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Fugly Friday, a new Download Squad series
According to a statistic I just made up, almost half of all interfaces for software (web or download) look like garbage. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With that subjectivity in mind we want to ask you: what are the ugliest, most cumbersome, least effective interfaces out there? Mind you, we're talking GUI here -- command line interfaces are a kind of beauty you simply can't assail. Let's not devolve into a ClearType battle, OK?
Submit your nominees in the comments and we'll take a look at the fugliness. Web apps, downloadable stuff, on any platform you wish, we'll open it up and peek at the steaming guts. Starting next week and running for every Friday (until we wipe out bad taste from the internet, naturally) we'll highlight one special ugly duckling. We'll try to be constructive in our criticism.
Despite the harsh moniker, we're not looking to take cheap shots. The ultimate goal is for developers to learn a little something about user interface design. While we'll keep it tongue-in-cheek, there's always a lesson to be learned in doing things wrong. Considering the specialized nature of design (and UI design in particular), it's completely understandable that indie devs will do what they can. If you take a look on the iTunes App Store, you'll see dozens of atrocious designs, but those are devs who likely have no training in this area. Again, totally understandable. Hopefully we can all learn a little something from these mistakes. Keep it constructive, but don't be afraid to point out foibles, that's what I say.
Comments
48
Subscribe to commentsAbscissaJan 31st 2009 3:28PM
- Vuze (Total piece of crap: Looks like ass, and runs like shit. They need to look at uTorrent (erm, "muTorrent"?) to see how it *should* be done.)
- Firefox 2 and 3 defaults, especially FF3 (They look like they should be called "Fisher Price's My First Web Browser")
- Anything that uses a special "skin" instead of standard UI elements, such as Nero, Google Chrome, and WinAmp.
- Anything that uses GTK.
- Anything that makes the **CLOSE** button act as "Minimize to System Tray" instead of **CLOSING** (Such as Skype).
- Anything that chokes on light-on-dark color schemes (The vast majority of programs and web-forms, such as Download Squad's comment fields, most of the form fields on the Firefox site, dbPowerAmp and a whole ton of others.)
- Anything that uses lots of free-floating, non-dockable child windows, such as GIMP (the worst offender since it doesn't even have a parent window), Photoshop 6 (not sure about the newer ones, haven't used them), Premiere Pro 1.5, and Encore 1.
- Most WYSIWYG text-editors (including but not limited to word processors) that support bulleted lists. I like bulleted lists, but for some reason, I have yet to find a piece of software that doesn't absolutely choke when trying to edit anything involving bulleted lists (such as un-bulleting one thing, adding a bullet on another, etc...). I've even come across cases, in *major* programs, where simply undo-ing an action involving a bulleted list, and then redo-ing it results in something totally different from the original state.
- Anything that contains animating elements that *don't* indicate something like "processing", "loading", etc... (Such as on the right-side of the Engadget pages (the big moving picture box just blow the ad), the homepage of most colleges, and any site with an animating favicon)
- Any site that makes heavy use of client-side scripting and Ajax-y sorts of things (talk about *SLLLUUUUGGGGISH*, not to mention a general PITA regardless of speed), such as MSDN Library and Adobe LiveDocs (but those are extreme examples).
- Any site that requires JavaScript (absolutely inexcusable).
- Anything that makes heavy use of mouse-over tool tips that appear *without* a sufficient delay. (Can't think of a good example at the moment.)
- Any software that comes packaged with hardware. These are just so HORRID (including many of the complaints above and then some, all in a single piece of steaming crapware), that I just can't describe them any further without my head exploding.
AbscissaJan 31st 2009 3:43PM
Forgot to mention Eclipse. Yea, it's super-fully-featured, but no software should ever be that absurdly sluggish.
And then there's the Zune Desktop Sofware. And pretty much every version of Windows Media Player that came after the one that Media Player Classic is modeled on.
I second the mentions of web pages/articles that are split into separate "pages" (such as many top ten lists).
AbscissaJan 31st 2009 3:54PM
Also, the Avid editing system (holy re-invented UI elements!) and anything by Ulead (*cringe*).
AbscissaJan 31st 2009 4:04PM
Final addendum, I promise!:
The use of Flash for anything other than games and funny song/animations (for instance, web pages that put the company logo in flash, just so they can make it animate: I swear, Flash has become the new animating GIF and NOBODY noticed.)
Comment systems that don't support editing ;)
Fr. LentiniJan 31st 2009 3:49PM
I would have to cast my vote for the Big 7 in the Ugly Software Contest:
1. Office 2008 for Mac - the new, overbloated, overcrowded, "easy to use" MS Word interface which took me forever to understand and
2. Office 2008 for Mac - the -- hoary with age -- interface for Powerpoint
3. AOL Desktop for Mac (nice product, not-as-ugly-as-before-but-still-not-eye-candy)
4. I think iTunes could use a facelift (and liposuction to reduce the fat)
5. The mail client Mulberry (horrid, but hey, it has a nice personality)
6. Now Contact (aka Now Uptodate and Contact) -- great potential, great features.... interface... not so great... real world functionality... not so great... high price... not so great)
7. Palm Desktop for Mac (when you look at this product you want to offer it candy because you assume it is wearing a scary Halloween costume).
As far a websites:
1. I love GMail -- best email service out there -- but its interface is clunky looking and its Contact window simply needs plastic surgery.
2. Yahoo Mail's new interface which is still incomplete -- it's a little, and a little new -- a little bit country, a little bit rock'n'roll. (e.g., select Yahoo notes from inside Yahoo mail; or use the Yahoo toolbar to get to address; or select preference for mail forward or contacts -- and suddenly you leap back in time 7 years to the still-present and lurking "old" Yahoo interface.
AbscissaJan 31st 2009 3:56PM
"4. I think iTunes could use...liposuction to reduce the fat"
Yes! This! Plus it seems to keep getting more and more sluggish with each version.
willyboyJan 31st 2009 4:44PM
I am going to have to vote for http://www.drudgereport.com/
I can not seem to focus any where...........AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
OwenFeb 1st 2009 4:05PM
If you take a look on the iTunes App Store, you'll see at least one atrocious design, if you're using Windows -- The iTunes App itself.
Windows applications should use Windows chrome, not hacked-in slow-to-function Apple chrome.