for me - who was about to give up on providing feedback all together) that a fullstop is deemed suitable enough feedback!?!

Multiple monitors

With PCs more commonly having multiple (normally 2) monitors, it amazes me that so many programs can't handle this.

Two common problems.

1. Screens that center on the desktop, not the screen.
2. Programs that open additional (often modal) forms in the other screen.

Screens that center on the desktop, not the screen.
With the desktop being spread over two screens any form that is centered on the desktop will be half on one screen and half on the other. This does not look good and forces the user to reposition the form before they can use it. Forcing the user to do unnecessary tasks before they can use a program is definitely not good.

Programs that open additional (often modal) forms in the other screen.
It is incredibly awkward and distracting to have to keep looking between screens to see where the new form has gone. This is especially awkward when opening a small dialog, such as a search/find dialog. A modal dialog opening in the other screen can be incredibly confusing, until you realise what has happened, and should be unacceptable.

unhelpful pop-ups

Copywriting should be a requirement for any developer who is writing text that will be displayed to users.

If not, you end up with things like this:

or this:

How very helpful!?!