Usability Thoughts

PoEditor.com – online free software translation tool

Adrian — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:20:18 +0000

I would like you to check out PoEditor. It’s an online tool for translating software. It supports .po & .pot files, exports .mo binary files. Works with xls files too. It’s free, collaborative and very very useful for a software internalization process.

And the prize for the most idiotic interface goes to…

Adrian — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:48:04 +0000

phpMyAdmin.

Bonus,

Effective computing sneak peak from interaction-design.org

Adrian — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:02:56 +0000

Here.

Edit option in Google Forums

Adrian — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:18:11 +0000

You can edit your post. Actually you cannot, you can delete it thought.

Take on the new iPhone’s FaceTime

Adrian — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:07:20 +0000

News Flash, europeans have front faced cameras on their phones and videocalls (everywhere there is 3G) for years now. And no, they are not using those.

I tested vedeocalls twice when they first appeared a few years ago and that was it, never again. It’s simply useless.

Windows icon selection fail

Adrian — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:18:04 +0000

I ran into a usability fail that has to exist from windows 3.1.

Windows arranges it’s icons/shortcuts/files on desktop column by column. But if you select them with SHIFT (multiple select), it selects them line by line .

If you arrange icons by type and you want to delete the pictures, you cannot do that by selecting them with SHIFT from first to last.

Since I use windows for ages and not realized this until now, i don’t think it bothers people, but still… interesting find.

Simple things

Adrian — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:10:10 +0000

Let’s take one dead simple thing we all use every day: the bathroom light switch. The majority of the houses (or am I wrong?) have this switch outside the bathroom, and if the door has no glass it’s kind of hard to see if the light is on or off in the bathroom.

Put on that piece of plastic some paint and you’ll have a perfectly usable switch:

Drag & Drop on the web

Adrian — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:12:01 +0000

For God’s sake, if you use it, please offer an alternative.

This the “add to playlist” Grooveshark system:

Very neat, clean. Unfortunately, if you don’t already know that’s how you do it, you have absolutely no hint to help you guess how you add a damn song to a damn playlist:

Yeah, i asked a fiend who found out from another friend of his. That’s not usability, Grooveshark.

Amazing lookup feature on NYTimes Blogs

Adrian — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:53:14 +0000

I was reading One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do on a NY Times blog and i had no idea what the heck “amuse-bouche” is. I selected the word so I can copy and google it.

The instance I selected the text a question mark appeared. Yeah, I don’t know what’s that. I click on the question mark and it opens a popup with a dictionary lookup on the word.

OH, how natural this was!!!

PS: Turns out the “amuse-bouche” is some kind of appetizer.

So wrong on so many levels

Adrian — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:39:31 +0000

I have update the “All in one seo pack” for wordpress and it insisted that i update the configuration page. I went and checked the page an this is what i have found:

It amazes me how awful is this form made, I think it’s deliberately made so you fuck up. Let’s see why:

1. the “Reset” option in on the right. (I’m not saying the submit must be on the right, but it’s the most common that way)
2. the “Reset” button is bigger and has the same design as the “Update” button. That and 1. makes it most likely to be pressed first
3. both buttons have the same design, hence they are equally important? i don’t think so, the call to action button must be the “update” button. Keep in mind that “Reset” is a destructive action.
4. what’s with the “>>” ? the arrows on the first button point to the second, which kindda’ makes the second the call to action, but the arrows on the second? there’s no extra step, there’s only a form.