begin quoting Todd Walton as of Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 06:41:57PM -0800:
> On 1/18/06, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I work in a M$ house
>
> Me too. I work in a medical billing company that literally prides
> itself on being 100% MS where possible. Windows XP, Exchange,
> Outlook, IE, the whole nine yards. This is the kind of place where
> the firewall is set to a pure whitelist of what domains it will allow
> access to. I'm in a special situation where there's one special
> website I need access to (me and the three other people in my
> department) that doesn't work with IE, due to it blocking some
> JavaScript or ActiveX or some crap like that. So the IT guy (we have
> one) is going to install Mozilla on my computer. I'm frickin'
> salivating waiting for that, but he's got a few other issues that are
> higher priority right now. Letting me install it myself isn't on the
> table.
>
> And while I'm on the issue... There are a couple of vertical apps I
> use that piss me off! These things are So. Damned. Retarded.
> They're kind of like ncurses apps: somewhat clickable, but mostly
> keyboard usable. And completely text.
This, in and of itself, is not a cause for concern. I'm far more
bothered by the bank and doctor's offices going to "user-friendly"
point-and-drool software that offers nothing over the old text-mode
only software other than confusion. Listening to "the expert" explain
to some teller/nurse how to accomplish something with the new-and-shiny
must-use-the-mouse-to-do-any-damn-little-thing software just makes me
cringe....
If the folks can't design a decent console application, why does anyone
think that by making a GUI application it'll be any better?
> And the commands aren't
> mnemonic friendly.
'cuz it's intuitive that F1 would be "help". Or is that "quit" ?
> These programs are completely something out of the
> 60s, but this is the noughts!
"Legacy (adj): an uncomplimentary computer-industry epithet that
means 'it works'." -- Anthony DeBoer
> They only allow "command" inputs at
> certain points, and only certain commands at certain points. The
> fields are just sprayed all over the place. There are different
> "modes" you can put the software in. You can't look up insurance
> company information if you're in DATA mode, even though DATA mode is
> exactly when you need insurance information. You need to exit DATA
Presumably you must enter DATA mode in order to find out the insurance
company's name?
> mode (losing the work you've already done) and then enter EIC mode to
> find out an insurance company's address and phone number. Write it
> down on a note pad, re-enter DATA mode, reload the account you're
> working on, and enter the info you wrote down.
Hey, you're describing a typical web-application!
> And this is leading edge! It's not that my company skimps on software
> procurement! They're not using the software just because they're too
> cheap to upgrade. Nay! There's actually a company that supports this
> crap, and this is their latest product! When you make vertical apps,
> you don't have to compete and develop quality software! But all this
> is is a highly customized front-end to a database.
...sounds like something written by a PHB using a CASE tool...
> There is *no* excuse for this mind-numbing and counter-productive
> interface. None.
Bad design is everywhere. One advantage of console apps is that the bad
design isn't hidden by mousing activity. "Just click over here. Now
over there. Now drag this bit to there... isn't that easier than the old
way when you had to tab to the bottom of the page and hit submit?"
> Anyway. Let's all return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Heh. I try to avoid UI implementations. There's always someone who's
desparately unhappy, no matter what's done...
--
_ |\_
\|
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
