Something I am encountering more often:
Online job application forms that take 45-60 minutes to complete, with numerous pages, pop-up windows, radio buttons, checkboxes, multiple choice questions, drop-down menus and every other kind of doodad you can think of. And invariably as you work your way through the long, tedious process something goes haywire and you lose everything you’ve input because the site does not save as you go.
It’s bad enough that so many applications feel like creating a character in Ultima IV (“You see a hungry beggar on the street and are delivering a sack of gold to the king and he totally won’t miss a few gold pieces. What do you do?”) with all the personality questions but at least let me save at multiple and reasonable points and resume if something goes wiggy.
And then tack on your actual damn resumé at the end.
Quitch
2023
People who click Apply on a dialog box and then immediately click OK afterwards. Christ, people! The Apply button is for when you want to change a setting without leaving the dialog box. I mean, God, I’m watching a video from Microsoft and the guy keeps clicking Apply and then OK. It’s painful, I want to reach through the video and smack him.
That’s an understandable error, though, since the button labeling is incomplete (for brevity and standardization). “Apply” is shown as a separate action but not included in the label of the “OK” button, which should really be labeled “Apply & Close”.
Quitch
2025
Mercy is for those who aren’t nerd raging :P
I always take this mistake as an indication that the individual doesn’t properly experiment with the capabilities of something.
dermot
2026
How else do you dismiss the dialogue box after you click ‘Apply’? ‘Cancel’?
You don’t click ‘Apply’ then. You just click ‘OK’ which as Chris says is really the ‘Apply and close’-button.
I like error dialog boxes telling you the app has crashed and the only button is “OK”. No. it’s not ok!
Quitch
2029
I’m nerd raging so hard right now :P
I got a little nerd-ragey yesterday when Regal Cinemas posted on Facebook a link to a brand-new clip from Apollo 18 and called it a “viral video.” No, you idiots, you don’t get to declare that a brand-new marketing video is “viral” until it actually behaves like a virus and does so more or less organically.
dermot
2031
Okay, so you go into Display Properties on Windows XP, change your Desktop to something and then fiddle with the Position (Stretch, Tile or Center) widget. Each time you change it you’re going to click ‘Apply’ to see what it looks like without exiting the dialog. When you’re happy, do you click ‘OK’ or ‘Cancel’? I’m pretty sure either will have the same effect (you’ve already applied your changes so ‘Cancel’ isn’t going to undo anything) but clicking ‘Cancel’ seems wrong.
Teiman
2032
I absolutelly hate HATE HATE software patents.
Quitch
2033
Both OK and Cancel will have the same effect, yes, as you have no unsaved changes.
“Cancel” is exactly what you do if you’re in Word or some other Office program and need to change your printer properties without actually printing your document. It’s always been very counterintuitive for me.
Going to a page and clicking the back button only to have nothing happen, then holding it to get the drop down and seeing that the last two or three pages visited are all Google ad pags and Facebook integration bullshit.
QFMFT. And for whatever reason the problem is more pronounced if you use an ad blocker.
dermot
2037
The back button on my Android phone. Where’s it going to dump me this time? Who knows! Fucking UX nightmare.
When will MS Office apps figure out when you open a doc, do nothing to it, then close it, you don’t need to be asked if you want to save it. I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! I WAS A LOOKY-LOO!
That always fills me with paranoia, actually. Oh god, what did I change? Was it important?
Clueless “technicians” at the end of a phone. Look, are your servers up or down? It’s NOT A HARD QUESTION.
