Bad Design

Why does Windows need so much micromanagement?

I sometimes feel like Windows is a bit like a junior employee who looked great on paper, but asks you way too many questions about trivial stuff, and can’t make a decision on their own. In other words, they rely … Continue reading

Why the OLPC needs lots of usability work

This post is a collection of my concerns about the usability of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child, aka the “Hundred Dollar Laptop”) and how well suited it is to its target user groups. If you haven’t seen it, take … Continue reading

Search oddities on Google Book Search

Google Book Search behaves strangely when you use search terms that contain characters with diacritics (OK. I’m showing off. I mean accents) It would be nice to report this but Google shares something in common with that other megacorp in … Continue reading

Where’s my order?

DV247.COM – fairly standard e-commerce site. I ordered something on Friday and on Monday started to wonder what day I needed to stay in for collection. Here’s their order status page: Now I couldn’t see any indication here of whether … Continue reading

Why do call centers treat callers like documents?

Some call centers tend to treat you, the caller, like a document. You call up with a simple piece of information (e.g. “You’ve over billed me this month”) and then you get bumped between different staff members like an unwanted … Continue reading

Ringtone scams: usability and the law

I’ve just found out that I’ve been charged over £100 over the past year for a subscription-based polyphonic ringtone service that I never subscribed to. I am very pissed off. I managed to track down the perpetrating company, Stream Group … Continue reading

By “Unlimited” we, er, mean, limited. Very limited.

I’m surprised to see the way ISPs and telcos still describe their products so misleadingly, even after the trouble that Talk-talk got into with the ASA about offering free broadband “Forever”. Orange are currently running a campaign that uses the … Continue reading

Spaces are not allowed

I just tried to fill in an online form and I typed in my details (actually I pressed a little button on the Google toolbar that filled most of it in for me. Marvellous…) then submit. The form popped up … Continue reading