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UI Roast #1: cruel but harmless fun!

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tranglos:
...and if we're lucky, maybe even constructive and useful to present and future programmers who care about their users' sanity.

The image below shows part of the main menu of a macro program named "Quick Macros". Just by looking at the screenshot, how many things that are utterly, horribly wrong with this menu can you name? How many are "just wrong" or "really poor usability decisions"? Would you consider using an application that welcomes you with this menu?



Laugh, cringe or cry?

wraith808:
What's in the other menus if this one is so... overcrowded to be nice?

tranglos:
OK, here's my list. But post your own before you look!

Don't look yet!This is a "File" menu, so you would expect it manages files that contain macros. But not quite. You have the expected "File Properties" command, but also a "Properties" command in the same menu. Whose properties does the latter command edit?

Does the Delete command delete the currently open file, since it is located under the File menu? (No, it doesn't!)

Windows has some really well established keyboard idioms. Alt+F4 exits an application. Ctrl+F4 closes the current window, if the application supports multiple windows. This program however decided to be adventurous: to exit, you press Alt+F3. To close the window, press Alt+F4. So the keyboard shortcut you'd expect to exit, doesn't.

There is a "Close" command. How does it differ from "Close Window"? And how about "middle click" as the keyboard shortcut for this command? (Many wheel mice are incapable of middle clicking).

There is a "New" command, but no "Open". Isn't that weird? Well, you can deduce that, even though the command sits on the "File" menu, it does not create a new file at all. It creates a new macro in the file.

To open a file, use the "Open / New file" command. Interesting way to merge two totally different operations (and potentially very dangerous, because performing New instead of Open could overwrite an existing file with a blank one).

In 99% of application menus, "Exit" is the last command at the bottom of the File menu. But that's just boring! It's more fun to add a "More" submenu just underneath it, where you least expect it. And to put important commands such as Save in the submenu, which takes more careful clicks to open and navigate.

OK, so now that we know some commands here operate on files and others on macros, find all the commands related to creating, opening, saving and closing of FILES. It would be just gauche to keep them all together, wouldn't it?

Mmm, Cut and Paste commands on the File menu! What do they cut and what do they paste? And where's Copy? This intrigues me. (The Cut, Copy and Paste commands also exist under the Edit menu, which you can't see in the screenshot. I'd guess maybe they cut and paste different things, but their keyboard shortcuts are the same, so they apparently perform the same function. Go figure.)

tranglos:
What's in the other menus if this one is so... overcrowded to be nice?
-wraith808 (September 19, 2011, 12:52 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yeah, the other menus are simpler, but they also have their moments. Like "Show Help (F1)" under the Edit menu, even though the expected Help menu is right there too.

Stoic Joker:
Tying Ctrl+S to Save All ... Cringe. Save current sure. But all?!? Oh the (incredibly huge) messes that could make.

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