You Are Not the Boss of Me

[Walsingham]

I wanted to raise this as an issue primarily with commercial business software. I have completely lost track of the number of times I've been obliged to spend several hours learning how to turn OFF a feature the software programmers decided I'd find helpful.

 

I've been prompted today by this occurring in the latest release of Open Office. I was using the suite to fill out some government forms and the date function is set to work in yyyy, rather than the way the program thinks all right thinking people should which is simply 'yy. It took me fully an hour to establish how to do ithis in the new release*.

 

My point is _WHY_ in the name of all that is sweet and good and holy in this imperfect universe am I forced to go through turning off every individual feature. I am not an infant. I work. I don't need someone to cut up my food. I don't need help going to the toilet. AND I DON'T NEED HELP TYPING OUT MY GOKKING DOCUMENTS. I type fething thousands of words a day and have done for years. If I want something done I will do it when I need it and not before.

 

Now is that really so hard to understand?

 

 

 

*select the whole cell, right click, and turn off 'recognise number'

Edited June 21, 2010 by Walsingham

[Malcador]

Eh, not usually programmers making that call.

[Walsingham]

Eh, not usually programmers making that call.

 

Then by all means tell me who is behind it and I will shove several sharpened pencils up their fat rear end. Then claim that this was me attempting to be helpful, and that if they didn't want pencils up the arse then they should have said so in advance.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Walsingham

[Kaftan Barlast]

When you let programmers design interfaces, you get confusing garbage only that programmer knows how to use. In the computer animation bussiness, these programmers have driven countless good men insane with frustration.

 

programmer did it: http://www.ose.tuxfamily.org/linux/app/large/blender1.jpg

 

reasonable person did it: http://images.gamedev.net/features/reviews...o-interface.jpg

 

 

..Im not even going to mention "that horrible sculpting app" where even a simple thing like opening a file requires you to look up a tutorial.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Kaftan Barlast

[Malcador]

Heh, programmers are quite reasonable people. Usually that kind of thing is handled by a designer or some sort of usability expert, in an old company of mine that was a developer who had an arts background or something. Never design what you'll be implementing if it's user facing, I've learned, another pair of eyes is always better.

[Mamoulian War]

I wanted to raise this as an issue primarily with commercial business software. I have completely lost track of the number of times I've been obliged to spend several hours learning how to turn OFF a feature the software programmers decided I'd find helpful.

 

I've been prompted today by this occurring in the latest release of Open Office. I was using the suite to fill out some government forms and the date function is set to work in yyyy, rather than the way the program thinks all right thinking people should which is simply 'yy. It took me fully an hour to establish how to do ithis in the new release*.

 

My point is _WHY_ in the name of all that is sweet and good and holy in this imperfect universe am I forced to go through turning off every individual feature. I am not an infant. I work. I don't need someone to cut up my food. I don't need help going to the toilet. AND I DON'T NEED HELP TYPING OUT MY GOKKING DOCUMENTS. I type fething thousands of words a day and have done for years. If I want something done I will do it when I need it and not before.

 

Now is that really so hard to understand?

 

 

 

*select the whole cell, right click, and turn off 'recognise number'

 

 

Why do you think most games nowadays suck so much? They are made accessible even for average lobotomized monkeys with brain damage... Same is it with other products, they want to sell as much as possible, so they are lowering the "complexity" of everything, up to the point that it becomes annoying for most of the normal users

[Kaftan Barlast]

I just want to pitch in and say that games are the way they are today, for good or bad because; with the tech available today, making a game is a massive undertaking requiring up towards a hundred people and 10+ million dollars for production alone. With that kind of money at stake, you cant afford to make a niche game (or so the executives think).

 

And if you DO make a niche game with the tiny budget youll be able to scrounge up, the odds are that most people will just go "Why should I pay

[Mamoulian War]

I just want to pitch in and say that games are the way they are today, for good or bad because; with the tech available today, making a game is a massive undertaking requiring up towards a hundred people and 10+ million dollars for production alone. With that kind of money at stake, you cant afford to make a niche game (or so the executives think).

 

And if you DO make a niche game with the tiny budget youll be able to scrounge up, the odds are that most people will just go "Why should I pay

Edited June 21, 2010 by Mamoulian War

[Gorth]

Users... always whinging

[Purkake]

How it really works:

 

[Orogun01]

Looks like Yatzhee isn't the only angry brit

[Purkake]

You'd be angry too if you had that bad teeth

[Calax]

Honestly, I find this to be true. The developers of software don't realize that we don't WANT to have something automatically complete what we're trying to do, it's like that stupid paper clip in Word, except that to shut it off you have to look up a tutorial that tells you to do a Samoan rain dance on the third day of the 25th month of the year of the rat.

 

Also, things have a tendancy to not get marked easily, like when you're digging through a skillion menus to find something that should be REALLY FLIPPIN EASY to change because of adventure game level "oh, this should go with this".

[Orogun01]

Honestly, I find this to be true. The developers of software don't realize that we don't WANT to have something automatically complete what we're trying to do, it's like that stupid paper clip in Word, except that to shut it off you have to look up a tutorial that tells you to do a Samoan rain dance on the third day of the 25th month of the year of the rat.

 

Also, things have a tendancy to not get marked easily, like when you're digging through a skillion menus to find something that should be REALLY FLIPPIN EASY to change because of adventure game level "oh, this should go with this".

The "program curve" is sadly set by the lowest on the scale. This is a program that is marketed to millions and has to be accessible to them, I don't know if there are high end word processors that avoid pampering but it seems that is something that should be on your radar.

[Gorth]

I don't know if there are high end word processors that avoid pampering but it seems that is something that should be on your radar.

vim

 

Although they are getting a bit on "soft" side. I've heard you can even get a gui version now.

[Malcador]

vim's a word processor now ?

[Gorth]

vim's a word processor now ?

How do you explain TeX and LaTeX to the unwashed masses?

 

That is the only "true" word processing system I know (and used for years). Most people want something they can watch in colour and go Ooh and Ahh

[Malcador]

Easy, just say you write code that Word does for them automatically. Or something. Also you can make math formulae on screen easily, I think.

 

You are hardcore though, sir.

[Walsingham]

Looks like Yatzhee isn't the only angry brit

 

It's what always happens when a Britisher is exposed to the warm air of our colonies for any length of time.