Wasted Taskbar Space

A UI discussion broke out at work and I couldn't resist documenting these complaints.

In XP, I put my taskbar on the side because that's the only way I can read any of the descriptive text for running tasks. Without a decent task switcher in XP, I rely on what little text I can see. The problem is that the Start button doesn't change size, even though it has plenty of room to expand with the width I give to the Taskbar. I have a blank area, nearly as big as the Start button, that is worthless, wasted space. Seems to me that Microsoft should just extrude the Start button to fill the space. This saves me time as I don't have to go as deep into the corner to hit the button. It's also easier to hit because it is bigger which allows quick, sloppy mousing.



A similar issue exists in the notification area. I like having the date available on a quick look, but I don't need the day of the week, and I don't need huge empty areas around the information because the column is wider than the info. Compress that down and give me space for one more task entry to show before it switches to a two column display (which again makes the descriptive text worthless).

Presence Pitfalls

Away messages, busy icons, and green dots. Online presence is becoming common and people are relying on it more and more.

Outlook does a good job of tightly integrating Windows Messenger presence. If the person is in my Messenger client, I'll get presence icons in emails from them. This is nice, but I really don't find myself using it that much. What would really be useful to me is tight integration with the out of office reply.

Summer is the season of vacation. Every week there are a handful of people that I need to work with, but they are on vacation. I know this because the email I sent them came back with an out of office reply. That's great, but that information is just a blink. I read it, delete it, and then forget 2 hours later when they are returning to the office. How come Outlook, especially Exchange connected Outlook, can't integrate that presence? Make that icon work for me. Instead of an away icon, show me the out of office icon. Let me hover over it and see their out of office message.

While we're at it, if I'm sending a message labeled high priority or scheduling a meeting to a known out of office recipient, Outlook should warn me. Finally, you could take this out of office data and generate a report showing who is out for the current week. It would be very helpful. I can barely remember when I'm supposed to be on vacation. I don't know how I'm supposed to remember when you will be.

Note: I'm running Office 2003 at work, so if things have progressed since then, let me know and I'll retract my rant.

Drumming Your Fingers on a Table

Engadget has a rumor and purported images of a keyboard said to be ready for the upcoming iMac from Apple. The keyboard is stripped down to the bare essentials in materials but keeps the expected keys and even looks to add some function keys.

I'll assume this is the new keyboard. I like most of what I see. A few observations:

• The keys are like the ones found on the MacBook - I like the keys on the MacBook. Lots of folks dismissed the chiclet style keys, but I don't mind them. Then again, I don't mind the current Apple keyboards either, but if you read some Apple forums you'd find that plenty of people hate that keyboard. I used to be a keyboard snob and would only use a Microsoft natural board. I've since mellowed and even traded in my disgusting natural at work for a clean new Dell that seems to borrow some design cues from Apple.


• No Apple key - The Command key currently has an Apple logo on it. The trouble is, the Apple is never referred to in documentation. Users are told to hit the command key and keyboard shortcuts list the feature key logo. This is very confusing for switchers. At least it isn't like the old days with the closed apple key and the open apple key. Anyway, everyone is crying fake on the keyboard because the apple logo is gone. I'll interpret it as Apple drinking some of their own simplify juice and getting rid of the confusing icon for the key that is never called the apple key. Wouldn't it be great if Microsoft did the same and got rid of the silly Windows key?


• Design - I like the clean design and the design looks like it will be easier to keep clean! While the clear plastic enclosure on the current Apple keyboard looks nice, it's really just a window display for dirt and crud.


• Design Part 2 - By refining the keyboard down to its simplest form, Apple may be opening the door for 3rd parties again. One of the side effects of Apple's minimalist design is the non-minimals (what kind of word is that?) will accessorize the crap out of it. Look how many billions of dollars there are in the iPod accessories market. Do you like your keyboard to slant forward? No problem. Someone will come out with a slab of plastic that this keyboard will click in to. Like more USB ports? Sure, how about a glowing blue enclosure with 6 USB ports out the side. Want an iPod dock in your keyboard? Seems like that would be easy enough to mold in the plastic as well. Now, you won't be able to change the curve of the keyboard, but if that's your style, you wouldn't be happy with this keyboard anyway and would already know what you like (see earlier comment about keyboard snob). This already happened with the Mac mini. Companies like Plasticsmith rolled out multiple products to fit your Mac mini needs.

In the end, if Apple can get you excited about your computer over $20 worth of keyboard parts, that's great for them. If they can't, then so what. You can pick from hundreds of keyboards out there.

Apple TV vs. Media Center Extender

Everywhere you look that has comments about the Apple TV are comments about how stupid you'd be to buy an Apple TV and how smart you'd be to buy a Media Center Extender, specifically an Xbox 360. Here are 5 reasons why I chose the Apple TV over an Xbox 360.

1. Availability - No, I don't mean the fact that the Apple TV is finally shipping. I mean that you can use an Apple TV with any computer that can run iTunes. That's a lot of computers. That covers about any Windows or OS X computer built in the last 3 or more years. On the other hand, to use an MCE, you need Media Center (MC). According to Microsoft, you can't install MC. You have to know you want it, and buy it up front, assuming the computer you want even has the option.
   
   

   I have a really powerful Windows XP-based computer. Can I upgrade it to be a Windows Media Center-based PC?
   Unfortunately, no. While a PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is also a powerful Windows XP-based computer, Microsoft does not retail Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 as an upgrade. Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is only available pre-installed by PC manufacturers or qualified computer system builders.




2. Size - This matters to me. You might have a huge entertainment center, and I do to, but not with the TV that I want to run the Apple TV with. To me, the Apple TV is perfect for its small size and integrated power supply. The Xbox 360, while more capable, is gigantic. It has an external power supply that is nearly as big as the Apple TV itself. I don't want another power brick to hide. The cord is bad enough. Ignoring that power supply, the Xbox 360 is still nearly 4 times the size of the Apple TV.



3. Power consumption - Apple TV has a 48 watt supply. The Xbox 360 has a 160 watt supply. Save money and the environment :) with an Apple TV!



4. Cost - Apple TV is $299 and plenty of folks say that's far too much. Xbox 360 with a hard drive is $399. The Xbox can do a lot more than the Apple TV, but we aren't really discussing that here. We're discussing the video playback functionality. If you want to use that Xbox wirelessly, add on $89 for the adapter. Another $20 for a remote. If you aren't going to buy games for the Xbox then it doesn't look like that great of a choice for Media Center Extender.



5. Store Tie-ins - I like the walled garden of iTunes. I don't want to trade money for points that I can trade for content. Folks are quick to point out that the Xbox can play Divx, xvid, exlax, exwife, and xterra. That doesn't matter to me. I don't download shows over bittorrent (yet?), so being able to play the latest ripper codecs aren't a selling point for me. The iTunes garden does have a big swinging gate. If you can get content in to iTunes, it sounds like the Apple TV will play it. I plan to use that gate to get my purchased DVDs into iTunes.

Some of My Recent Documents

The recently used documents feature is a good thing. I like having it in apps. I also like having it available system wide. Unfortunately, it always seems like the file I used recently doesn't show up on my recently used documents. I got tired of wondering why some files didn't show up in the list and did some quick checking. Here's a list of what will and won't show up under XP's Recent Documents.

Bluetooth File Transfer Out	No
Bluetooth File Transfer In	No
Copy/Paste from Network Computer	No
File save from Firefox	Yes
File save from Internet Explorer	Yes
Attachment save out of an Outlook email	No
Copy from flash card to C: drive	No
Copy/Paste from Network Computer	No
Rename a file	No
Open a text file in Lemmy	No
Open a text file in Notepad	Yes

Now certainly a random app's inability to add to the Recent Documents list isn't Microsoft's fault. They document the API to use.

The part that bothers me is that the rest of these tasks don't result in the file on the recent documents list either. I can't tell you how many times I've copied a file or saved an attachment and then went CRAP, where did I just put that. Why can't these show up on the list?

While we're at it, why can't recently changed files show up differently in the File Explorer for a configurable period of time. Download a file, open the folder, and then spend 30 seconds scanning the files trying to remember the name of the thing you just downloaded. Maybe I'll have to write my own Bluetooth file transfer client so I can populate that list myself.

If anyone reading is running Vista and can check to see if any of these behaviors work differently, I'd appreciate it.

IE7 UI Blunders

I've used IE7 for a little while now and it's high time I complained about it! :)

For the first round of complaints, I'll address my UI hot button. Here's where I think they made some blunders.

1. Separate reload and stop buttons - I think these should be the same button.


2. Reload and stop buttons not near the page navigation - This one bothers me the most. These buttons are frequently used while going back and forward. Right now, they're hanging out in no-man's land between the location and search boxes. Why are they there? I don't understand the placement.


3. Can't change the size of the address box - Anything beyond the first 20 or 30 characters is just script arguments and other junk that means nothing to users. IE7 makes sure you see it all.


4. Can't change the size of the search box - Longer searches are useful to see. I could find no way to make this box bigger. Making the window bigger only makes the address box bigger. Safari lets you slide between these two boxes. A bigger search equals a smaller address. Perfect!


5. Drop box on home button - How often do I need to change my home page? Almost never. How often to I go to my homepage? Dozens of times a day. How often would I miss the home button by 2 pixels and get the silly drop-down? Often.


6. Multiple home pages? What's the difference between an additional home page and a regular link? Why couldn't I create a Home folder of links if I wanted multiple home pages? Maybe the Microsoft guys, with their huge net worths from cashing in stock are under the impression that most people have multiple homes and therefore need multiple home pages. I have microsoft.com for my Redmond estate, weather.com for the beach house in Maui, and skireport.com for the Whistler condo. Aww, the more I thought about this, the more I thought it might be a cool idea, but I pretended it wasn't long enough to write the Whistler condo joke.
   

It's not all bad. I love the blank piece of tab that you click to make a new tab.

Vista UI Guidelines

Microsoft has posted their UI guidelines for Vista. I like what I see. The guidelines make sense, mostly. Hopefully developers will pay attention. Here are a few that I liked from the two sites.

• Don't spend time rebuilding standard UI components; use that time instead to innovate in meaningful ways based on your core competencies and understanding of your customer needs. I hope this is aimed at the Media Player team. What is up with them moving the entire menu structure over to the right and having window frames that can pop up when you hover in the area. The whole thing makes my head hurt.



• Use positive commit buttons that are specific responses to the main instruction instead of generic labels (such as "OK"). This seems new. I thought they always wanted us to use a standard "ok". I like the new recommendation.



• Consider cleaning up your dialog by using a More Options "expando" button, so advanced or rarely used options remain hidden by default. I'm conflicted on this one. I like the hiding of options. Hiding complexity allows the owner to manage the expectations themselves. However, the self-slimming menus in XP bug me sometimes. Too often I find myself searching for items in the menus and I have to keep hammering that expand icon. It works great most of the time though. It will be interesting to see this in settings UI. It will be a lot like "More options" or "Advanced options", but quicker to access, and possibly less confusing because you won't leave the current options, you'll just be shown more.



• Don't use Congratulations pages at the end of the wizard that serve no purpose to users. I'm all for this. Should I count the number of current Microsoft wizards that do use congratulations pages? I own a few wizards at work. They do have congratulations pages, but they have valuable info about the process you just completed as well, so I feel a little better about it.



• Use Explorer-hosted, navigation-based user interfaces, provide a Back button This is interesting. Take a look at configuring account settings in Outlook. You can pop 3 windows by the time you get to a setting you want. This gets a little confusing. I think folks understand the back button now after years of use in web navigation. I agree that the back concept could work in application configuration. It's almost like a wizard, with previous and next, but more Web 2.0 (yes, that's a joke).



• Support "Instant search" wherever possible to show instant results while the user is typing. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, please do this. Do you know how often I pray to the UI gods that Windows File Explorer magically sprout an instant search box in the top right so I can do live filters like I can in iTunes and iPhoto? I usually know something about the file I'm trying to find in a folder. Help me help myself and put in instant search!



• Use the Windows Vista "tone" to inspire confidence by communicating to users on a personal level by being accurate, encouraging, insightful, objective, and user focused. Don't use a distracting, condescending (for example, "Just do this..."), or arrogant tone. This one is just funny. File not found, jerk.



• Avoid repetition! Review each window and eliminate duplicate words and statements. No comment, just a link.



• Perception is reality, and if your customers don't experience quality in your product throughout, they may conclude there is lack of quality everywhere. The geeks don't like to hear this one. They like to pretend the rest of the world is a bunch of geeks too. They think it shouldn't matter that you shower, or wear clean clothes. It's the quality of the work that counts. Well, it is the quality of the work, but if you look like crap, maybe they've already made some assumptions about quality. I'm not saying it's good to make assumptions. I'm saying that people do. Just like you don't have to wear designer clothes to look good, you don't have to hire a designer to make your app look good. Line up your text. Use some consistent spacing. Use clean graphics.



• Don't restart progress. A progress bar loses its value if it restarts (perhaps because a step in the operation completes) because users have no way of knowing when the entire operation will complete. Here's hoping the Vista installer works different than past Windows installers. I seem to remember a non-stop restarting of menu bars during those file copies.



• Present choices and settings in terms of user goals, not technology. I preach this one at work and get the "you're a moron" look more often than not. I believe in it strongly though and have converted a few folks. I wish more developers would consider their apps all the way to how the user will use it, not just to the point where they've exposed everything to the user to use if they can.



• Wizards aren't "dumbed-down" UI. Many of them are, but they don't have to be.



• Don't use "wizard" in wizard names. Good recommendation. I think I'm guilty of this.

While we're on the topic of UI, I'd like to offer up observations on a couple of brain dead ones.

Office now opens separate task bar entries for each open file. This allows for nice alt-tab switching. Too bad you can't have more than one up at once so I can look at things side by side with my dual-monitor setup. Too bad the apps won't remember screen position per document. Dual-monitors aren't all that new, but you can tell that most app designers don't keep them in mind during their design.

Another problem with dual-monitors is dialog boxes that are centered in the window, not popped near the action that popped them. In other words, when click File>New, apps will pop a "Are you sure" dialog half way across my screen, usually
in the middle of the bezel gap of the two monitors. Centering dialogs in the app window used to work when screens were small and we only used one. There needs to be an option to pop dialogs in the upper left portion of an app window. That's near the menu items that usually trigger dialogs.

Many of the Slashdot comments on this subject revolved around Apple already using these recommendations. I'd have to agree in many cases, but they don't come clean all the time. I only need to mention one example, Finder.

What UI atrocities have you seen?