If Bad Software Developers Built Houses...

Richo99 writes "The editor at UI Hall of Shame takes us for a walk through a house designed by bad software developers. It appears Ed is getting a bit tired of really bad software designs in popular shareware titles. It is interesting because how much of a crime these apps perpetrate isn't obvious until you apply the same logic to everyday things, like the design of a house. I especially love the access to the garden. "

Already slow; Full Text of Article:

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets take a walk through a house built by our illustrious legion of very ordinary Software Developers we've seen over the last few posts..

You arrive at a friends new house and step up to the front door.. well, you do after finding it around the side of the house..

You press the door bell but dont hear the reassuring ding dong sound coming from inside the house, you ponder if you missed hearing it and wait a few moments before politely pressing it again, this time you're SURE, there was NO doorbell sound coming from inside. You peer at the doorbell, its a button, how much more complicated can it be? You DOUBLE CLICK it and hear a loud DINGDONG coming from inside..

Your Friend, Herbert's footsteps approach the door from inside and you straighten your tie ready for the door to open. Herbert unlocks the door and the damn thing swings OUTWARDS knocking you back a step or two. Apologetically the owner explains that's how it was when they bought the house "it fools everyone and it'll be a great source of converation at our Dinner Parties".

You politely chuckle and hope they get the damn thing fixed.

Herbert invites you into the house, you step unsurely into the hallway and peer around.

The ceiling has a sort of mauvy pink color, not dissamilar to your Grandmother's slippers, the walls are mostly red.

Herbert offers you the grand tour of his new home and gestures towards what you assume is the Lounge room thru a doorway off the hallway. You wander in suprised to find that you're in the toilet.. nervously Herbert chuckles and explains that to get to the Lounge you have to pass through the 2 Way Toilet.

You emerge on the other side of the toilet into a long narrow room that stretches the length of the house, its about 5 feet wide and 45 feet long. At the far end of this poorly lit room you can see a Television. The only light coming into the room is from a small window at about knee height.

Herbert explains the Lounge Room is really an extension that wasn't planned very well, he invites you into the kitchen through a revolving door. You step into a large circular room after missing the first few exits of the rapidly revolving entrance. In the middle of the room is a large Island Bench, its working surface is about 5 foot high. there's no other furniture in the room, but there's 9 doors evenly spaced around the room. Herbert explains that through each door is an appliance, there's the Fridge Room, the Oven Room, the Freezer Room, the Dishwasher Room, the Food Room, the Microwave room etc.. Its a pain Herbert says, taking things from one to the next, but you get used to it he says... you feel doubtful.

Herbet is keen to show you the Master Bedroom, but he's not sure which door its through, he tries three then finds the right one.

As usual, the damn thing opens outwards.. You dutifully but somewhat hesitantly follow Herbert through the Master Bedroom, you wonder what bizarre idea you're going to be introduced to next.

Herbet gestures around what appears to be an empty room with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. You peer around trying to work out what bizarre idea the builder has foisted upon the house now. "Where's the BED, Herbert?" Herbert theatrically claps his hands together twice and stamps his foot.. the bed silently descends from an opening that appeared in the ceiling, you jump
out of the way just in time and the bed neatly touches down in the centre of the room. "Neat hey!" Herbert prompts you.. "Ah yeah, thats great Herbert".. You gingerly sit on the bed, it promptly collapses.. "Ah, yeah that happens a bit, you get used to it."..

"Come and see the Garden!" Herbert excitedly exclaims. Herbet opens a small trap door hidden under a rug and descends a small ladder.. you follow him down. The Garden has a concrete floor and fake concrete trees. There's a wall around it and it has fake grass glued to it.

You run screaming from the house.

So, what did we get.. a house built by a moron. Nothing looks, feels

Jef Raskin spoke of such things YEARS ago!

[CyricZ]

Jef Raskin was well-known for pointing out the many flaws of contemporary software GUIs. For those who do not know, Jef Raskin was the man who designed the GUIs for several different Apple operating systems. By the fact that Microsoft borrowed such concepts from Apple, his innovation has also highly influenced the Microsoft Windows platform.

But anyways, he always stated that GUIs are there for the user, not the developer. GUIs are supposed to be intuitive, so as to allow the user to be far more productive, rather than hindered. Such ideas are not new. Mr. Raskin spoke of such things decades ago.

Mirror!

[caryw]

Box responds, just not on port 80... someone has the max apache clients set too low. Anyway, MirrorDot mirror:

http://mirrordot.org/stories/bd14487390c17a50503ea 63520d2685a/index.html [mirrordot.org]
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NoVA Underground: Loudoun, Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William and Fairfax County forums [novaunderground.com]

Re:If builders built buildings....

[ecklesweb]

I think you can attribute that to Gerald Weinberg [geraldmweinberg.com].

These analogies don't hold up

[ScentCone]

I've never liked these silly "if race car drivers designed shower curtains" type comparisons and conjectures. They don't take reality into account. There's no analogy to hitting "control-shift" in the way you walk down a hall, and 3-D tactile interfaces (like doors, lightswitches) don't have a meaningful representation on the desktop or cell phone.

Navigating back a couple of pages with your browser (alt-left-arrow) just is not the same as walking backwards out your front door so that you can come into the garage from the side. It's a couple of finger twitches!

I've come across plenty of crappy interfaces (um, some of which I built myself), and plenty of crappy house designs, too. It comes down to cost. Genius-hatched code, countless hours of user focus groups, and endless release cycles don't jive with reality most of the time. Just like we can't all have dream houses built on the same size lot. A lot of what I've loathed about some software, though, has evolved away nicely over the years through upgrades. Retooling a house to the same degree isn't even something most people can contemplate, and that's reflected in the design and/or the price.

And: houses have been built for thousands of years. Desktop software for 20-ish. That may seem like an eternity to some Nerd Younglings (meh!) but it's an immature practice/culture in the middle of constant upheaval. The two don't lend themselves to anything other than flame-oriented comparisons, and I'm not talking about sprinkler systems.

Re:That's right, pin it on the developers.

[Omnifarious]

Your vision of the development process is flawed because you expect the impossible of the client.

The client can't give you the exact specification, and they never will be able to. You have to design and build in very small steps and get them to look at what you have after every step. That way, you'll never spend a whole bunch of wasted time and effort going down the right path. Also, the client will have a lot more visibility into the project and will be consequently be happier with it because they won't think you made a bunch of arbitrary design choices for your own benefit that they disagree with.

Re:If Architects Had To Work Like Programmers

[JFKLiberal]

Good one! But where is the part where the owner fires the architect and hires another in the middle of construction of his house and wants to keep the completion date the same?

Re:Doors swinging outward?

[zerbot]

There are hinges that allow outward opening of doors without exposing the pins on the outside.