I think I just found out why certain M$ products are so obnoxiously 
tedious to use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_disclosure

"This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required 
for the task at hand."

Um, no, no it doesn't. Not if you take it to the absurd levels that M$ has.

Let's say I want to change which Exchange server a user connects to.

Outlook 2000: Go to "Accounts...". A window opens up listing the 
accounts, with buttons for "Add", "Edit" and "Delete".

Outlook 2003: Go to "Accounts...". A wizard opens up asking me to select 
whether I want to add a new account, view the existing accounts or 
remove an existing account. Rather than just GIVE ME the freakin' window 
so I can get on with my job! >_<

I mean, really, how am I supposed to know if I want to add a new account 
until I've checked what ones are already there? That's just silly. And 
why do I need a 1-page "wizard" to "help" me perform this highly trivial 
task? Give me a break...

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:49e46b49$1@news.povray.org...

> I mean, really, how am I supposed to know if I want to add a new account
> until I've checked what ones are already there? That's just silly. And
> why do I need a 1-page "wizard" to "help" me perform this highly trivial
> task? Give me a break...

Progressive disclosure / wizard based interface are sugar coated versions of
the very old computer paradigm, so old that I don't know if it has a name.
If you wanted to enter a matrix, for instance, the text based interface
would ask you:

Number of rows? _
Number of columns? _
Item (0,0) ? _
... etc

Of course that was due to platform limitations. With windows, there was a
brief push to minimize modal interactions. Now we are coming full circle.

Such interfaces are certainly much less work on the programmer (even though
there may be more windows, UI logic is trivial compared to the alternative)
and work well for novice users, who may not have a clue to what actions are
available with a flat, discover-actions-on-your-own interface. They can also
be an absolute PITA for advanced users. A good design should be able to
accomodate either type of interface. MS does that sometimes (user management
/ advanced user management, for instance) although not consistently and not
in the most fluid manner.

Post a reply to this message

somebody wrote:

> If you wanted to enter a matrix, for instance, the text based interface
> would ask you:
> 
> Number of rows? _
> Number of columns? _
> Item (0,0) ? _
> ... etc
> 
> Of course that was due to platform limitations.

Ah yes. So easy to program, but get half way through that and suddenly 
realise you need an extra row and... now you have a problem. ;-)

The trouble with this style of interface is that it absolutely forces 
you to do things in exactly the order that the machine wants. Of course, 
as you say, this is largely because it was too much pain to implement 
something better.

> With windows, there was a
> brief push to minimize modal interactions. Now we are coming full circle.

Apparently.

> Such interfaces are certainly much less work on the programmer

Definitely.

> and work well for novice users, who may not have a clue to what actions are
> available with a flat, discover-actions-on-your-own interface.

Depends on the domain. But yeah, they _can_ work well for some domains.

> They can also be an absolute PITA for advanced users.

Um, YES. :-/

> A good design should be able to
> accomodate either type of interface. MS does that sometimes (user management
> / advanced user management, for instance) although not consistently and not
> in the most fluid manner.

Vista seems to have less of this brain-deadness. But I haven't explored 
too far yet...

Post a reply to this message

somebody wrote:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:49e46b49$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> I mean, really, how am I supposed to know if I want to add a new account
>> until I've checked what ones are already there? That's just silly. And
>> why do I need a 1-page "wizard" to "help" me perform this highly trivial
>> task? Give me a break...
> 
> Progressive disclosure / wizard based interface are sugar coated versions of
> the very old computer paradigm, so old that I don't know if it has a name.
> If you wanted to enter a matrix, for instance, the text based interface
> would ask you:
> 
> Number of rows? _
> Number of columns? _
> Item (0,0) ? _
> ... etc
> 
> Of course that was due to platform limitations. With windows, there was a
> brief push to minimize modal interactions. Now we are coming full circle.
> 
> Such interfaces are certainly much less work on the programmer (even though

That's debatable. Writing a single dialog with all options on the 
screen, even under tabs is trivial compared to writing a wizard to guide 
the user.

> and work well for novice users, who may not have a clue to what actions are
> available with a flat, discover-actions-on-your-own interface. They can also

This is why... novice users. Most people for some inconceivable reason 
when presented with more than one or two options at a time go into an 
absolute panic. So, they have to simplify and dumb things down. 
Sometimes it helps make things friendly by adding a "cute" character, 
like that damned paper clip.

> be an absolute PITA for advanced users. A good design should be able to
> accomodate either type of interface. MS does that sometimes (user management
> / advanced user management, for instance) although not consistently and not
> in the most fluid manner.

Yes, it does. Because the advanced user knows what they want, and knows 
where to get it. The advanced user desires fewer steps to accomplish a 
task, and doesn't want to be handheld through a 5 step wizard just to 
change which account their e-mail connects to.

So, software developers have a choice. They can either appease the 
masses of novice users who get frightened when presented with a screen 
full of gobbeldygook, or cater to the advanced user who just wants to do 
what they want/need without having to waste time going through a maze of 
pages leading from one step to the next.

Ever tried to use Winzip in Wizard mode? lol.

It would be nice if applications had a checkbox that said "I know what 
I'm doing. Don't try to hold my hand."

I still fail to see how Office 2007's interface is any easier to use. I 
much prefer the pull-down menus rather trying to wallow through dozens 
of toolbars looking for what I need.



-- 
~Mike

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>> Such interfaces are certainly much less work on the programmer (even 
>> though
> 
> That's debatable. Writing a single dialog with all options on the 
> screen, even under tabs is trivial compared to writing a wizard to guide 
> the user.

It's debatable that most of these wizards actually "guide" users. Mostly 
they just force you to go through a series of steps, whether that's what 
you're trying to do or not.

(I especially like the way many wizards start with a page that contains 
no options other than "next", and no information other than "welcome to 
this wizard".)

> This is why... novice users. Most people for some inconceivable reason 
> when presented with more than one or two options at a time go into an 
> absolute panic.

To me, this smacks of a psychological disorder.

> So, they have to simplify and dumb things down. 
> Sometimes it helps make things friendly by adding a "cute" character, 
> like that damned paper clip.

Now, to me, having all the relevant information available to me at once, 
without having to spend hours hunting around for it, makes the system 
seem far more "simple" than having lots and lots of windows to go 
through. (The crucial phrase here being "relevant".)

> Yes, it does. Because the advanced user knows what they want, and knows 
> where to get it. The advanced user desires fewer steps to accomplish a 
> task, and doesn't want to be handheld through a 5 step wizard just to 
> change which account their e-mail connects to.
> 
> So, software developers have a choice. They can either appease the 
> masses of novice users who get frightened when presented with a screen 
> full of gobbeldygook, or cater to the advanced user who just wants to do 
> what they want/need without having to waste time going through a maze of 
> pages leading from one step to the next.
> 
> Ever tried to use Winzip in Wizard mode? lol.
> 
> It would be nice if applications had a checkbox that said "I know what 
> I'm doing. Don't try to hold my hand."
> 
> I still fail to see how Office 2007's interface is any easier to use. I 
> much prefer the pull-down menus rather trying to wallow through dozens 
> of toolbars looking for what I need.

I might suggest that anybody who's trying to reconfigure which Exchange 
account their computer should connect to probably knows what they're 
doing already. (Most of the people I meet in my day job don't know what 
an Exchange server *is*.)

It always surprised me that M$ didn't make some sort of "business" 
version of Windows that is appropriate for business use. I mean, look at 
Windows XP Professional. It comes with such unecessary items as Windows 
Media Player and Windows Movie Maker, not to mention Freecell and 
Minesweeper. All of which have their place in a product designed for 
home users, but in a workplace?

I understand that there *is* a seperate business edition of Vista, so 
maybe they got it right this time?

Post a reply to this message

> It always surprised me that M$ didn't make some sort of "business" version 
> of Windows that is appropriate for business use. I mean, look at Windows 
> XP Professional. It comes with such unecessary items as Windows Media 
> Player

Just because your company doesn't have any use for WMP doesn't mean that no 
company does.  All the companies I work with quite often send out video 
clips to illustrate certain problems they are having, it's much faster and 
cheaper than travelling to another country or shipping the equipment to 
another country.

> and Windows Movie Maker

Never had an opportunity to use it yet personally, but why not include it? 
The executable is only 4MB or something, it's not beyond the realms of 
possibility that someone might want to use it to make a simple compilation 
of videos, or to trim/recompress a single video before emailing.

> , not to mention Freecell and Minesweeper.

I see several people playing minesweeper during their lunch break, is that 
banned where you work?

> I understand that there *is* a seperate business edition of Vista, so 
> maybe they got it right this time?

I have the business version of Vista, and no it didn't have any games 
installed, but I easily fixed that by going to Add/Remove windows components 
and adding them.  And yes it also has Windows Movie Maker and WMP installed 
by default too.

You do realise you can make custom installs of Windows, if you don't want 
any of your employees to use WMP, Windows MM, or play any games then you can 
easily just not install them.  And it's quite straightforward to uninstall 
them on existing installations and prevent them being installed again. 
Preventing them bringing them in on a USB stick or downloading them might be 
trickier though.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> It always surprised me that M$ didn't make some sort of "business" 
>> version of Windows that is appropriate for business use. I mean, look 
>> at Windows XP Professional. It comes with such unecessary items as 
>> Windows Media Player
> 
> Just because your company doesn't have any use for WMP doesn't mean that 
> no company does.  All the companies I work with quite often send out 
> video clips to illustrate certain problems they are having, it's much 
> faster and cheaper than travelling to another country or shipping the 
> equipment to another country.

Wouldn't you need a video camera to do that?

Still, I guess having the capacity to *play* video is defensible. Having 
a complex music playing and categorisation system seems like something 
that should be in a home product, not a business product. Likewise for 
CD ripping and DVD burning. How many office workers need to author their 
own DVD movies?

>> and Windows Movie Maker
> 
> Never had an opportunity to use it yet personally, but why not include 
> it? The executable is only 4MB or something, it's not beyond the realms 
> of possibility that someone might want to use it to make a simple 
> compilation of videos, or to trim/recompress a single video before 
> emailing.

Is there a codec on Earth that would make a video small enough to send 
by email?

>> not to mention Freecell and Minesweeper.
> 
> I see several people playing minesweeper during their lunch break, is 
> that banned where you work?

Technically yes. Anything that involves a computer but doesn't make the 
company money is strictly speaking prohibited. Not that anybody is going 
to enforce that one...

>> I understand that there *is* a seperate business edition of Vista, so 
>> maybe they got it right this time?
> 
> I have the business version of Vista, and no it didn't have any games 
> installed, but I easily fixed that by going to Add/Remove windows 
> components and adding them.  And yes it also has Windows Movie Maker and 
> WMP installed by default too.

Hmm, interesting. Does it also have "simple file sharing" turned on by 
default? (I.e., you can't access network files properly.) Does it pop up 
silly windows saying "ERROR! YOU DON'T HAVE ANY ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE!"

> You do realise you can make custom installs of Windows, if you don't 
> want any of your employees to use WMP, Windows MM, or play any games 
> then you can easily just not install them.  And it's quite 
> straightforward to uninstall them on existing installations and prevent 
> them being installed again.

It's just that I would have thought they would make a version of Windows 
taylored to business use without anybody needing to spend hours 
reconfiguring it.

It's like Symantec antivirus. You buy their home product, and you get 
pretty screens and cutesy wizards - and warnings popping up every 20 
seconds to tell you it's doing stuff. You go buy the Corporate Edition 
and once it's installed you'll never know it's even there. Different 
target audience.

I'm surprised M$ doesn't do that with Windows.

(Just sit and watch the bannar that scrolls past as Windows XP installs. 
It tells you about how Windows now comes with tools to let you chat to 
your friends online, keep your children safe from predators, watch the 
latest DVD movies, and all kinds of other stuff that is completely 
irrelevant in a business setting.)

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> Wouldn't you need a video camera to do that?

Depends on what quality you require.  At the low end just use your mobile 
phone, I'm very sure that someone in your company will have one that has 
decent video recording quality (mid-high end phones less than a couple of 
years old will usually do pretty decent video).

Apart from that, most digital cameras are capable of recording video.  The 
one we have here is a couple of years old and can do 640x480x30fps until the 
memory card is full - that's enough quality for us.

If you want more then yes, you will probably need to buy a proper HD video 
camera, but they're cheaper than just one return flight to Japan (or parts 
of the US probably), so it's a bit of a no-brainer to get one if you do this 
sort of stuff ever.

> Is there a codec on Earth that would make a video small enough to send by 
> email?

Doesn't matter for us as most of our videos are pretty short (eg just 5 or 
10 seconds), but companies usually have FTP sites or web-based document 
managers for larger files that can be used.

> Technically yes. Anything that involves a computer but doesn't make the 
> company money is strictly speaking prohibited.

Hehe, well you could argue that taking a break to play minesweeper is making 
the company money because you will work more efficiently afterwards :-)

> Hmm, interesting. Does it also have "simple file sharing" turned on by 
> default? (I.e., you can't access network files properly.) Does it pop up 
> silly windows saying "ERROR! YOU DON'T HAVE ANY ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE!"

I wouldn't know, all that stuff got setup by IT before I used it, including 
AV software, VPN, auto-update servers, access to all the network drives, 
Outlook configuration etc etc.  When I received it and turned it on, it Just 
Worked.

> It's just that I would have thought they would make a version of Windows 
> taylored to business use without anybody needing to spend hours 
> reconfiguring it.

The thing is though, any company with more than a handful of employees is 
going to want to customise it somehow because every company is different.  I 
highly suspect that MS has made the defaults suitable for very very small 
businesses, knowing full well that any large companies will just totally 
reconfigure everything before a user gets anywhere near the login prompt.

> (Just sit and watch the bannar that scrolls past as Windows XP installs. 
> It tells you about how Windows now comes with tools to let you chat to 
> your friends online, keep your children safe from predators, watch the 
> latest DVD movies, and all kinds of other stuff that is completely 
> irrelevant in a business setting.)

Because they don't expect anyone in a business setting to go through that 
manually, and they couldn't be bothered to actively change it for the few 
business people who see it.

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>> Wouldn't you need a video camera to do that?
> 
> Depends on what quality you require.  At the low end just use your 
> mobile phone.

Oh yes, how silly of me. I keep forgetting that these days telephones 
think they're video cameras...

>> Is there a codec on Earth that would make a video small enough to send 
>> by email?
> 
> Doesn't matter for us as most of our videos are pretty short (eg just 5 
> or 10 seconds), but companies usually have FTP sites or web-based 
> document managers for larger files that can be used.

Mmm, true.

>> Technically yes. Anything that involves a computer but doesn't make 
>> the company money is strictly speaking prohibited.
> 
> Hehe, well you could argue that taking a break to play minesweeper is 
> making the company money because you will work more efficiently 
> afterwards :-)

I'll have to remember that one! :-D

>> It's just that I would have thought they would make a version of 
>> Windows taylored to business use without anybody needing to spend 
>> hours reconfiguring it.
> 
> The thing is though, any company with more than a handful of employees 
> is going to want to customise it somehow because every company is 
> different.  I highly suspect that MS has made the defaults suitable for 
> very very small businesses, knowing full well that any large companies 
> will just totally reconfigure everything before a user gets anywhere 
> near the login prompt.

That's just it though. You'd think they would make it so a small 
business gets something that Just Works right out of the box. But (for 
example) having network file sharing disabled by default doesn't seem 
very smart from that PoV.

> Because they don't expect anyone in a business setting to go through 
> that manually, and they couldn't be bothered to actively change it for 
> the few business people who see it.

Yeah, I guess that's it. Why build a business edition when a large 
business can customise it themselves?

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"Mike Raiford" <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:49e49115$1@news.povray.org...

> > Such interfaces are certainly much less work on the programmer (even
though

> That's debatable. Writing a single dialog with all options on the
> screen, even under tabs is trivial compared to writing a wizard to guide
> the user.

With trivial GUIs, I agree. But it often requires much more thought and
coding to handle everything the user can do on a more powerful interface.
What if the user selects multiple accounts and wishes to change their
properties which may not have the same value? What if the user changes the
number of rows in a matrix while the cells are already partially filled? You
don't have to deal with such things with a sequential/modal interface.
Creating window layouts is a cakewalk compared to dealing with out-of-order
changes, handling multiple item changes, potential conflicts, realtime
updates, validation and correction of co-dependent inputs (*)... etc.

(*) If you ask the user the year first, month next, it's trivial to validate
the day. But if all three are modifiable at the same time, but on different
inputs, you have a lot more UI logic to code. Not that you should code a
date control from scratch, and like this, but it gives an idea of
difficulties in more realistic cases.

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