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5 Top Mistakes Software Developers Make
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Many programmers make these usability errors for their programs which I keep seeing more of.
5. The No-Skinz Classic View
Skins are cool. Office 2003 UI is cool. But I just want the Classic View, thank you very much! No Skins, just the standard look!
4. Don't put items to start-up automatically
If you need your program to start up automatically on every login, ASK! If the program needs it in order to run, then run it when your program starts and close it when your program is done. Even if it slows down the program start-up or closing, I am fine with it.
Don't think everyone wants your program to run in the background for 'instanteous launch' or convenience purposes when I am going to end up using it only once per month.
3. Allow a user to pause a activity
When a program starts writing sequential data to the hard disk, any other program that requires I/O access slows down the entire system as the hard disk has to move its header to and fro two locations.
A pause button allows the user to pause the writing activity and perform the other I/O request avoids this issue. Without it, the user has to avoid doing any task that may require lots of I/O activity.
2. If you use a ListView control, make sure it is resizable
Windows Defragmenter is known for this. One way is to double-click on the column line at the end of the column heading to automatically fit the column to content, but that still requires knowledge of such a feature.
If you are using such a means to display data, allow the window to resize and ensure the listview stretches to fill the available space.
1. Stealing Focus
Don't EVER EVER EVER steal focus no matter how urgent your request might be. Okay, if you really need my attention, make your window come to the top but DON'T steal focus.
Imagine I am filling in a form on a web page and your software springs a dialog box in front at the point where I am about to hit Enter. What happens? I dismiss the box without myself knowing and am left to wonder what I could have missed or accepted.
Last Updated 26th May 2007.
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Number one AMEN. I feel that no application should ever steal focus, regardless of what it is. It is the single most annoying thing about using a computer, with the computer automatically rebooting for updates without permission coming in a close second. Well stated!
I agree with all those you listed. It seems that the faster our processors get and the more storage space our hard drives allow the more demanding the software gets. It's like a never-ending battle to compete with software "advances." I really feel for the people who don't know how to stop programs from loading when Windows starts. That's my main pet peeve there. Even when programs allow you to disable it within their program (Yahoo! Messenger, AIM), they almost hide it where it's really hard to find / change.
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