User Interface FAIL

Google Wave’s scroll bars just feel wrong. The thumb...

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:41:31 -0500

Google Wave’s scroll bars just feel wrong. The thumb isn’t proportional - it always remains the same size, but the scroll ‘bar’ grows or shrinks based on the amount it can scroll. It would feel more natural if the scroll ‘bar’ extended the entire height with a proportional thumb.

The UI Cockroach

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:31:54 -0500

The UI Cockroach:

I would like to suggest that a User Interface element that is completely unnecessary and not part of an application’s core functionality, yet can’t be gotten rid of, be called a UI Cockroach. A shining example of this is the ribbon bar in Word 2008, which is that circa-2001 Aqua-style bar right above the ruler:

You can’t get rid of this thing as long as you’re in layout view. Although Microsoft has provided literally hundreds of configurable toolbar items that can be reorganized, reconfigured, hidden, combined, and detached in ways that no sane person would ever want or need, somebody at Microsoft made the decision that this monstrosity had to stay on the screen at all times no matter what. Even if you press the lozenge in the upper right of the window’s toolbar — the one that hides all the toolbar elements — it still says visible.

jimray: The OpenOffice 18 button mouse. This is why open source...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:42:38 -0500

jimray:

The OpenOffice 18 button mouse. This is why open source design sucks [via The Grubester]

If you need 18 buttons, your user interface fails.

The many sliders of Photoshop CS4

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:41:37 -0500

mrgan:

Preferences > Memory Usage

Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast

Filters

Blur (note the rendering of the thumb arrow)

Layer Blending

Layer Style

Threshold

Color Balance

Things to keep in mind:

These can be found in just Photoshop; I can’t imagine what I’d find elsewhere in the suite. Actually, fine, here’s the first one I found in Illustrator CS5:

The most common out of all these seems to be second one, Brightness Adjustment.

They’re all ugly. The only near-acceptable one is the Layer Style slider.

None of these looks like the standard OS X slider:

This is the post that inspired me to start this tumblr. Inconsistent controls are an automatic fail.