the sloppy design of the file saving system (Microsoft Corp Sucks)

by Nik, Monday, June 21, 2010, 10:12 @ poopnet

The automotive "user interface" is not really intuitive. That's why you have to learn to drive a car. Many of the controls are standardized. Most cars have a steering wheel that turns the fromt wheels to the right when rotated in a clockwise direction and turns them to the left when rotated in a counter clockwise direction. most not have the gas pedal on the left the brake on the right and feature a key operated ignition switch on the steering column.

In the early days of automotive history, some cars used handlebars, some used steering wheels and a few used a tiller. Some used a hand-operated brake lever, some used a foot operated brake. Starters could be hand-wound recoil starters, or electric starts. in the latter case, the starter switch could be on the adsh, to either side of the steering control, and in some designs, the starter switch was on the started motor and operated through a foot pedal.

Even today, the gear shift may be in the floor, in a console, or on the steering column. The Plymouth Valiants on the early 60's used a set of pushbuttons in the dash to control the automatic transmission.

I have seen three different types of parking brakes, different placement of the lights and heater controls, different instrument cluster layouts. None of there are intuitive.

A gui using a mouse is not intuitive. A touch screen based GUI can be intuitive. But the problem with Microsofts user interfaces is inconsistency. A major point of frustratino in the Office 2007 line is the stupid ribbon interface. When you open a window in an application, you expect the minimise, maximise/restore and close controls to be in the corner of the window. You don't expect them to move off the window to another control when you maximize a widow.

There are dozens of these interface inconsistencies in Microsost products.