Isys Information Architects - Making information usable

Interface Hall of Shame

- Product Index -

Product Symptom
Adobe Acrobat Rewriting the (control) rules
AK-Mail Protecting users from themselves
Apple QuickTime 4.0 Player An in-depth review
Cross-platform terminology?
Life is like a box of chocolates...
Apple Sherlock It's a matter of apples and oranges, and apples
ASPack One of these tabs is not like the others...
AutoCad Mechanical Contempt for users?
Unisyn's Automate Pro Navigation Confusion
Trust us, our way is better
A question of faith
Who's job is it anyhow?
Banyan Vines' BeyondMail Title Bar Geekspeak
ccMail Enigmatic toolbars
A critical non-error
Classified! Time-Wasting Calendar Control
Click & Print Certificates The Style "Buddy"
Control confusion
Compuserve WinCim The Third Degree I
The Third Degree II
Only her hairdresser knows for sure
Coloring Books
Eh? Say again Sonny?
CompuServe Geekspeak
Contact Master Tabbed sort order?
CSE HTML Validator Flag Day!
CuteFTP No way out
Datastream's Demo Installation arrogance
Dialog32 Novice color mistakes
Drag And File Keyboard equivalents for icons?
Drawing Board LT Insane installation progress indicator
Dr. Zeuss ABC Challenging messages for children
Easy CD Creator Alarmist colors
Eudora Cute, but terribly unclear
Someone needs to get out more
Ewan 1.052 Can't see the forest through the trees
Eye Candy 3.0 No way out
eZip Wizard Hidden functionality
Wizard-enforced stupidity
Flexi Magnifying Glass Metaphor
FreeJava Holy Errors Batman!
Freeloader Trick or Treat
GetRight Convoluted tab navigation
GIF Animator Minor excess
GIF Construction Set It don't work that way anymore
Long file names? Better think ahead
You can't get there from here
Mixed signals
Homesite 4.0 Unnecessarily interrupting the user...
HP ScanJet Help is waaaay over there...
IBM Aptiva Communication Center Copping an attitude
Arbitrary Stupidity
Novelty for novelty's sake
Tab Addiction
No rhyme nor reason
IBM Audiostation Power metaphor
Won't you be my neighbor?
Of Lists and Broken Rules
IBM NetFinity Real estate woes
IBM RealCD Macabre Design
Even Pangloss would despair
IBM RealPhone Tooltip Abuse
A complete embarrassment
InfoAccess Breeding like...buttons
HTML Transit Why doesn't it do anything?!
Jaws Be careful what you ask for...
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Geekspeak for the kids among us
JDeveloper Failure to think ahead...
Linux XFM Geekspeak that would confuse the geeks themselves
Lotus Notes (We needed to devote an entire section for it)
Macintosh OS Trashing metaphors
Mannesman Tally Printers A VCR-based printer?
Maxis SimCity Patience is a virtue
MediaBlaze 98 Gratuitous use of tabs
Microsoft Access Query-by-Confusion
Artistic Roulette
Control Anorexia
Functional Disorder
Jumping through hoops
Not enough information
Teaching bad design
Microsoft Access 95 "Are you really sure you want to do nothing?"
Go do it yourself!
A pissant speaks
Microsoft Access 97 Inconsistent Distractions
Microsoft Data Link "Something is happenin' and we don't know what it is"
Microsoft Developer Studio Damned if you do...
Microsoft Excel 5.0 Rewriting the rules
"The confusing options are your fault"
Microsoft Exchange Who needs standards anyway?
Dueling purposes
Microsoft Explorer Exploring a cave without a light
Confusing icons
Hide everything or hide nothing
Top Secret Features
Changing the rules in the middle of the game
It's a clipboard - really
Where do I want to go? - Where am I?
Not undoing things that can't be undone
Nobody uses Help anyhow
Sorted, sort of...
Explorer's identity crisis
Interface Defragmentation
Guestimation
Go to...Where?! Sickeningly sweet error message
MS Explorer Find Applet An in-depth review
Improperly tabbed dialog
Microsoft Internet Explorer A Toolbar-Thingy, Sort of
Adequate Control?
Inefficient Scrolling
Character-Based Interface Design
An alternative definition of success
Needless interruptions
Silly Toolbar Design
Missing Information
Microsoft File Manager Control Impotence
Microsoft Media Player Make mine a Chivas...
Microsoft Notepad Whaddaya expect me to do with it?
And now for somthing completely different
"We are wrong, but most users won't know"
Needlessly changing the rules
Microsoft ODK That's for me to know and you to find out
Microsoft Office 4.2 You want me to do What?!
Microsoft Office95 Do as I say, not as I do
Do as I say, ...sometimes
Suggest THIS!
Microsoft Office 97 Sickeningly Cute
Show and tell
Unncecessary Distractions
Dissention among the ranks
A misguided file dialog "fix"
Microsoft's Triple-Dog-Dare
Microsoft Outlook Too stupid to describe
Hiding what the user needs to see
Misleading conclusions...
So what's the question?
Useless progress meters
Microsoft Paint The last place you'd look
Toolbar games
Mixed signals
Blind Man's Bluff
Microsoft Visual C++ Counterintuitive spin controls
Microsoft Visual J++ Geek verbal skills
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 5.0 Hiding information behind scrolling tabs
Making files just a bit harder to find
Microsoft Visual Studio Kafkaesque options
Microsoft Web Wizard The Third Degree, Version 2
Poor Short-Term Memory
No pain - no gain
Between a rock and a hard place
Microsoft Word 6.0 Faulty Assumptions
Special rules we won't tell you
Confusing tab structure
Inconsistent tab rules
Confusing multi-row tabbed dialog
How the heck should I know?
Things we couldn't fit elsewhere
Microsoft Word 97 Aesthetics over good design?
Rube Goldberg message
Microsoft WordPad Get a clue!
Memory-impaired
Midi Orchestrator Saturday Night Fever
Mindspring's Pipeline+ Oh, is that what you meant?
Mountain Menus A tabbed toolbar?
MsgBox Mayhem Bells and Whistles
MultiEdit The absolute worst tabbed dialog?
Unnecessarily alarming the user
Mustek's ScanExpress Lessons on how not to localize an application
NetManage Ecco Sort limitations
Netscape Communicator Truly "artificial" intelligence
Netscape Navigator "A, B, C, it's easy as 0, 1, 2"
Hieroglyphics, or just bad symbols
Lack of intelligence
Subliminal messages
Too much information
Norton Anti-Virus 5.0 Foreigners not welcome
NoteBook Back arsewards buttons
Oracle Lite Exploration Not Permitted
Oracle SQL*Net Mixing commands, options, and meanings...
OrderWriter Isn't it obvious?
OzWin II I'm a lazy programmer!
The wrong tool for the job
Get your thinking caps on!
Paint Shop Pro Unfortunate defaults
Changing the way you use the product
Flawed recall
Options where none exist
Singular messages
Bait & Switch menu items
PaperPort Expensive Error Message
PMC for Windows Pay no attention to us...
PowerBuilder 5.0 Delayed gratification
Misguided priorities
Programmed inefficiency
Popkin's System Architect How not to resize a form
PowerSearch We could help you but we won't
PeopleSoft Unscrollable Scrollbars
PGP 5.5 Cryptic instructions
Psychedelic Screen Saver Tabs on acid (and a response from its creator)
Quickbooks 4.0 Hey that's not what I wanted!
ReadPlease 2000 In-depth review of gratuitous metaphor
RealPlayer 6.0 ...chicken or the egg?
ResSched Immediate-Action Menu Titles
RoboHelp No way out
Spidersoft's WebZip The insidious Hot Cursor metaphor
Necessary but hidden features
The problems with dynamic buttons
SQL-Windows Ambiguous Error Message
Hostile Menu Titles
Unhelpful Error Message
Team Flow Server "DON'T TOUCH THAT BUTTON!"
Time & Chaos Intrusive, Unnecessary Interruptions
Curiouser and Curiouser...
I'M SHOUTING AND I DON'T KNOW WHY
We don't need no stinkin' access keys
Left-click context menus?
trueSpace 2.0 An in-depth review
Quicken's TurboTax Say what you mean...
Can it really be trusted?
Rational's ClearCase A particularly irrational question
Siemens WebWasher Scrolling withing tabs
Socket Spy/32 The "Matched Pairs" Metaphor
TransSoft's FTP Control A fork in the road
Typograf Where's Waldo?
US Robotics Install What I meant was...
Visual Basic 5.0 A lesson in inconsistency
Way too much time on their hands
Confidence inspiring messages
Progressive inefficency
"Something's going on...but what?
Visual Forms Can't we all just get along?
See the Invisible Man!
Errors = 1/Feedback
Visual Fox Pro 3.0 Hardware incompatibilities
Visual Labels Command Non-Buttons
Drag from Toolbox?
Painful Exit Procedures
Mandatory Right-Click
Visual Portfolio Manager Tabs in lieu of menus
Watcom C++ Metaphors need to be apparent
Mor atention needed
WebEditPro Stop Helping Me!
Webforms Confusing Multi-row Tabs
Landscape Artistry
Painting by Numbers
Unreadable Status Bar
Stressful Colors and Alignment
Windows NT Since when is success an error?
Stupid NT message
Windows95 An in-depth review
In-depth: Uncommon file dialogs
Artificial Intelligence?
So, is it a floppy or a CD?
Just assume it knows what you want
'Problem' where none has occurred.
Single tabs are not OK
Improperly grouped tabs
Who's Where? Backwards design
Windows Help Designer Unhelpful ordering
Woodworkers Estimate Helper The difference between us and them
xBlock "We're Number 0!
ZDnet File Finder The difference between this and this
Zoc for Windows Tab sheets extraordinaire
Why even bother with toolbar images?
Angry command buttons
(General) How many ways can you spell 'Find'
Color Stereotypes
Fetch Me Some More Jargon
Can we fit any more options?
Drop-Downs are Easy, Let's use More
Thank Heavens for 31-inch Monitors
Do As I Mean
Hey, this 3-D stuff is great!
Computer geek-speak
999 Beers on the Wall...
Say what you mean - or else
Stoplight Metaphor
Available Space Metaphor